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Nick Matzke: All True Scotsman Believe in Darwinian Evolution

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I am often amused by the Darwinists’ all-too-frequent use of the “no true Scotsman’ logical fallacy. Never heard of that fallacy you say? Let me explain.  Wikipedia defines the fallacy this way:

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion. When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim, rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule.

Anthony Flew advanced the term using this example:

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the “Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again”. Hamish is shocked and declares that “No Scotsman would do such a thing”. The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again; and, this time, finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, “No true Scotsman would do such a thing”

In summary, the fallacy takes this form:

Douglas: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
McDonald: “I am Scottish, and I put sugar on my porridge.”
Douglas: “Then you are not a true Scotsman.”

The point is that Douglas made an unjustified assertion. Instead of backing off his assertion when he is shown that it was false, he doubles down and makes up ad hoc self-serving categories.

Nick Matzke, like many Darwinists, is a master of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Yesterday he treated us with a particularly exquisite application of the fallacy that was a wonder of sheer breathtaking hubris. Let’s see how he did it.

In this post Dr. Torley notes that Professor James M. Tour, one of the most prominent and respected chemists in the entire world, is a Darwin skeptic.

Nick responds:

Wow, your blogpost is a particularly silly comment on a particularly silly article. A guy whose field is not biology, and who shows absolutely no evidence of having seriously engaged with actual evolutionary biologists or their literature, and who appears to not have the first clue about how biologists would define “macroevolution”, spouts off on a webpage, and this is supposed to be a serious argument?

To which Dr. Torley responds:

Nick, he’s one of the world’s top ten chemists! I would think that he knows more than a few eminent biologists.

To which Nick responds:

He shows no evidence of that, either directly or in terms of showing a sign of having a clue about the field of evolutionary biology.

And what is Nick’s evidence that Dr. Tour has no clue about the field of evolutionary biology? Well, he’s a Darwin skeptic of course. Therefore, by definition he does not have a clue, no matter how eminent his credentials, no matter how cogent his arguments. In the form of the fallacy as outlined above, Nick’s argument goes like this:

Nick: All true scientists believe in Darwinian evolution.
Vincent: Dr. Tour, one of the top ten most cited chemists on the planet, is a Darwin skeptic.
Nick: Then Dr. Tour is no true scientist.

News to Nick: Getting red in the face and stamping your feet (metaphorically speaking) is not an argument. You do not get to decide who is and who is not a true scientist.  Perhaps you believe you sit ex cathedra in the chair of Saint Charles the Bearded, and your pronouncements on who has a clue and who does not have a clue are infallible and binding on the faithful.  But I do not count myself among the Darwinist faithful and your pronoucements are not binding on me.  Believe me, I would like to among the faithful.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to swim with the cultural current instead of against it?  But it is impossble for me to convert, because no matter how hard I try I just cannot muster enough blind unreasoned (and unreasonable) faith to believe that everything came from nothing and that matter spontaneously reconstituted itself from mud into space stations.

 

Comments
UB @82: Agreed. And the symbolic control factor is indeed critical.Eric Anderson
February 25, 2013
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Positioned at the crossroads of the physical and biological sciences, chemistry deals with neither the infinitely small, nor the infinitely large, nor directly with life. So it is sometimes thought of as dull, the way things in the middle often are. But this middle ground is precisely where human beings exist.
The Same and Not the Same So much for the claims that macroevolution has nothing to do with chemistry.Mung
February 25, 2013
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No doubt, Eric. Pattee's comment was centered within a specific discussion of physical facts - designed to throw the common "its just chemistry" view on its side (and appropriately so). Life is not just chemistry.Upright BiPed
February 25, 2013
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Oops, sorry, UB. That was UB @79.Eric Anderson
February 25, 2013
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Pattee @79 (via Mung), that is getting a bit closer to the truth. At least the statement is comprehensible. :) But I think we'd still have to add in some other parameters. My digital watch is matter controlled by symbols, but it is not alive.Eric Anderson
February 25, 2013
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"Life is matter controlled by symbols" Prof Emeritus, Physics, Howard Pattee. ;)Upright BiPed
February 25, 2013
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Life is carbon chemistry in action.Mung
February 25, 2013
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Mung @75:
It may appear as a convenient source of energy but it’s not the only source, right?
Good point. More generally, the sun's involvement and the whole "earth is an open system" line or argumentation is nonsense and fails to address the thermodynamic issues (whatever those may be).Eric Anderson
February 25, 2013
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"Life is a kinetic state." So proclaims Nick on multiple occasions. I have said this doesn't make sense and Nick accuses me of not understanding the groundbreaking work Pross is doing (in brief, Pross has been studying chemical reaction rates in the self-replication process.) Well, what does the phrase actually mean? "Life is a kinetic state" is a seductively concise, even elegant, formulation. It sounds like it should mean something, and yet if we rephrase the words it may help us move away from the cute formulation and into the facts. "Kinetic" in this case refers to the rates of chemical processes, or chemical reaction rates. Great, now we can rephrase the sound byte: "Life is a state of chemical reaction rates." or perhaps "Life is characterized by chemical reaction rates." As soon as we define what the initial phrase actually means, the objective observer should immediately scratch their head and say "What?!" I defy anyone to show how this is meaningful. Of course chemical reaction rates are relevant to life, but it makes no sense to pretend that they are any kind of answer to OOL or thermodynamic considerations or the evolution of self-replicating systems and so on. Chemical reaction rates are what they are and are used by the overall system: a system dominated by digital code and information processing and molecular machines, and carefully orchestrated systems . . . ----- If you are still not convinced and think there may be some deeper meaning to "life is a kinetic state," let me put forth an equivalent scenario: Let's say we have studied DNA and note that hydrogen bonds are critical to DNA formation and stability. We then announce that "Life is a state of hydrogen bonds." We could even write a few papers and a book or two putting forth this theory. We could even pretend that this concept somehow helps explain OOL and the evolution of complex self-replicating systems, and also helps overcome any thermodynamic considerations anyone raises. Thereafter, any time someone raises one of these substantive issues, instead of answering on the merits, we put forth our one-liner, with all the gravitas and authority we can muster: "Life is a state of hydrogen bonds." The objective outside observer might be forgiven for raising their eyebrow, shaking their head, and responding: "What in the world are you talking about?" ----- Again, I have said it before, Pross is no doubt doing some excellent work on chemical reaction rates and there may be some good data or insights that come from his work about specific reactions in specific replication systems. But to use the statement that "life is a kinetic state" as some kind of answer to legitimate questions is both: (i) a meaningless misdirection, (ii) a failure to engage the real issues.Eric Anderson
February 25, 2013
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DiEb:
On the earth, there are many processes which involve the transformation of energies...
That's what's in my thinking. So I wonder why people feel the need to appeal to energy from the sun in refuting Creationists over the 2LoT? It may appear as a convenient source of energy but it's not the only source, right?Mung
February 25, 2013
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What you wish for is a transformation of energies, a flow of energy: a battery for itself is nice, but it gets only interesting if you have an electrical circuit. On the earth, there are many processes which involve the transformation of energies - you have the radioactive decay of elements in the core which power the convection currents and move the tectonic plates around, there is the rotational energy of the earth itself which decreases and allows for the tides, and of course the radiation of the sun which powers e.g., our weather...DiEb
February 25, 2013
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"Why should I answer your question..." Why not? "...knowing that you will be at best be baffled by the answer, and at worst misinterpret it?" Well, because I'd really like to know, for one. And you're a nice person who hates to see people wallowing in ignorance. :) I don't buy into the 2LoT argument against OOL or the possibility of evolution, but neither do I think it's a matter of "just add energy." So I thought I'd try to explore more deeply the issues involved. If you don't want to hey, this is just a blog. This thread will likely soon die. The 2LoT in action. ;)Mung
