Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

nathan

Here’s another way we can work at breaking God’s commandment “thou shalt not steal.” We can work at cross purposes with our employer. Imagine you work for Nike, but you think Adidas makes the best shoes. Now if you work for Nike and you think Adidas makes the nicest shoes is that ok? Of course it’s ok. But it’s not ok to use your time at Nike to forward the purposes of Adidas. Can you say amen to that? It’s not ok if I work for Google to be writing code during office hours for Yahoo. In fact, most companies will ask you to sign a non-compete form. That is saying that I will be honest, I will not steal what this company is investing in me by giving away their trade secrets to another person.

By the way this can happen in the church, if I’m a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church I should be preaching the message that God has given the Seventh-day Adventist people. When you give your tithes, you’re giving your tithes to support the work of the Seventh-day movement. So if I’m preaching and teaching and living in a way that is inconsistent with what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist as a minister who is taking tithe then I am breaking the command “thou shalt not steal.”

And if I’m a teacher or a professor that is Seventh-day Adventist run I need to be upholding the values of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Which means no matter what department I work in whether I’m teaching social studies or science I need to be upholding the values of the Seventh-day Adventist movement. And if I’m not doing that I’m breaking the commandment thou shalt not steal. It would be inappropriate for a Seventh-day Adventist minister to be teaching Sunday sacredness or a Seventh-day Adventist teacher to be teaching evolution as fact. We must make sure we are not falling under the condemnation of God.

Nathan Renner
Senior pastor of the Sonora Seventh-day Adventist Church and an instructor of ARISE

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158 thoughts on “Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

  1. @Carl:

    Carl: The purpose of this Website, as stated above in one form by Kevin Paulson, is to demand action to reform the science curriculum at LSU. In response, the Board has formed a group to address that question. That’s not good enough for the sponsors of this site, so the argument continues. My point in the debate is that the Board does not have an alternative. We do not have a scientific short history to be taught, so give LSU some room.

    This issue about curriculum is irrelevant. I’m not entirely sure why the board even released that resolution. I’ve talked with Timothy Standish (GRI) and he and others were clueless about this resolution until someone noticed it on the internet. Oddly, the board never had been in conversation with GRI.

    I was told that creating curriculum isn’t even a part of GRI’s responsibilities. My point is that Southern and Southwestern are teaching science that is supportive of the church’s position.

    My guess is LSU professors wouldn’t give such a curriculum preferential treatment over the theory of evolution anyway.

    Not to mention there are other curriculum’s already being used that are quite good I’ve been told by Dr. Standish, so why is LSU attempting to force the church to reinvent the wheel?

    It’s a political move just like their seminar class. It looks like something, but ends up being nothing.

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  2. @Bravus:

    Bravus says:
    December 14, 2009 It’s OK, Bob. You can very easily just say “I don’t really understand entropy”. 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.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  3. You have very clearly demonstrated in numerous posts that it is a fact that you do not really understand entropy. Since facts work better than fiction, saying so would simply be bearing witness to the truth.

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  4. @Bravus:

    Bravus says:
    December 14, 2009 It’s OK, Bob. You can very easily just say “I don’t really understand entropy”. 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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  5. @Bravus:

    Bravus says:
    December 14, 2009 You have very clearly demonstrated in numerous posts that it is a fact that you do not really understand entropy. Since facts work better than fiction, saying so would simply be bearing witness to the truth.

    If this is the part where you supposedly make some kind of factual statement supporting your so-far unproven accusation after unproven accusation paradigm – I missed it.

    Theistic evolutionists typically confine their arguments on entropy to nothing less than an explicit contradiction of Asimov’s most provable points on the topic of entropy – which is a good clue for the objective unbiased reader that evolutionists are engaged in “junk science” at best.

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  6. @Shane Hilde:

    I was told that creating curriculum isn’t even a part of GRI’s responsibilities. My point is that Southern and Southwestern are teaching science that is supportive of the church’s position.

    My guess is LSU professors wouldn’t give such a curriculum preferential treatment over the theory of evolution anyway.

    Indeed – as I commented in my earlier posts on this point – the curriculum idea is a red herring diversion. The “hope against hope” that LSU will not need to “take action” until the entire SDA educational system “solves theiir problem for them” via some kind of globally mandated curriculum.

    ( A kind of global mandate we did not “need” until situations like the one found at LSU raised their pointy exteriors).

    As you noted above – SAU and Southwestern both found a way to pursue science without also “blindly pursuing the religion of evolutionism”.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  7. Interesting that you did not quote Asimov’s answer to the question he posed about entropy. He had one, but you’ve selectively edited him to make him sound as though he’s saying the opposite of what he was actually saying. And hey presto, here’s the rest of the quote:

    “The answer is it could not have taken place without a tremendous source of energy constantly bathing the earth, for it is on that energy that life subsists …. In the billions of years that it took for the human brain to develop, the increase in entropy that took place in the sun was far greater: far, far greater than the decrease that is represented by the evolution required to develop the human brain. ”

    Hey wow, I’ve been saying it’s the sun’s energy that makes the difference, and that earth is an ‘open system’, energetically speaking, for some considerable time, and you have been rejecting that.

    If you want to cite Dr Asimov, please at least do so honestly.

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  8. Shane Hilde: I was told that creating curriculum isn’t even a part of GRI’s responsibilities.

    You’re quite right that curriculum development is not part of the GRI mission statement. However, I’m guessing that the person you talked to is too young to remember how it all started fifty years ago. There’s been a lot of shifting and the organization has never reached the goals that it began with.

    There’s a very good history of creationism that relates a good part of the GRI story in “The Creationists,” by Ron Numbers. It should be required reading.

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  9. BobRyan: Well I certainly agree that the law regarding entropy “is also” preserved on the Sun. My point is — that is not how science first came to observe the law of increased entropy being preserved here on earth. The reason is that every energy transfer we see here on earth — still obeys that law even without the need to “add something in” the equation regarding events on the sun.

    The concept of thermodynamic entropy is based on evaluation of closed systems which do not receive additional energy which could be used to do useful work from outside of the system. When you are talking about living things, the system in question always includes the Sun because that is where the energy of living things is ultimately derived. Therefore, when you are talking about the entropy of living things, you cannot exclude the Sun. Living things are not closed systems.

    Which is where the evolutionist argument fails. They would like to try and get the Sun to “make up the difference” but that is not how the measurements for entropy work at all.

    For example – We do not argue that the reaction HCL + NAOH –> H20 + NACl — will only exhibit an increase in entropy IF you take into acount the entropy at the Sun.

    Again, you are referring to isolated systems which need no ultimate energy from the Sun to proceed. This chemical reaction you mention will work as a closed system. This is not true of living things, gene pools, or an argument against the evolution of living things. There is plenty of thermodynamic energy available for evolutionary progress. Therefore, a lack of thermodynamic energy to do useful work is simply not the problem with the ToE.

    Sean
    The cell is not a closed system. The energy it uses comes from outside of itself. It doesn’t matter if the energy transfer is not 100% because there is so much more of it available that 100% efficiency is not required for continued useful work which could go on indefinitely as long as the Sun shines

    Bob:
    And again – I think this shows where you are missing a key piece of the problem for evolutionists.

    1. The fact is – it will not “go on indefinitely” — because at every energy exchange/transition (every chemical reaction) step energy is being lost. Thus the fact is that the cell is “wearing down” over time. Unless work is directed to keep it going in a kind of “immortal cell” fashion – it wears out due to the continual action of entropy.

    This is where you confuse thermodynamic entropy with meaningful/functional informational entropy. As long as the informational aspects of the cell remain intact, there is plenty of available energy from the Sun for the biosystem to remain functional. Therefore, it isn’t a loss of energy available to do useful work over time. It is a loss of the needed level of informational complexity to transform and direct the raw energy to do useful work that is the problem.

    Thermodynamic entropy is defined within a closed system as a degree of non-homology where energy can flow from one place to another in an unequal manner. This unequal flow can be taken advantage of to do useful work. However, just because it is possible to take advantage of such a system to do useful work doesn’t mean that the right structural setup is available within the system to do useful work. The right structural setup requires a certain degree of meaningful/functional informational complexity. Without this right setup in place, the potential energy of the system would simply be wasted.

    The same thing is true of living things. Just because a living thing breaks down or wears out doesn’t meant that the thermodynamics of the Earth-Sun system have reached maximum entropy – i.e., that there is no more energy that could be transformed to do useful work. That’s not true at all. There is plenty of energy – even if the functional informational complexity is not there to take advantage of it.

    2. The fact that entropy is increased at every step in my computer example (even electricity going through wires and being decreased in the form of friction/heat through the wire) – does not mean the computer does not work. It simply means that it requires more engergy to go into the sytem than the system can actually use – because there is no such thing as a 100% effecient transfer of energy.

    Again, you are confusing MFIE (meaningful/functional informational entropy) with TDE (thermodynamic entropy). MFIE has the power to decrease local TDE over time. It really does. However, this ability of MFIE to decrease local TDE of subsystems within larger thermodynamic systems is dependent upon a certain level of MFI.

    It also means that “given enough time” the computer will wear out.

    Not because of a lack of thermodynamic energy, but because of a loss of functional/meaningful information.

    the same principle applies to the cell – it is going towards equillibrium over time.

    Again, this simply isn’t true when it comes to TDE. A cell has the power to decrease TDE over time. And, when you’re talking about generations of cells, this process can be carried out indefinitely as long as the Sun shines, the mutation rate is low enough, and the reproductive rate is high enough.

    In the evolutionist model the dust and gas — ‘turn into a cell’ of their own accord instead of simply being “driven toward equilibrium” as entropy would dictate. In their model single celled organism “turn into multi-celled life forms” of their own accord – given enough time. And so on.

    This isn’t a limitation of TDE, but of MFIE. The energy differential to make this transformation is available. It is just that the type of information needed is not available… subtle, but important conceptual difference.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  10. BobRyan: 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.”

    Yes, this is a common confusion, even among very educated people like Asimov. The problem here is that thermodynamic entropy (TDE) is not simply a concept of “order” or “disorder”. You can have a very ordered system, like a crystal for example, that doesn’t have very much if any thermodynamic energy potential (i.e., it is at maximum or near maximum TDE). Your room may be very “ordered” and “neat”, but that doesn’t mean that it has any more or less TDE.

    TDE is a measure of a closed system’s ability to do useful work. That’s it. How much useful work can be extracted out of a particular system’s thermodynamic potential if the right structure happened to be inserted into it to take advantage of its thermodynamic potential? That is the only question relevant to TDE – not certain of our concepts of “order” or “disorder” despite the popular description of a thermodynamic system as “going from a state of order to disorder”.

    This description has its use, but it is not quite accurate in certain contexts… like the context you are using…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  11. Bravus: The misunderstanding is very simple: this model ignores natural selection. It looks only at half the equation – mutations – without recognising that within a population the individuals with fewer detrimental mutations and/or more beneficial ones will increase their probability of survival and breeding, so that detrimental mutations will tend to be bred out of a population and beneficial ones will spread through it.

    The big question is, how does natural selection eliminate the detrimental mutations at least as fast as they build up? If you had read my entire article on this question, you’d see that the detrimental mutations build up far faster than slowly reproducing creatures, like humans, can get rid of them through the powers of natural selection. We simply don’t reproduce fast enough for natural selection to keep up – – not by a long shot. That’s the problem.

    http://www.detectingdesign.com/dnamutationrates.html#Detrimental

    Given more modern understandings of the functional genome size, the likely detrimental mutation rate is well over 5 per person per generation (with about 200 or so additional mutations being functionally neutral). In order to keep up with such a detrimental mutation rate, natural selection would only be able to be successful if the average woman gave birth to over 300 offspring (to produce two individuals without a negative mutation balance relative to the parent generation).

    Your off-handed statement of blind faith that natural selection must be able to solve this problem indicates your lack of exposure or experience with the statistical nature of this particular problem. You are, again, shooting from the hip without having any idea what you’re talking about… i.e., no data or references to back up your bold assertions.

    Now, let me remind you again that I’m only suggesting that you are ill-informed. You need to actual go and read up on some of this stuff before you comment like you know what you’re talking about. On this issue at least, you clearly do not.

    After all, you chide Bob for not understanding basic concepts of thermodynamic entropy, yet talking like he does. Yet, aren’t you doing the same thing here? Why are you making bold proclamations about concepts which you haven’t studied at all? Do you even grasp the concept that a certain negative mutation rate cannot be compensated for by natural selection? – at a given reproductive rate?

