Comment on Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment? by BobRyan.
@Bravus:
Bravus says:
December 14, 2009 It’s OK, Bob. You can very easily just say “I don’t really understand entropyâ€. No-one will think less of you.
Yes but in taking your suggestion I would then be engaged in simply “making stuff up” like our evolutionist friends keep doing here — and why should I start borrowing from their playbook at this point when actual science works so much better?
Facts work better than fiction in so many areas Bravus. I am hoping that this is another key benefit that our theistic evolutionist friends pick up from this board.
Since you are apparently not actually reading the content of the posts at this point – perhaps a little help in that area.
In your link you provide — we find this quote
Thermodynamics — First Law and Second Law
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that during any reaction the total energy in the universe remains constant. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that during any reaction the total useful energy in the universe (the energy that is useful for doing work) will decrease.
For example, consider a ball rolling downhill, moving faster and faster. This reaction — which occurs by just letting gravitational force make the ball “do what comes naturally” — can be viewed as potential energy being converted into the kinetic energy of motion. On top of the hill, the ball had potential energy (because it potentially could do useful work, as when water at the top of a dam falls through a generator to produce electricity which runs a motor) but at the bottom this potential energy already has been converted into kinetic energy, and it therefore is not “useful for doing work,” as described by the Second Law.
I find the logic in the wild claim above that you cannot get work from KE to be “illusive”. (Was someone “asleep at the wheel” as they wrote that article??)
Hint: The PE of the water in the resevoir as it falls and then transitions to KE that then trun the rotors of the electric generator is an example of PE transformed into KE state of the falling water at a certain speed and distance – being used to “do work”.
In my nearly identical example provided here – I give the example of energy in the form of an electric current going into the power supply of a computer.
In your link – the first example given is energy transfer is from PE to KE (a ball rolling downhill). In that case entropy is expressed in two form – a. The degree to which PE is being spent as KE until BOTH PE and KE are zero.
b. The innefficiency of the conversion from PE to KE – so if there were no friction due to wind or surface tension or deformation of the object as it rolls downhill you could “begin to approach” the 100% energy transfer from PE to KE. But the fact that the transaction is ultimately driving both PE and KE to zero regardless of the efficiency of the transfer of energy.
Hint: An object “free falling” in orbit as it goes around the earth is not only transferring PE to KE — it is also experiencing a decay in orbit.
So clearly the 2nd law tells us that those examples of friction will come into play thus driving KE to zero as well as limiting the efficiency of PE to KE transition(yes — this will occur no matter how bright or distant the Sun may be from that ball rolling downhill) and entropy will be increased.
The conversion from PE to KE will always be less than 100% efficient and KE will always be driven to zero given enough time. The ball does not stop simply because PE is transferred to KE — So what drives KE to zero over time?
Friction, gravity, deformation of the surface of the object… etc (Given enough time) drives the total useful energy to zero.
The formation of proteins and nucleic acids from amino acids and nucleotides not only lowers their entropy, but it removes heat energy (and entropy) from their surroundings. Thus ordinary amino acids and nucleotides will not spontaneously form proteins and nucleic acids at any temperature.
Of all the statements that have been made with respect to theories on the origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd… The operation of natural processes on which the Second Law of Thermodynamics is based is alone sufficient, therefore, to preclude the spontaneous evolutionary origin of the immense biological order required for the origin of life.” (Duane Gish, Ph.D. in biochemistry from University of California at Berkeley)
How sad that our own Theistic evolutionists within the SDA church struggle to grasp these simple facts.
Isaac Asimov –
Another way of stating the second law then is, ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty.How difficult to ]maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate.[/b] In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself – and that is what the second law is all about.”
[Isaac Asimov, “In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break Even”, Smithsonian Institution Journal (June 1970), p. 6 (emphasis added).]
How sad that our own SDA theistic evolutionists are so slow to come around on this point.
Isaac Asimov
“Life on earth has steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate, more orderly over the billions of years of the planet’s existence….
How could that vast increase in order (and therefore the vast decrease in entropy ) have taken place?