February 24, 2013
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Yes I am not a physicist and no I don’t know all the lingo.
It's not so much the lingo, it's the underlying concepts. If you want to talk about the physics, you have to do some work at first, e.g., to learn how to differ between forces and energy. I don't expect you to become a physicist, but it takes a little bit more than exchanging comments on a message board. Why should I answer your question
Assuming the earth as a lifeless planet, what are the various energies present on earth and from whence do those energies originate?
knowing that you will be at best be baffled by the answer, and at worst misinterpret it?DiEb
February 24, 2013
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Actual vs. potential energy is a false dichotomy, implying that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Yes I am not a physicist and no I don't know all the lingo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy Assuming the earth as a lifeless planet, what are the various energies present on earth and from whence do those energies originate? For example, the gravity of the earth and the gravitational pull of the sun. "Potential energy exists whenever an object which has mass has a position within a force field. The most everyday example of this is the position of objects in the earth's gravitational field." Potential EnergyMung
February 24, 2013
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Mung, you should try a textbook on physics - you can't expect to get the basics spoon-fed... But for the moment:
So is the sun actually converting mass to energy or is it just that some form of energy is released given the fusion process? I see according to wikipedia some mass is not conserved.
Yes, the sun is actually converting mass to energy: the product of the fusion is not as heavy as the ingredients and a photon is emitted (photon = energy, look it up)
Merging protons into helium nuclei requires energy, doesn’t it? And overall energy is actually being lost not gained?
Luckily for us, fusion doesn't happen spontaneously under our normal circumstances, you need the right environment (heat and pressure). In a H-Bomb this environment is created by an A-Bomb... But the reaction is exothermic, you get quite a bit of energy out of it...
But really what I am trying to get at is what sort or sorts of energy reach the earth from the sun. Is it all some sort of radiation or other?
Mainly radiation, a couple of particles too (see, e.g., solar wind)
Are we talking actual energy of some sort or other or potential energy, or both?
Actual vs. potential energy is a false dichotomy, implying that you don't know what you are talking about.DiEb
February 23, 2013
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Mung, why not run through the 101 here on? KFkairosfocus
February 23, 2013
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DiEb, Thanks. :) So is the sun actually converting mass to energy or is it just that some form of energy is released given the fusion process? I see according to wikipedia some mass is not conserved. Merging protons into helium nuclei requires energy, doesn't it? And overall energy is actually being lost not gained? But really what I am trying to get at is what sort or sorts of energy reach the earth from the sun. Is it all some sort of radiation or other? Are we talking actual energy of some sort or other or potential energy, or both?Mung
February 23, 2013
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Joe Felsenstein "answers" Mung:
Yup, you can hook a refrigerator to enough solar cells and the sun will do just that.
Really? Can the Sun produce a refrigerator and solar cells? If not, then either JF is totally clueless or just dishonest. I would also love to see this refigerator that runs on DC- maybe JF doesn't understand that solar cell power is DC that needs to be converted into AC before it can run home appliances.Joe
February 22, 2013
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@Mung (65)
I mean, I thought the Sun was converting energy to mass. Is it also converting mass to energy?
Where to start? Perhaps best with the second part! Our sun is converting mass to energy via the fusion reaction which merges protons into helium nuclei. Our sun isn't converting energy to mass - that's the prerogative of things like super-novas...DiEb
February 22, 2013
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So the Sun is shining. Giving off something, I guess. But what? I mean, I thought the Sun was converting energy to mass. Is it also converting mass to energy? That would be awesome. Almost like a perpetual motion machine! And then this stuff, or non-stuff, whatever it is, can be used to drive reactions in a way otherwise improbable, but how? So with enough energy from the sun, for example, water can turn into ice. Am I on the right track here?Mung
February 21, 2013
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Man, I sure hope that Nick isn't Scottish. That would just be wrong.Mung
February 21, 2013
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Nick @54:
We’ve got energy flowing through the system (Earth and its microenvironments), so thermodynamic equilibrium is never reached in any case — just as when the sun shines on one side of a room, that side gets warmer than the shaded side.
What does that have to do with anything? I trust you're not falling back on the "Earth-is-an-open-system-so-anything-goes" line of thought. In any event, don't complain to me about bringing up thermodynamics. Talk to your buddy Pross. He is the one who brought it up in his paper as a real issue that needs to be dealt with. His "kinetic state" idea seems to be an attempt to find a way to overcome the normal thermodynamic constraints, a way to explain how living things behave differently than non-living things. Or maybe you didn't read the paper I read, just the abstract. :)Eric Anderson
