Comment on Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment? by Sean Pitman, M.D..
Shane,
I know that this topic has drifted off based from your original post. But, it seems to me that it is Ok to allow for some drift in discussion. The concept of entropy is a very common argument from creationists against the creative potential of the evolutionary mechanism of RM/NS. However, this argument is based on a false premise which is important to clarify. It only hurts the creationist position for this particular argument not to be addressed.
BobRyan: I keep agreeing that the massive nuclear fusion explosions on the sun give off lots and lots of thermodynamic energy.
What I do not agree with – is that there is any energy transfer on this planet that “becomes 100% efficient†due to those nuclear reactions on the sun. Thus entropy is always preserved with every transfer of energy on earth.
I also argue that in general being exposed to the direct energy of the sun kills things.
Entropy has nothing to do with effeciency of energy use. Entropy is only a measure of the energy that is available to do useful work. It is not a measure of how effectively this energy is actually used to do useful work. That is where you’re getting confused…
For example, in a two-box system where all the gas molecules are on one side of the box, the system’s energy can be measured – even if there is nothing in place to take advantage of the potential useful energy of this system.
The same thing is true of the Earth-Sun system. The entropy of this system could be measured even if there were nothing to take advantage of the available energy to do useful work.
You keep arguing that because energy transfer is not absolutely efficient in any machine that the machine’s thermodynamic entropy increases over time. This simply isn’t true. While the entropy of the Earth-Sun system increases over time, the local entropy of subsystems can be made to stay the same or even decrease over time with the use of the energy within the Earth-Sun system.
Generation after generation of living things can live in this way without a steady loss or decay of potential thermodynamic energy (or increasing subsystem entropy). This can take place indefinitely as long as the Sun shines – through an indefinite number of generations.
Your argument that “Gibbs Free Energy” (GFE) always decreases, even for local systems, because of a less than perfect efficiency of energy transfer is also a mistaken concept or understanding of GFE. In thermodynamics, the GFE is a thermodynamic potential that measures the “useful” or process-initiating work obtainable from an isothermal, isobaric thermodynamic system. The GFE is the maximum amount of non-expansion work that can be extracted from a closed system.
The key component you are missing here is the fact that the Earth-Sun system is not a closed system – and neither are living things. Living things do not start with a certain amount of self-contained energy which is then used up over time with death resulting due to energy starvation. That’s not a correct concept at all. Living things in a ballanced environment do not die because of energy starvation (there is always plenty of energy from the Sun), but because of informational decay.
Again, you are confusing thermodynamic with functional informational entropy. They really aren’t the same thing…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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Sean Pitman, M.D. Also Commented
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
David Kendall, BMus, MA says:
Hi Shane,
I am not sure you can make a strong connection between the statement in the excerpt and common ancestry. DNA research does point to varying degrees of relatedness among species. This does not have to conflict with a recent six day creation, though some may make the argument that it must.
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.
This notion strikes directly at the concept of the relatedness of all life because of its source in a common Designer of all the basic “kinds” of life on this planet, produced during a literal 6-day creation week in recent history.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
Ron Nielsn: @Sean Pitman M.D.: Sean, I am not a geologist, and I haven’t read much about this, but your argument doesn’t make logical sense. Where does the sediment that is “washed off†go, except down slope, and as long as the uplift is equal or greater than the erosion rate, there is always going to be sediment at the top
Your argument assumes that all rock is sedimentary rock – it isn’t. Only a thin layer of sedimentary rock covers the underlying granitic or metamorphic rock. So, the obvious question is, how has the very thin layer of sedimentary rock avoided being completely washed off of the underlying non-sedimentary rock if it has in fact been exposed, as an erosional surface, for tens of millions of years?
You do see how the argument for continued mountain uplift does not solve this problem? – right?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
BobRyan: 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.
Not true. A local decrease in thermodynamic entropy is possible using the Sun’s energy to produce the local effect (at the expense of an increase in the Earth-Sun thermodynamic entropy of course).
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.
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…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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