It is left as an exercise for the reader to observe that — “The point remains”.
in Christ,
Bob
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BobRyan Also Commented
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
What it argues for, and what Grismer clearly believes, is the idea that all life is related through process of common descent by innumerable tiny modifications from a common ancestor life form – a process that required hundreds of millions of years of time.
Hence the care Grismer takes in only commenting on “closest relative” without further specifying his bigger vision for complex life forms evolving from simpler life forms over millions of years.
Certainly every animal (yes even a labradoodle) is going to have a “closest relative”. 😉
in Christ,
Bob
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
BobRyan said
Recall that in the case of the dropping ball, and the iron rusting and the water evaporating — the definion for “universe†that was needed to observe those examples demonstrating entropy was simply “an isolated and localized system and it’s immediate surroundings†EVEN if that system is standing out in broad daylight (or in complete darkness). No need to “reach for the sun†before you can see the increase in entropy as iron oxidizes. Speaking of “oxidation demonstrating entropy†– our biology courses admit to that oxidation process as well.
Sean said –
You forget that the reverse of all these processes you use as examples of increases in local entropy can be reversed as well, by using energy derived from the Sun. The ball can be driven uphill, as can the water in the rivers that run downhill. Therefore, local reductions in entropy can be achieved by using the increase in entropy of the Earth-Sun system…
1. When iron rusts it deforms — no amount of photon energy from the sun – restores the shape of the iron object in a “descreased entropy” fashion.
Not all reactions are reversible (frying an egg for example) but all involve an increase in entropy if the local system and its immediate surroundings (i.e. not the sun) are taken into account.
Every transition from PE to KE and then from KE to PE (i.e. EACH of the cycles taken individually) always increase entropy. Moving water to the top of a mountain-based reservoir to created PE — increases entropy. Letting the water fall through the center of Raccoon Mountain iin Tenn to created electric power during the day — increases entropy. BOTH the KE to PE and the PE to KE cycles involve an increase in entropy.
2. Driving a car or a ball up hill using some kind of power – always involves energy transfer that is less than 100% efficient – always involves individual transactions that all increase entropy.
There is no such thing as a decrease in entropy IF you take into account the local system and its immediate surroundings. We see that even in the case of a living cell trying to stave off the effects of entropy by eating food and using food energy — as was shown previously.
That is interesting because it involves a living system.
Entropy is a non-stop non-suspendable fact at the local level. Like gravity acting on an hour glass. The sand falls from upper container to lower and as it does – it may indeed form a “hill of sand” that grows taller as more sand falls. But in no case – is gravity suspended.
Every grain of sand — every interaction – is always in the presence of gravity that always pulls toward the center of gravity of the earth. The little hill that is formed at the bottom of the hour glass is not an example of “negative gravity” nor of “anti-gravity”.
The same holds for entropy.
Thus evolutionists who quickly admit that molecule-to-human-mind evolutionism (storytelling) requires “a massive DECREASE in entropy†as the net result over billions of years (at the local isolated system level of course )– are leaving themselves with no place to go.
in Christ,
Bob
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
Thus evolutionists who quickly admit that molecule-to-human-mind evolutionism (storytelling) requires “a massive DECREASE in entropy” as the net result over billions of years (at the local isolated system level of course )– are leaving themselves with no place to go.
Recall that in the case of the dropping ball, and the iron rusting and the water evaporating — the definion for “universe” that was needed to observe those examples demonstrating entropy was simply “an isolated and localized system and it’s immediate surroundings” EVEN if that system is standing out in broad daylight (or in complete darkness). No need to “reach for the sun” before you can see the increase in entropy as iron oxidizes.
Speaking of “oxidation demonstrating entropy” – our biology courses admit to that oxidation process as well.
Recent Comments by BobRyan
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?
Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?
Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.
“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)
Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.
(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)
By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:
Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
george:
Gentlemen,What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.
An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.
1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..
2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.
3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.
4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).
In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.
Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions
Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.
Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??
Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.
hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.
The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.
Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions
Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.
Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis
Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind