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  12. BobRyan: Well I certainly agree that the law regarding entropy “is also” preserved on the Sun. My point is — that is not how science first came to observe the law of increased entropy being preserved here on earth. The reason is that every energy transfer we see here on earth — still obeys that law even without the need to “add something in” the equation regarding events on the sun.

    Sean
    The concept of thermodynamic entropy is based on evaluation of closed systems which do not receive additional energy which could be used to do useful work from outside of the system. When you are talking about living things, the system in question always includes the Sun because that is where the energy of living things is ultimately derived. Therefore, when you are talking about the entropy of living things, you cannot exclude the Sun. Living things are not closed systems.

    1. All living systems require the existence of biochemical reactions in order to “live”.

    2. All of those chemical reactions exhibit the principle of increased entropy even without adding in “the sun” to each of the balanced chemical equations.

    3. All transfer of energy is less than 100% efficient – (even in a living cell) – thus the Gibb’s energy increases with each one – regardless of where you are in our Galaxy when the chemical reaction takes place.

    4. Entropy can also be seen at the net total amount of energy in the system itself instead of “energy transfer by energy transfer increases in entropy” and when total system energy is being measured — you get the same result “including the sun” because the aggregate of all your localized increases in entropy plus all the suns localized increases in entropy — turns out to still be an “increase in entropy”.

    My point is simply that evolutionists observe their “massive decrease in entropy” problem at the local level for their “molecule to human mind story telling” and then “imagine” that they are solving it – by “appealing to the sun.”

    Thus I said

    Bob said –
    Which is where the evolutionist argument fails. They would like to try and get the Sun to “make up the difference” but that is not how the measurements for entropy work at all.

    For example – We do not argue that the reaction HCL + NAOH –> H20 + NACl — will only exhibit an increase in entropy IF you take into account the entropy at the Sun.

    Recall – that if the cell has no biochem reactions taking place — it is at equilibrium — it is dead.

    Sean said
    Again, you are referring to isolated systems which need no ultimate energy from the Sun to proceed. This chemical reaction you mention will work as a closed system. This is not true of living things, gene pools, or an argument against the evolution of living things.

    The point is that you do not apply the amount of energy produced by the sun in the equation – you simply use some tiny value (let’s say heat or UV light as a catalyst or energy input) – as it turns out – heat and UV light can be generated by many sources not just the sun and the principle is unchanged – the measured entropy is unchanged, because the cell like everything else on the planet does not engage in 100% efficient energy transfers.

    As it turns out the amount of energy – regardless of the source — that you use as input to the system will always be more than the system itself can use (an increase in entropy) AND this will happen at EACH transition point in the process. EVERY chemical reaction inside the cell will result in an increase in entropy (less energy available to do work) if you take into account all the attributes of the localized chemical reaction.

    Sean
    There is plenty of thermodynamic energy available for evolutionary progress. Therefore, a lack of thermodynamic energy to do useful work is simply not the problem with the ToE.

    Certainly I agree with you – that if I had ever made the argument “there is not enough thermodynamic energy” – then — I can see why you would offer the response that would be of the form “the Sun has a lot more thermodynamic energy than a cell will ever need” (ignoring the fact that the cell will be instantly destroyed by all that thermodynamic energy of course).

    But since I have not once argued the that “there is not enough thermodynamic energy left to do the work” – I will go back to the key point here. My argument can be restated as “every plumbing system is leaky” using water as a metaphor for usable energy. It does not matter if you have a sun sized reservoir or a cup sized container – my argument is that they all “leak” — there is always a reduction in the amount of useable energy to do work as long as energy transfer events are taking place.

    The evolutionists like to imagine that a small reservoir “collects more water than it can hold – until it naturally becomes a larger stronger reservoir”. My argument (which is the one you find in physics and in Asimov’s statements) is that the small reservoir simply “leaks and overflows” and if excess water is poured in — the small reservoir simply breaks apart — which is comparable to frying that precious little single celled animal in the blazing sun, turning up the heat, turning up the UV light intensity etc in an effort to turn a single celled animal into a multicelled animal.

    No “appeal to the sun” will solve that problem for them as it turns out, and that has been my point. Thus I never argue “not enough thermodynamic energy in the sun to do something here on earth”.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  13. Bravus: The misunderstanding is very simple: this model ignores natural selection. It looks only at half the equation – mutations – without recognising that within a population the individuals with fewer detrimental mutations and/or more beneficial ones will increase their probability of survival and breeding, so that detrimental mutations will tend to be bred out of a population and beneficial ones will spread through it.

    1. Natural selection can only “select” from “expressed” traits (the phenotype of the animal) – and eukaryote systems require a homologous match between partners. So the random mutations even if one is a good one – cannot be “selected” until a mate with the same “just-so” random mutation is found or a freaky cell division error occurs that then magically alters all other cell division actions in the body – (in the case of eukaryote evolutionist “just so” storytellng).

    2. Thus natural selection never even gets a shot at most of those genetic mutations – even if a good one happened along “just so”.

    So The “just so” event that successfully is expresed in phenotype in one individual (laser guided venom enhanced sparrow for example 🙂 ) is not at all likely to “get passed on” to the descendants without a partner that has the same beneficial defect/mutated allele for eukaryote animals.

    3. Since radical mutations are destructive in general – the phenotype seldom sees them – or if it does – it disadvantages the animal rather than helping it. Thus it would be impossible for the “mutation genie” to see a destructive yet potentially helpful mutation and “continue to develop it” (leggo block building paradigm) without any help from the phenotype expression “until it came upon a just-so masterpiece” that was worthy of expression in the phenotype.

    Which means that the entire “genome morphing” fiction the creates advanced genomes from primitive ancestor eukaryotye genomes – so near and dear to evolutionists — does not actually exist in real life.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  14. BobRyan: All living systems require the existence of biochemical reactions in order to “live”.

    2. All of those chemical reactions exhibit the principle of increased entropy even without adding in “the sun” to each of the balanced chemical equations.

    That’s just it… All chemical reactions do not exhibit the principle of increased thermodynamic entropy on a local level. For example, when photosynthesis occurs, the energy of the Sun is used to reduce the thermodynamic entropy of molecules so as to give them more, not less, stored chemical energy to use later to drive metabolic activity. This reduction of entropy on a local level does not necessarily come at a local thermodynamic entropy cost to the local system (though it does come at a thermodynamic entropy cost to the overall Sun-Earth system).