February 20, 2013
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Dieb, This is all simply devastating to any conceivable materialistic explanation: Further notes:
Looking Beyond Space and Time to Cope With Quantum Theory – (Oct. 28, 2012) Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028142217.htm Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism - By Bruce L Gordon: Excerpt: Because quantum theory is thought to provide the bedrock for our scientific understanding of physical reality, it is to this theory that the materialist inevitably appeals in support of his worldview. But having fled to science in search of a safe haven for his doctrines, the materialist instead finds that quantum theory in fact dissolves and defeats his materialist understanding of the world. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939
Verse and music:
Acts 17:28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Third Day - "Children Of God" - Official Music Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6jO7xhU_Pw
bornagain77
February 20, 2013
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Okie Dokie Dieb @57, if you show me how the kinetics of chemical reactions can take place without any motion of photons or atoms, I will concede that the Kinetics of physics, the study of motion and its causes, doesn't apply to Chemical Kinetics.. to Rehash: let’s look for the ultimate cause of motion:
Jerry Coyne and Aquinas’ First Way – Michael Egnor September 9, 2009 Excerpt: ‘The First Mover is necessary for change occurring at each moment. The argument is unrelated to the Big Bang; as noted, Aquinas assumed (for the sake of the First Way) that there was no temporal beginning of the universe. The argument works irrespective of whether or not the universe had a beginning in time. The only way to explain change in the natural world is to posit the existence of an unmoved First Mover. Aquinas goes on (in Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica) to draw out in meticulous detail the necessary attributes of the First Mover, and he demonstrates that it is logically necessary that the First Mover have many attributes (simplicity, omnipotence, etc) that are traditionally attributed to God as understood in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Argument from Motion is rigorous, and I have merely summarized its salient points, but it is straightforward once the premises are established. It is a very powerful argument.’ – Michael Egnor – Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first024951.html
I find this centuries old philosophical argument, for the necessity of a ‘First Mover’ accounting for change occurring at each moment, to be validated by quantum mechanics. One line of evidence arises from the fact that there actually is a smallest indivisible unit of time; Planck time:
Planck time Excerpt: One Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to one Planck length. Theoretically, this is the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible,[3] roughly 10^?43 seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, for times less than one Planck time apart, we can neither measure nor detect any change. As of May 2010, the smallest time interval that was directly measured was on the order of 12 attoseconds (12 × 10^?18 seconds),[4] about 10^24 times larger than the Planck time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time
The ‘first mover’ of Aquinas’s argument was further validated by quantum mechanics since the possibility for the universe to be considered a self-sustaining ‘closed loop’ of cause and effect was removed with the refutation of the ‘hidden variable’ argument, as first postulated by Einstein, in quantum entanglement experiments.
Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show – July 2009 Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm
This proof was further solidified in 2010:
Physicists close two loopholes while violating local realism – November 2010 Excerpt: The latest test in quantum mechanics provides even stronger support than before for the view that nature violates local realism and is thus in contradiction with a classical worldview. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-physicists-loopholes-violating-local-realism.html
And this proof was further extended in 2011 by Anton Zeilinger, and team, to falsify local realism (reductive materialism) without even using quantum entanglement to do it, i.e. this experiment extended ‘non-local’ realism to the particles themselves, thus extending the empirical evidence to be directly in line with what was posited in Aquinas’s ‘First Mover’ argument:
‘Quantum Magic’ Without Any ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ – June 2011 Excerpt: A team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences used a system which does not allow for entanglement, and still found results which cannot be interpreted classically. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624111942.htm
Zeilinger's group went even further last month
Of Einstein and entanglement: Quantum erasure deconstructs wave-particle duality - January 29, 2013 Excerpt: They concluded that since the two entangled systems are causally disconnected in terms of the erasure choice, wave-particle duality is an irreducible feature of quantum systems with no naïve realistic (within space-time) explanation. The world view that a photon always behaves either definitely as a wave or definitely as a particle would require faster-than-light communication, and should therefore be abandoned as a description of quantum behavior. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-einstein-entanglement-quantum-erasure-deconstructs.html
i.e. A non-local, beyond space and time, cause must always be appealed to to explain the continued existence of photons within space-time! Moreover quantum teleportation extends to atoms and is not limited to photons:
