judanne

Eyes cleared but pounding headache ensues.
ISVfan, this is the evolution/creation forum. Most of the discussion here is science related and many of the participants are scientists. If you make a claim here about the veracity of evolution (or conversely, a post hoc argument for biblical "science") you should be prepared to support it using scientific reasoning and evidence. There are other iidb fora that focus on non-scientific topics but if you start spouting off there about evolution and science your OP will very likely end up here. It sounds like you need to think through the nature of your statements a little more thoroughly before posting and, for the love of chocolate, please read the Start Here sticky at the top of our forum before making outrageous claims about evolution and science.

buckshot23

I know. I tend to agree that the 2nd law gets thrown about by my brethren a little too much. The key that gets missed is that a local entropy decrease does not violate the 2nd law one bit. Thanks for the link.

buckshot23

It has life now but that wasn't always the case.

RBH

A nice example is an ice cube melting in hot coffee in a stoppered thermos bottle. Taking the ice-coffee system to be energetically closed to a first approximation, as the ice warms and melts its entropy increases, but the entropy of the cooling coffee decreases. Because both terms in the equation for system entropy change are divided by the temperature of the subsystem (ice or coffee) in calculating the system's total entropy change, the net system change is an increase in entropy of the two-component system in spite of the entropy of one component decreasing.

RBH

espritch

True. But the earth has always had energy gradients and as long such gradients exist, greater order can emerge from lesser order. If this were not the case, living things couldn't exist at all. Basic metabolism, growth, and reproduction are all examples of greater order and complexity arising from lower order and less complexity. Living things wouldn't work if they couldn't synthesize more complex molecules from simpler ones. If the second law of thermodynamics really prohibited evolution, it would also have to prohibit basic life processes.

Greater order locally is allowed by thermodynamics provided the overall entrophy of the system increases. The decreased entrophy in living systems on Earth is more than balanced out by the increased entrophy of the Sun as hydrogen is converted into other elements.

This is one of the reasons most ID creationists have abandoned the misuse of Thermodynamics and have started misusing Infromation Theory instead. Information Theory is still obscure enough that most people don't recognize that they are misusing it.

RBH

espritch wroteThough interestingly, one of William Dembski's main arguments, his so-called "Law of Conservation of Information", is but an info theory version of the old creationist SLoT argument. See also here for another critique of Dembski's notion (pdf).

RBH

buckshot23

I'm not sure what the 2nd law was supposedly disproving in this case. If it was ToE that never made sense to me. Living things know how to harness energy and use it and reproduce. If it was abiogenesis then that might have some merit. However the difficulty is that local entropy decreases occur and life could have come together in one of these localized events. You won't see me saying the 2nd law violates evolution anytime soon. I still think it's hogwash that self replicating molecules evovled into life in one of these localized entropy decreases, but thats just me.:huh:

Boro Nut

Apart from just then?

I admire your honesty, you old evolved self replicating molecule you.

Boro Ntu

Spenser

:notworthy :rolling: :notworthy

KeithHarwood

No, it doesn't make sense to those of us who understand the second law either, so you are in good company.