    You may argue that when the energy is released from these molecules, then the entropy of the local system increases. While that is true, these molecules are recycled again and again with a cyclic pattern of increasing and decreasing thermodynamic entropy. The cycle itself is driven by the Sun’s energy. In other words, the cycle of living things is not a closed system.

    Because of this, certain kinds of life can theoretically continue as long as the Sun shines. There is no violation of the laws of physics in this concept…

    3. All transfer of energy is less than 100% efficient – (even in a living cell) – thus the Gibb’s energy increases with each one – regardless of where you are in our Galaxy when the chemical reaction takes place.

    It doesn’t matter if the energy transfer is less than 100% efficient since the Sun provides more than enough extra energy to make up the difference when it comes to the energy needed to keep the processes of certain kinds of life going indefinitely… as long as the Sun shines…

    4. Entropy can also be seen at the net total amount of energy in the system itself instead of “energy transfer by energy transfer increases in entropy” and when total system energy is being measured — you get the same result “including the sun” because the aggregate of all your localized increases in entropy plus all the suns localized increases in entropy — turns out to still be an “increase in entropy”.

    The local increase in entropy can be decreased, locally, by using the energy from the Sun. Don’t you see that? I have the power to deliberately reduce the entropy of a local system by specifically directing the power of the Sun which is stored in my body. I can actively move the gas molecules of a two-box system to only one box, thereby reducing the entropy of that local system. I can then remove the separation between the two boxes, allowing the potential energy of the system to pass from one box to the other. I can then use this directional movement of molecules to do “useful work”. While it is true that this system increases its local entropy as the molecules move from one box to the other, toward equilibrium, and toward maximum local entropy for this closed system. It is also true that I can again reduce the entropy of this system by again invoking the energy from the Sun that has been put at my disposal…

    Do you not understand that this is how living systems work? – reducing and increasing local entropy all powered by the Sun?

    My point is simply that evolutionists observe their “massive decrease in entropy” problem at the local level for their “molecule to human mind story telling” and then “imagine” that they are solving it – by “appealing to the sun.”

    They are solving it by appealing to the Sun. There is plenty of thermodynamic energy given off by the Sun to drive the thermodynamic energy demands of evolutionary progress – plenty of raw energy. The problem isn’t a limited supply of thermodynamic energy to do the work. The problem is with the informational complexity needed to transform the raw energy into the specific changes needed to increase functional informational complexity. That’s the problem with the ToE. It is an informational problem, not a problem with the 2ndLOTD…

    Recall – that if the cell has no biochem reactions taking place — it is at equilibrium — it is dead.

    It is not dead because of a lack of available thermodynamic energy, but because of a lack of functional informational complexity. It isn’t that it ran out of thermodynamic potential and then died. It is that it lost its original level of informational complexity which enabled it to use the available thermodynamic potential that it dies.

    It is like the two-box system described above. If I have a fan between the boxes that will spin as the gas molecules pass from one box to the other, this fan is “alive” and will move as long as its fan blades are properly arranged to take advantage of the moving gas molecules – or until the gas molecules reach equilibrium between the two boxes.

    So, there are two ways for the fan to “die” or no longer work. One way is for the thermodynamic potential to reach maximum entropy. The other way is for the fan blades to break or become disoriented.

    The cell that dies did not die because of a lack of thermodynamic energy. There is abundant energy all around it. It died because it lost its ability to convert this energy to run its own metabolic needs. In other words, its little “fan blades” broke, so to speak, so that it can no longer take advantage of the thermodynamic potential that is still all around it, but out of reach due to a lack of necessary information or structural order within itself (order which is based on functional information).

    This might seem like a subtle difference, but it is an important concept to grasp when trying to understand thermodynamic entropy…

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  15. BobRyan: The evolutionists like to imagine that a small reservoir “collects more water than it can hold – until it naturally becomes a larger stronger reservoir”. My argument (which is the one you find in physics and in Asimov’s statements) is that the small reservoir simply “leaks and overflows” and if excess water is poured in — the small reservoir simply breaks apart — which is comparable to frying that precious little single celled animal in the blazing sun, turning up the heat, turning up the UV light intensity etc in an effort to turn a single celled animal into a multicelled animal.

    No “appeal to the sun” will solve that problem for them as it turns out, and that has been my point. Thus I never argue “not enough thermodynamic energy in the sun to do something here on earth”.

    The problem is with the common, but mistaken, creationist argument that the theory of evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This simply isn’t true. The ToE does not violate the 2LoT.

    While you are correct in stating that adding additional raw thermodynamic energy from the Sun to a bunch of sludge isn’t going to do anything but make the sludge hot, you are mistaken to say that the sludge doesn’t evolve into a higher form of existence because of a lack of thermodynamic energy or because of some sort of locally increasing thermodynamic entropy. That’s simply not true.

    I agree with you that it doesn’t evolve novel higher level functionality beyond what it started with to any significant degree (beyond very low levels of functional complexity), but for a different reason – i.e., meaningful/functional informational entropy.

    You are confusing functional information with thermodynamic entropy. They aren’t the same thing…

    So, in short, your conclusion is right, but your argument isn’t… You’d be on a much firmer foundation and it would be much harder for evolutionists to effectively discredit you if you accepted the potential of the 2LoT for the ToE, while challenging the creative potential of the ToE based on functional informational entropy. I know this because I was once in your shoes. It took me a fair amount of time to really understand the difference between thermodynamic entropy and structural or functional informational entropy. They really aren’t the same thing. Give it some thought….

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  16. Sean –
    While you are correct in stating that adding additional raw thermodynamic energy from the Sun to a bunch of sludge isn’t going to do anything but make the sludge hot, you are mistaken to say that the sludge doesn’t evolve into a higher form of existence because of a lack of thermodynamic energy or because of some sort of locally increasing thermodynamic entropy. That’s simply not true.

    My argument is that adding energy to sludge (change in heat) – making it “hot sludge” is increasing S — increasing the entropy in the system. I leave the argument about “needing a massive decrease in entropy” to evolutionists themselves (such as Asimov).

    In essence my argument is the much more observably verifiable statement that you do not need to keep “going to the sun” to observe an increase in entropy in local systems.