Ions have been teleported successfully for the first time by two independent research groups Excerpt: In fact, copying isn't quite the right word for it. In order to reproduce the quantum state of one atom in a second atom, the original has to be destroyed. This is unavoidable - it is enforced by the laws of quantum mechanics, which stipulate that you can't 'clone' a quantum state. In principle, however, the 'copy' can be indistinguishable from the original (that was destroyed),,, http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2004/October/beammeup.asp Atom takes a quantum leap - 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been 'teleported' over a distance of a metre.,,, "What you're moving is information, not the actual atoms," says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts
bornagain77
February 20, 2013
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Re your #33, BA, that is what is so very, very disturbing. Truly, Greg is right: I ought not be up to arguing any, even secondary-school science topic. However, the truly scarey thing is that I, even I, (pardon my 'belles lettres' forays?), cannot but routinely show them up to be the monkeys they so pertinaciously aspire to be. I mean, people are telling us in all sorts of media that Hawking is the greatest brain since Einstein - and the poor sap posits that a law, a law of nature, could have been responsible for creating the universe!!!! Einstein was at least bright enough to be appalled at the Consensus of his day (same as today's), who didn't believe in Intelligent Design, when its all around us, staring us in the face. Then of course, there's the Multiverse. I wonder if there could possibly be, in any other universe in the multiverse, academically-educated people with such benighted, infantile minds, as to believe in the possibility of the multiverse they are conjectured to inhabit! Truly, no depth of intellectual folly, on the part of the atheist, can be ruled out, when atheism is dogmatically held. I mean, even the atheism of the nice guys, cannot but be 'off the wall', since religion (of believers and unbelievers) is so seminal, as the ultimate base-line for our logic. How could it be otherwise?Axel
February 20, 2013
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Maybe this Pross guy should get together with this dude: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465022537Mung
February 20, 2013
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Equivocation is a logical fallacy which is too often used on this blog!
Only if you equivocate over what "logical" and "fallacy" mean.Mung
February 20, 2013
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bf77: So chemical reaction rates can happen completely without reference to the foundational motion elucidated in physics??? Wow Nick, I think you’ve just about rewritten all of science just to protect your naturalistic worldview! No, but words can be used in different contexts with quite different meanings - kinetics is such a word. Equivocation is a logical fallacy which is too often used on this blog!
DiEb
February 20, 2013
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Mr. Matzke states:
We’ve got energy flowing through the system (Earth and its microenvironments), so thermodynamic equilibrium is never reached in any case — just as when the sun shines on one side of a room, that side gets warmer than the shaded side.
Mr. Matzke, You're not going to argue 'the earth is an open system therefore the second law does not hold' silliness are you? For crying out loud, the second law was formulated right here on earth (an open system) in the first place!
How the Scientific "Consensus" on Evolution is Maintained - Granville Sewell - April, 2012 Excerpt: If you want to show that the spontaneous rearrangement of atoms into machines capable of mathematical computation and interplanetary travel does not violate the fundamental natural principle behind the second law, you cannot simply say, as Styer and Bunn and so many others do, sure, evolution is astronomically improbable, but the Earth is an open system, so there is no problem as long as something (anything, apparently!) is happening outside the Earth which, if reversed, would be even more improbable. You have to argue that what has happened on Earth is not really astronomically improbable, given what has entered (and exited) our open system. Why is such a simple and obvious point so controversial? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/how_the_scienti059011.html "Klimontovich’s S-theorem, an analogue of Boltzmann’s entropy for open systems, explains why the further an open system gets from the equilibrium, the less entropy becomes. So entropy-wise, in open systems there is nothing wrong about the Second Law. S-theorem demonstrates that spontaneous emergence of regular structures in a continuum is possible.,,, The hard bit though is emergence of cybernetic control (which is assumed by self-organisation theories and which has not been observed anywhere yet). In contrast to the assumptions, observations suggest that between Regularity and Cybernetic Systems there is a vast Cut which cannot be crossed spontaneously. In practice, it can be crossed by intelligent integration and guidance of systems through a sequence of states towards better utility. No observations exist that would warrant a guess that apart from intelligence it can be done by anything else." Eugene S – UD Blogger Other Types of Entropy - Granville Sewel - September 6, 2012 Excerpt: If you insist on limiting the second law to applications involving thermal entropy, and that the only entropy is thermal entropy, than Sal is right that the second law has little to say about the emergence of life on Earth. But it is not just the “creationists” who apply it much more generally, many violent opponents of ID (including Asimov, Dawkins, Styer and Bunn) agree that this emergence does represent a decrease in “entropy” in the more general sense, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/other-types-of-entropy/ Is the second law of thermodynamics a valid argument to use against evolutionists? Physicist Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts on Sal Cordova vs. Granville Sewell on 2nd Law Thermo - July 2012 Excerpt: The Equivalence: Boltzmann’s famous equation (and engraved on his tombstone) S = k ln W, merely is an exchange rate conversion. If W is lira, and S is dollars, then k ln() is the conversion of the one to the other, which is empirically determined. Boltzmann’s constant “k” is a semi-empirical conversion number that made Gibbs “stat mech” definition work with the earlier “thermo” definition of Lord Kelvin and co. Despite this being something as simple as a conversion factor, you must realize how important it was to connect these two. When Einstein connected mass to energy with E = (c2) m, we can now talk about mass-energy conservation, atom bombs and baby universes, whereas before Einstein they were totally different quantities. Likewise, by connecting the two things, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, then the hard rules derived from thermo can now be applied to statistics of counting permutations. This is where Granville derives the potency of his argument, since a living organism certainly shows unusual permutations of the atoms, and thus has stat mech entropy that via Boltzmann, must obey the 2nd law. If life violates this, then it must not be lawfully possible for evolution to happen (without an input of work or information.) The one remaining problem, is how to calculate it precisely (how to calculate the entropy precisely). of note: (And because it is extremely difficult to calculate entropy precisely for living cells, this is exactly where Darwinists try to claim evolution does not violate the second law. Yet regardless of the games Darwinists play because of this lack of mathematical precision, for all intents and purposes as far as we can ascertain, for evolution to occur would indeed violate the 'iron clad' second law of thermodynamics!) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-rob-sheldon-offers-some-thoughts-on-sal-cordova-vs-granville-sewell-on-2nd-law-thermo/ Organization=control needs information. Entropy is the inverse of organization, and then is lack of information. To increase the organization of a system we need to inject information inside it. This way we decrease its entropy. Without this injection the 2nd law tells us the system’s entropy increases. Who claims that the sun provides information (then organization) to systems by means of its energy confuses the two basic paradigms of systems theory, power and control. Solar energy provides power. It doesn’t provide control. Hence it cannot increase organization. When Dr. Sewell says that the sun doesn’t send us computers, cars, phones, he uses an intuitive illustration of such concept. - niwrad - UD blogger
But so much about theoretical posturing, and the Darwinists heroically vain attempts to play semantics with the clear implications presented to them by the second law, let's get down to the brass tax and see what the empirical evidence, since it has final say in science, says. Does the empirical evidence say that the second law holds for biology or not?
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain. http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit
And while neo-Darwinian evolution has no, and I mean NO, empirical evidence that material processes can generate any non-trivial functional information over and above what is already present in a biological system, Intelligent Design does have 'proof of principle' that intelligence/information can 'locally' violate the second law and generate 'potential' energy:
Maxwell's demon demonstration turns information into energy - November 2010 Excerpt: Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive, but University of Tokyo physicist Masaki Sano and colleagues have succeeded in demonstrating it in a nano-scale experiment. In a paper published in Nature Physics they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a "spiral-staircase-like" potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location. As the particle traveled up the staircase it gained energy from moving to an area of higher potential, and the team was able to measure precisely how much energy had been converted from information. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html
Further notes:
“Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more.” Gilbert Newton Lewis – preeminent Chemist of the first half of last century "...the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not." Arnold Sommerfel, Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, p.155 “Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ….The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental…” Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90, [Quotes Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin] “Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology.” Charles J. Smith – Biosystems, Vol.1, p259. Evolution Vs. Thermodynamics - Open System Refutation - Thomas Kindell - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4143014 The ATP Synthase Enzyme - exquisite motor necessary for first life - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3KxU63gcF4 The Effect of Infinite Probabilistic Resources on ID and Science (Part 2) - Eric Holloway - July 2011 Excerpt:,, since orderly configurations drop off so quickly as our space of configurations approach infinity, then this shows that infinite resources actually make it extremely easy to discriminate in favor of ID (Intelligent Design) when faced with an orderly configuration. Thus, intelligent design detection becomes more effective as the probabilistic resources increase.
Verse and music:
Romans 8:18-21 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Evanescence – The Other Side (Lyric Video) http://www.vevo.com/watch/evanescence/the-other-side-lyric-video/USWV41200024?source=instantsearch
bornagain77
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Nick @ 49:
43 bornagain77February 19, 2013 at 8:48 pm Kinetics (physics), the study of motion and its causes (per wiki) Wrong again ba77. We are talking about chemical kinetics, i.e. the rates of reaction in chemistry.
So chemical reaction rates can happen completely without reference to the foundational motion elucidated in physics??? Wow Nick, I think you've just about rewritten all of science just to protect your naturalistic worldview!bornagain77
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