    I have not even gotten to the argument about how much energy is “needed” to accomplish an evolutionist hat-trick yet.

    My argument is that the system itself always demonstrates the principle of entropy even without appealing to the sun — then I simply let atheist evolutionists like Asimov make their own confessions about “a massive decrease in entropy” needed for molecule to human mind stories being told by evolutionists. In other words I am letting Asmov make the convicting statement – letting the atheist evolutionists talk about the fiction in their own stories. Remember that since it is fiction on their part to start with – there is no science that will be able to observe and measure that any such thing even exists nor does science show a “massive decrease in entropy” taking place in nature or in cells today no matter what source you use for the photon energy or the heat energy supplied to the animal.

    I do agree with your argument about functional informational entropy also being a problem for the evolutionists. My argument is that even at the more basic levels of science – their argument has no ‘demonstrated mechanism’ within which to work.

    If we take an animal – encase it in a capsule – fill it with good air and endless food supply, launch it into an eternal-sun facinng polar orbit — all that sun energy just fries the animal — it is does not enable anything like a transformation into usuable work allowing the animal to evolve up the scales of taxonomy. No “amount” of added external thermodynamic energy pulls off that hat trick.

    As the illustration above shows – Adding more water to the leaky reservoir does not make the leaky reservoir stronger or bigger – it simply destroys it given a sufficient increase in volume of overflow.

    Evolutionists like to “imagine” a mechanism where “more water” is intelligently redirected to the “work” of building a bigger and better reservoir. You keep agreeing with them that “more water is certainly available” as do I – but I do not agree with them that some mechanism exists for channelling “more water” into a magic reservoir building genie. My argument is that an increase in thermodynamic energy available – increases entropy and eventually exceeds the design parameters of the system.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  17. You’d be on a much firmer foundation and it would be much harder for evolutionists to effectively discredit you if you accepted the potential of the 2LoT for the ToE, while challenging the creative potential of the ToE

    I believe that Asimov is addressing the “creative potential” problem in his claim for “a massive decrease in entropy” (arguing for a massive increase in order and complexity for molecule-to-human-mind stories). And so at some level is admitting to the existence of the problem you have identified.

    However – my sticking point is that I have not found a mechanism that allows for agreemennt on the fiction that there is some 2LoT principle that will fuel the requirement for ToE.

    All I see is 1 – all energy transfers exhibiting an increase in entropy — AND — 2 all systems breaking down if you simply “turn up the energy” on them trying to get them to exceed their current design limits.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  18. Sean Pitman M.D.: Why is this a problem? The Mediterranean did in fact empty and dry out after the Flood – only to be suddenly filled in again once the first ice age ended and the sea levels increased and burst through, filling the basin in less than 2 years time.

    You’re going to dry out the Mediterranean, get thick salt layers, have animals roam around on it, and then fill it up all since the Flood. And, wait, the water in the Mediterranean was, I presume, the water left from the Flood. So, the Flood was a flood of salt water? Really?

    And, this fits somewhere in the sequence of the really warm period and the really cold period, and none of this took much time.

    It seems that everything is possible.

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  19. BobRyan: All living systems require the existence of biochemical reactions in order to “live”.

    2. All of those chemical reactions exhibit the principle of increased entropy even without adding in “the sun” to each of the balanced chemical equations.

    Which means that the 2nd law – is applicable to both closed and open systems as long as the complete energy transfer from surrounding to local system is accounted for.

    Nothing new there.

    Sean

    That’s just it… All chemical reactions do not exhibit the principle of increased thermodynamic entropy on a local level. For example, when photosynthesis occurs, the energy of the Sun is used to reduce the thermodynamic entropy of molecules so as to give them more, not less, stored chemical energy to use later to drive metabolic activity. This reduction of entropy on a local level does not necessarily come at a local thermodynamic entropy cost to the local system (though it does come at a thermodynamic entropy cost to the overall Sun-Earth system).

    You are arguing that the PE state can change (yes even the PE “state of molecules” in a plant) – which is not something I have challenged at all.

    My argument is that the energy transfer in doing so is less than 100% efficient – and that Gibb’s energy is always lost in the process.

    So whether the storage mechanism is the water resevoir that I mentioned earlier or the ATP of the cell – in both cases PE is going up – but in both cases the energy transfer in getting to that result – is still less then 100% efficient — and so it still demontrates a loss of Gibb’s energy BOTH in the ramp up cycle where PE is being increased AND in the release cycles.

    Your statement above that PE “has increased” is never doubted in the scenarios that I have given.

    My argument is that regardless of the source of photons (hint it does not have to be the sun) — the 2nd law states that the energy of the photons directed to the plant – will not be stored at 100% efficiency.

    Gibb’s energy will be lost between the surrounding environment that is providing the photon energy – and the actual usefull storage of that energy in ATP.

    Then again – Gibb’s energy will be lost “again” when ATP releases that energy.

    This is obvious at the very start since photosynthetic pigments only absorb a section of the spectrum of photon’s applied. The loss of Gibb’s energy is demonstratable at each step EVEN if the source of photons “is not the sun”.

    This fact that we have no 100% efficient transfer of energy – is a tough thing to get around as it turns out — and it can be measured every step of the way.

    You may argue that when the energy is released from these molecules, then the entropy of the local system increases.

    I would argue that in BOTH cases the usable Gibb’s energy is reduced — if you look at the energy in the photons and compare that to the energy stored – you have lost Gibb’s energy — at the very start.

    There is simply no escaping this.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  20. All that is accurate: there is energy loss at every step. Where you’re getting stuck is simply on the notion that energy is not in short supply – the sun provides plenty for the desirable work *and* the losses. As Asimov’s quote said, once I quoted the rest of it – the decrease in entropy of living things was far, far smaller than the increase in entropy of the sun… so there is no problem of *net* entropy decrease.

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  21. Bob said –
    Bob said –
    Which is where the evolutionist argument fails. They would like to try and get the Sun to “make up the difference” but that is not how the measurements for entropy work at all.

    For example – We do not argue that the reaction HCL + NAOH –> H20 + NACl — will only exhibit an increase in entropy IF you take into account the entropy at the Sun.

    Recall – that if the cell has no biochem reactions taking place — it is at equilibrium — it is dead.

    To summarize the point above — the argument is that in ALL energy transfers the efficiency is less than 100% and thus Gibb’s energy is lost in all of them. I then point out that in the case where you have no energy loss because no energy transfer is taking place – you also have cell death.

    Sean
    It is not dead because of a lack of available thermodynamic energy, but because of a lack of functional informational complexity.

    In the example above – I simply comment on the “state” where no energy transfer at all is taking place. In your response you seem to want to look at why energy transfer stops in some cases vs other cases – which is interesting.

    But I was making the point that only the “no transfer” case produces “no energy loss”. Which is true irrespective of the particular scenario that resulted in “no energy transfer”.

    Sean
    It isn’t that it ran out of thermodynamic potential and then died. It is that it lost its original level of informational complexity which enabled it to use the available thermodynamic potential that it dies.

    The comparison between Chemical death, vs cell death vs animal host death – was not the point I was making. But I agree that those other considerations exist.

    I was simply observing the more basic physics of the entropy in energy transfer — a component required by all.

    It is like the two-box system described above. If I have a fan between the boxes that will spin as the gas molecules pass from one box to the other, this fan is “alive” and will move as long as its fan blades are properly arranged to take advantage of the moving gas molecules – or until the gas molecules reach equilibrium between the two boxes.

    Indeed that is one scenario for energy transfer that is also less than 100% efficient.

    So, there are two ways for the fan to “die” or no longer work. One way is for the thermodynamic potential to reach maximum entropy. The other way is for the fan blades to break or become disoriented.

    The cell that dies did not die because of a lack of thermodynamic energy. There is abundant energy all around it.

    The Gibb’s energy idea relates to energy available for useful work – frying an egg in direct sunlight is an example where the sunlight itself is destroying the integrity of the cell.

    AS you say – “plenty of thermodynamic energy” but as I keep pointing out – when you exceed the design parameters of the system – simply adding more energy only destroys it.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  22. @Bravus:

    Bravus says:
    December 15, 2009 All that is accurate: there is energy loss at every step. Where you’re getting stuck is simply on the notion that energy is not in short supply – the sun provides plenty for the desirable work *and* the losses.

    My argument has never been of the form “energy is in short supply”.

    As Asimov’s quote said, once I quoted the rest of it – the decrease in entropy of living things was far, far smaller than the increase in entropy of the sun… so there is no problem of *net* entropy decrease.

    Asimov argues for the massive decrease in entropy needed in the classic molecule to human mind storytelling of evolutionists.

    My argument is simply that given that every stage of energy transfer – without exception – exhibits an increase of entropy – the evolutionist confession that they need a sequence of steps resulting in a massive DECREASE in entropy – is “instructive” for the unbiased objective reader.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  23. Bob said
    My point is simply that evolutionists observe their “massive decrease in entropy” problem at the local level for their “molecule to human mind story telling” and then “imagine” that they are solving it – by “appealing to the sun.”

    One may explode a massive device in the lab – but it does not “create 100% efficient energy transfers in plants or animals in that lab” neither does it provide useful Gibb’s energy for doing work in the lab.

    Sean said
    They are solving it by appealing to the Sun. There is plenty of thermodynamic energy given off by the Sun

    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.

    to drive the thermodynamic energy demands of evolutionary progress – plenty of raw energy. The problem isn’t a limited supply of thermodynamic energy to do the work.

    And so – as I keep pointing out — I never make an argument of the form “there is not enough energy for chemical reactions on earth.

    What I keep arguing that in all energy transfer on earth – the transfer is always less than 100% efficient. I.E we have thermodynamic entropy increased at each and every step.

    The problem is with the informational complexity needed to transform the raw energy into the specific changes needed to increase functional informational complexity. That’s the problem with the ToE. It is an informational problem, not a problem with the 2ndLOTD…

    I keep agreeing that the informational complexity argument is a problem for evolutionists.

    But since they also have the problem that each and every energy transfer is less than 100% efficient – and is always exhibiting an increase in entropy without exception – their own statements about requiring a “massive decrease in entropy” for the molecule to human mind evolutionism – shows that they have a problem because you cannot aggregate a zillion “positive” increases in entropy and then claim it as a massive negative.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  24. Entropy is conserved (a) for the entire universe and (b) for a closed system. It is *not* conserved for an open system – and a living thing is a very open system indeed.

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  25. 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
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  26. Bravus: Entropy is conserved (a) for the entire universe and (b) for a closed system. It is *not* conserved for an open system – and a living thing is a very open system indeed.

    This is incorrect. There is no law of conservation of entropy. Energy, not entropy, is conserved for a closed system. Useful energy is actually lost over time in both the universe and other closed systems as their entropy increases toward maximum.

    In Feynman’s (1965) words:

    “There is a great difference between energy and availability of energy… The availability of energy is always decreasing. This is… what is called the entropy law, which says the entropy is always increasing.”

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  27. Carl: You’re going to dry out the Mediterranean, get thick salt layers, have animals roam around on it, and then fill it up all since the Flood. And, wait, the water in the Mediterranean was, I presume, the water left from the Flood. So, the Flood was a flood of salt water? Really?

    And, this fits somewhere in the sequence of the really warm period and the really cold period, and none of this took much time.

    It seems that everything is possible.

    I really don’t know why you think that such events are physically impossible to have taken place over a fairly short period of time? Any time you have a massive flooding event with large amounts of sediment stirred up, you’re going to have salts dissolved within the water. If this water evaporates, you’re going to have a layer of salt left behind. And, without a significant resupply of water, evaporation from even a large basin can take place very quickly.

    Not only are such events physically possible, but likely given a catastrophic worldwide catastrophe like the Noachian Flood and the energy release needed to produce such an event. And, I don’t see how these particular features counter the numerous other features within the geologic record which cannot be reasonably explained outside of a sudden catastrophic event or closely spaced series of events.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  28. BobRyan: because at every energy exchange/transition (every chemical reaction) step energy is being lost

    Where did you get the idea that energy is lost? Energy is never lost, it only changes form.

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  29. @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

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  30. @BobRyan:
    Energy, potential, or kinetic is never lost. It is only transformed. The energy that is supposedly lost thru friction in the above examples is actually converted into a very useful form of energy called heat. In fact the more friction there is the more heat is generated and the more useful it becomes.

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  31. @Sean Pitman, M.D.:

    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…

    I guess we differ there.

    Gibb’s free energy is reference to the useful work obtainable from a given system. The principle of entropy states that Given the system and it’s immediate surroundings – the Gibb’s energy value is always lost (i.e. no such thing as a 100% effecient transfer of energy).

    This is measurable in every lab experiment WITHOUT having to “use the sun” to balance out the equations.

    Nothing new there.

    [quote]
    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.[/quote]

    The existence of energy in PE or KE form is not the problem. It is the transfer of energy from PE to KE or KE to PE either way – in both transfers you always lose Gibb’s Free energy from the start point.

    When we say that entropy is seen to increase in all of the isothermal, thermodynamic, isbaric systems — we are not arguing that “you need the sun to show that entropy increases”.

    You keep arguing that because energy transfer is not absolutely efficient in any machine that the machine’s thermodynamic entropy increases over time.

    My argument is that EVERY energy transfer in a given system is less than 100% efficient (i.e Gibb’s free energy lost) when one takes into account the system itself plus the surroundings.

    Because of this basic principle – Isaac Asimov is quite correct when he states that everything around us demonstrates the fact that entropy is always increasing.

    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. 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.”

    The loss of energy for useful work in EVERY transaction where an isolated system and it’s surroundings are accounted for – has a such a consistent and predictable result – that even evolutionists like Asimov “notice”.

    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.

    Well the “lab” is certainly a part of that “earth” that is supposedly not experiencing the “increase in entropy” you are claiming – and yet every HCL + NAOH –> H20 + NACL reaction on the planet shows and INCREASE in entropy (even without adding nuclear fusion reactions on the sun in to balance out the equation — so that we can observe a loss of Gibb’s energy).

    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.

    As has been shown with the simple example of photosynthetic pigments – the statement above is not true. The photon energy in the immediate surrounding of a single plant is greater than the PE energy available for use by the plant in the form of ADT is it tries to utilize that energy.

    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.

    You keep getting to a “not enough thermodynamic energy” or “death due to energy starvation” argument – that I never make.

    The problem that entropy creates for all systems known to man is not “no thermodynamic energy left”. The problem is that no matter how hot that nuclear fusion reaction is sitting next to your daisy – the plant can only use a small fraction of the energy blasting it’s way – and that is true with each energy transfer in the plant. It is like a leaky reservoir – it will leak no matter how much excess water is poured in to overflow it.

    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.

    1. the entropy always seen in the HCL + NAOH (sun or no sun) is not a function of “informational decay”.

    2. Every isolated system on earth demonstrates the 2nd law – perfectly.

    3. This is not an argument about “energy starvation”.

    4. The fact that underlying all biological systems is a measurable observable 2nd law of thermodynamics is not stopping informational decay – it is facilitating it.

    Duane Gish –
    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.”

    The degree to which local isolated systems are uniformly admitted to exhibit the 2nd Law is beyond dispute.

    Two bottles filled with water – one with hot and the other with cold — placed in a sealed container 1 mile high or 1 mile deep in the earth — will go to equilibrium – sun or no sun.

    The notion that this does not happen “because the sun is shining” never affects these experiments on local isolated systems.

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  32. Let’s take a simple example of the physics of the 2nd law in something simple – like a living cell trying to fight off the effects of entropy (sun or no sun).

    Consider, the cell and its environment. As food is digested the net result is an increase in disorder because conversions of food energy and order into new forms of cellular chemical energy and order are never 100% efficient – some food energy is lost as heat energy.

    Even though we see “information” and design required to give the cell the ability to even process food – and convert it to energy — the very act of processing food itself – is STILL exhibiting the principle of entropy!

    in Christ,

    Bob

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  33. Other examples of entropy where “adding more sunlight” does not stop entropy at all.

    1. Iron rusting
    2. Dropping a ball to the ground
    3. A drop of water evaporating in dry air.

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  34. 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.

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  35. 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  

    Ron, your last phrase, “as long as the uplift is equal or greater than the erosion rate, there is always going to be sediment at the top” can only make sense if you assume the entire earth is made of sediment. At least I can’t see another way to read your logic.

    In the specific case of Everest, there are non-sedimentary layers under the sediment. If we assume current deposition rates and current erosion rates, millions of years passing should have washed away the sediment. Uplift will not give more sediment, only more exposed non-sedimentary rock. Since there is still sediment, millions of years cannot have passed.

    Unless you change the variables we have, you cannot have it any other way.

    You could say Everest got sediment faster than erosion at some time in the recent past. But if you say that, Everest’s uplift must have also been recent, since the sediment is of a marine nature. Water runs downhill.

    You can claim Everest had cycles of deposition and erosion long ago in the past, millions of years ago (trying to place the uplift long ago) but that doesn’t change the fact that the sediment there now must have been placed in a recent cycle, since there is so much of it left (current erosion rates being what they are).

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  36. BobRyan: @Sean Pitman, M.D.:I guess we differ there.Gibb’s free energy is reference to the useful work obtainable from a given system. The principle of entropy states that Given the system and it’s immediate surroundings – the Gibb’s energy value is always lost (i.e. no such thing as a 100% effecient transfer of energy).

    That’s not correct. Gibbs energy is only measurable for a closed system where outside useful energy is not added or subtracted. You are trying to apply this concept to an open system. That is where your thinking goes off base.

    This is measurable in every lab experiment WITHOUT having to “use the sun” to balance out the equations. Nothing new there.

    The Sun doesn’t balance the equation for systems which derive their energy from it – as with living systems. They aren’t closed systems. The Sun’s energy is therefore included…

    My argument is that EVERY energy transfer in a given system is less than 100% efficient (i.e Gibb’s free energy lost) when one takes into account the system itself plus the surroundings. Because of this basic principle – Isaac Asimov is quite correct when he states that everything around us demonstrates the fact that entropy is always increasing.

    Yes, for closed systems entropy does always increase. However, subsystems within a larger closed systems may experience local decreases in entropy. This is what happens with living things. Living things can produce local decreases in entropy because they are contained within a larger Earth-Sun system that is always experiencing an increase in entropy.

    The loss of energy for useful work in EVERY transaction where an isolated system and it’s surroundings are accounted for – has a such a consistent and predictable result – that even evolutionists like Asimov “notice”.

    You are not accounting for the energy source of life – i.e., the Sun. That’s the problem. You are acting like living things are self-contained closed systems. They aren’t.

    – – snip rest – –

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  37. BobRyan: Other examples of entropy where “adding more sunlight” does not stop entropy at all.
    1. Iron rusting
    2. Dropping a ball to the ground
    3. A drop of water evaporating in dry air.  

    Without the Sun’s energy, you wouldn’t be able to pick the ball up again so that you could drop it again; the drop of water would not evaporate or be able to reform as rain to flow downhill again and again; Iron could not be deoxidized so that it could oxidize again… etc.

    You are discounting the idea that local increases in thermodynamic entropy are in fact possible because they are contained within the larger Earth-Sun thermodynamic system.

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  38. BobRyan: Let’s take a simple example of the physics of the 2nd law in something simple – like a living cell trying to fight off the effects of entropy (sun or no sun).
    Even though we see “information” and design required to give the cell the ability to even process food – and convert it to energy — the very act of processing food itself – is STILL exhibiting the principle of entropy!in Christ,Bob  

    Again, you confuse an increase in the entropy for the Earth-Sun system as an increase in local thermodynamic entropy. Just because energy conversion isn’t 100% efficient does not mean that the living subsystem cannot experience a local reduction in thermodynamic entropy by using the Sun’s energy to do so. This is what photosynthesis is all about, using the Sun’s energy to produce sugars, a form of stored energy which is the result of using the Sun’s energy to reduce the local thermodynamic entropy of molecules. The cells that do this do not experience a local increase in thermodynamic entropy as a result (but the Earth-Sun system does).

    Sean Pitman
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  39. 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
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  40. 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
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  41. 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

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  42. Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?

    And are they worshipping false gods? I’ve heard them praise Darwinian evolution but certainly haven’t heard that they’re doing any meaningful scientific research. Didn’t God once characterize His people by saying that they would be a tail and not the head?

    This week’s Nova broadcast on PBS presented some recent interesting advances in genetics relating to devolution. See What Darwin Never Knew. It was suggested that the ancestors of all modern-day snakes might have had legs and the proof of it might be present in snake DNA. Apparently, there is a lot of research going on that proves that many animals once had anatomical features no longer present because certain genes were turned off but that these species still have those genes. So why aren’t Adventist geneticists using these same techniques to prove that snakes once had wings?

    Eugene Shubert
    http://www.everythingimportant.org/devolution

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  43. If you believe in evolution you are not a true believer of the Bible or an Adventist and should not be employed in our Colleges. These professors should all be fired. The solution is so simple that most Adventist can’t believe they have not be fired before they start teaching things against our beliefs.

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  44. On March 19, 2008, LSU published an article by Darla Tucker about Lee Grismer. A few things caught my eye about this article: 1) considering Grismer’s notoriety and 2) Greer’s contribution of the DNA sequencing equipment, it’s no wonder that LSU would like to hang on to these professors. The third thing I noticed was this small mention of common ancestry in the excerpt from below. At least that is what it sounded like to me. Am I wrong?

    La Sierra biology students will begin analyzing Grismer’s newly discovered pit viper and gecko this spring when they fire up new DNA sequencing equipment. The university purchased the equipment last fall with the help of two grants obtained by La Sierra biology Professor Lee Greer.

    The students’ first assignments with the equipment will involve genetic analysis of Grismer’s animals to detect the creatures’ ties to other species and populations.

    “Through its DNA, we will find its closest relative,” Grismer said. Uncovering such information can help scientists better understand planet Earth, he said.

    The arrival of the LI-COR 4300 DNA Analyzer and a number crunching, snail-shaped super computer means Grismer can study the genetics of his new species on campus. Previously he shipped tissue samples to the labs of colleagues and friends.

    “We’ve never had DNA sequencing at La Sierra,” Grismer said. “We’re going to make some serious inroads.”

    Grismer estimates use of the sequencing equipment will push the university’s production of scientific papers from an average of 13 papers a year to approximately 20. “These projects will terminate in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals,” such as Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution, Systematic Biology and the Journal of Herpetology, Grismer said.

    The availability of such high-tech apparatus may also mean additional treks into the wild to find more animals. “Oh yeah,” said Grismer. “This is what I live for.” (http://www.lasierra.edu/news/2008/march/grismer.html)

    LSU, in my opinion, is not going to let these professors go. This is going to be a very difficult battle for the church if they ever choose to confront LSU head on.

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  45. The students’ first assignments with the equipment will involve genetic analysis of Grismer’s animals to detect the creatures’ ties to other species and populations.

    “Through its DNA, we will find its closest relative,” Grismer said. Uncovering such information can help scientists better understand planet Earth, he said.

    At least the faculty are open about it. Now if we could just get the administration to be as open as their faculty.

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  46. The third thing I noticed was this small mention of common ancestry in the excerpt from below. At least that is what it sounded like to me. Am I wrong?

    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.

    Pax,

    David Kendall
    Adjunct Professor of Music
    La Sierra University

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  47. I agree with David Kendall on this. Grismer’s funny looking pit viper will have a closest relative, unless you believe that God specially created that particular species on that island in Cambodia. That Grismer can determine the closest relative through DNA sequencing seems optimistic to me.

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  48. 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
    http://www.DetectingDesign.com

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  49. @Sean Pitman, M.D.:

    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

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  50. Come on people. The nearest relative of a pit viper will be another pit viper. If it’s a pit viper on an island, the nearest relative will be another pit viper on the mainland.. One can look at things like morphology to try and discern a nearest relative but DNA make’s it a lot easier. Hundreds of papers are published on this stuff every year because DNA patterns show ancestry and relatedness extremely well. Heck, you can even show with DNA how a virus like HIV has changed over time, deduce its pattern of transmission and identify where it’s original source came from. For biologists this is old news and even many lawyers recognize this. Therre are many legal cases involving who transmitted AIDS to who.

    I looked up some of Grismer’s papers and he is not publishing on “complex life forms evolving from simpler life forms over millions of years” as much as you might like to believe,. Looking at the titles of his papers makes that clear enough but I even clicked on some abstracts.

    Irregardless of what he may believe his papers seem to deal only with biogeography and systematics within single groups of amphibians and reptiles. There is not one reason for Adventists to object to using DNA sequences to identify patterns of speciation. There is no conflict with the church’s teachings on a six-day creation.

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