Note to Creationists
Posted on May 13, 2003 Posted by John Scalzi 48 Comments
Dear Creationists:
Please stop trying to hijack science to disprove evolution — or at the very least, stop writing to me trying to pass off your astoundingly poor understanding of science as “proof” evolution didn’t happen. First, by and large, I know more science than you, so your attempt to use bad science on me just doesn’t work. Second, I know how to research, so things that I don’t know, I can learn quickly, which means attempts to use slightly more complicated science won’t work either. Third, I’m not at all impressed by your “experts” and their “books” — the next time a creationist writes me to tell me I should read Darwin’s Black Box I swear I’m going to strangle a cat. When one of your people publishes something that can withstand basic peer review (which is to say, peer review by scientists in the discipline your “experts” purport to write about), get back to me.
This note is precipitated by yet another e-mail from a creationist trying to save me from the dangers of evolution by doing the typical idiot creationist thing of piling on statement after statement of scientific “fact” that merely illuminates their own incomprehension of basic science and a reliance of the usual brain-dead creationist rhetoric: They haven’t found transitional fossils! Carbon dating can’t measure living things correctly, so why should we trust it with dead things? Evolution is against the Laws of Thermodynamics! And those are LAWS! I swear to God that if I were this pan-hit ignorant I wouldn’t be e-mailing people about it, as if I were proud of my inability to process science beyond the talking points handed to me by someone else.
It’s the “evolution is against the Laws of Thermodynamics” bit that really set me off, if you want to know. The basic “argument” is that evolution tends towards increased complexity but the Laws of Thermodynamics state that everything moves towards entropy — toward lessened complexity. So evolution is contravening these laws! Someone dig up Issac Newton and have him haul Darwin off to the clink!
What the dim-bulb creationists who use this line of reasoning fail to note is that closed systems tend toward entropy, and the Earth is not a closed system: Energy is constantly being added into it in the form of the energy from the sun, and it’s that energy being added into the Earth’s “system” that rather easily allows for increased complexity. Note that the Earth is gaining energy from an entity — the sun — that is in fact tending toward entropy, since the sun is burning through its nuclear fuel at the rate of millions of tons per second, and that eventually (we’re talking trillions upon trillions of years from now) all matter in the universe will devolve into thin particulate soup. But the Laws of Thermodynamics don’t say that everything tends towards entropy, always, in every instance without exception. You can very easily have localized, short-term (astronomically speaking) increases in complexity. Just like we do here on Earth.
Either the creationists who spout off about the Laws of Thermodynamics don’t know this, which means their understanding of science behind the Laws is molecule-depth shallow, or they do know this but choose to lie to the credulous about it, which means they’re (pun intended) fundamentally dishonest. If I have to choose between people being slack-jawed ignorant or unapologetic liars, I prefer to believe they’re slack-jawed ignorant, mostly because, ironically, I want to have faith in people. But either way, I don’t want them talking to me. It insults me that these people seem to be under the impression at either I am as stone ignorant as they are, or that I’m uncomplicated enough to be fooled by rhetorical sleight of hand. Neither is the case. Unlike creationists, I don’t revel in the idea of ignorance. So I am at a distinct advantage against those who do.
And ultimately, that’s the thing that positively offends me about creationists — not only do they rely on ignorance, it’s what they aspire to. And it’s the level they’d have the rest of us exist on, all so they can be comfortable with their own charmingly simplistic understanding of what God is. I can’t imagine having the sort of intellectual incuriosity that wouldn’t celebrate the desire to understand God’s creation in all its complexity — frankly, I think it’s an insult to God, who I would suggest wants us to know Him from the height of our intellect, not from the flatlands of the same. And I can’t comprehend the cynicism required to attempt to fool people with bad science in order to sway them from better science. That shows contempt for your fellow man, and that’s certainly not what the Bible teaches.
So please, creationists, stop bugging me with your bad science. Because when you do, not only does it reveal to me you’re ignorant as a fish, it also reveals to me that you’re not a very good Christian. I know you probably don’t care about the former, but I’m sure the latter must give you some pause.
Update: In the comments thread, Brian points out the MC Hawking site, which features some dude with a Stephen Hawking-like voice synthesizer creating science-based gangsta rap. Of particular interest here is the rap “F*** the Creationists,” which is hysterically rude, and is also very likely the only rap song in the history of creation that says “This one goes out to all my homeys working in the field of evolutionary science.” NOT something creationists will enjoy, obviously (and not safe for work, as they say), but fairly amusing for the rest of us.
FWIW, I totally agree with you. I consider myself a scientist (well, an engineer who believes in science) and also believe in God. Many tell me this is not possible, but that is a false dilemma.
I’m afraid you calling those people ‘not very good Christians’ will totally fall on deaf ears. That is exactly the kind of thing they don’t dare hear, because it is what they know at the deepest, unexamined levels of their psyche.
I’ve found a good response is “Thanks, that’s one way of looking at it.” You can leave off the “Thanks” if you want.
You said “I think it’s an insult to God, who I would suggest wants us to know Him from the height of our intellect, not from the flatlands of the same.”
God says” Come let us go down and confuse their languages so they will not understand each other.” (Gen. 11:7)
God doesn’t want us to understand each other much less Him. Ignorance is bliss- knowledge just confuses the issuses with rational thought.
Well, that’s just one interpretation of what God wants. Other people may believe it to be true, but I’m not necessarily one of them.
John, I think you’re wrong but I’m not going to waste your time and mine telling you so; I just have to say that I LOVE your adjectives! “pan-hit ignorant!” Classic!!
Thanks, Pete. I do try to be wrong in ways that are interesting to read.
I do so love the moronic misinterpretation of Second Thermo that creationists so love to bandy about. John, your criticism of it seemed bang-on to me, but as I am a bench chemist, I would like to point out a benchtop-level example of the same sort of “violation” of Second Thermo: crystallization. By definition, a perfect crystal has zero entropy, while any sort of solution or melt will have a very large entropy. (No real crystal is entirely perfect, of course, but a properly-grown crystal will far too few defects to add to its overall entropy in any significant way.) So, under the creationist-simpleton argument, the formation of a near-zero-entropy crystal from a highly entropic solution or melt must be impossible, right? In that case, I’d better quit my job growing crystals, as I’m clearly just wasting government money on an impossible, anti-entropic project.
I would like to point you to MC Hawking’s Crib.
http://www.mchawking.com
This guy used a voice synthesizer like Stephen Hawking’s to make gangster rap MP3s. It’s hysterical. Of particular interest to this discussion are his songs “Entropy” and “F*ck the Damn Creationists”.
You can download the MP3s here;
http://www.mchawking.com/multimedia.php?page_function=mp3z
Calm blue ocean John, calm blue ocean (with some creationists drowning in it) ;). In other news, why do I suspect you’re not the only one who’s received this sort of contact recently…?
http://www.shtank-interactive.com/btc/comics/0261.png
Pete,
Thanks! That’s one way of looking at it.
“…it also reveals to me that you’re not a very good Christian. I know you probably don’t care about the former, but I’m sure the latter must give you some pause.”
That is assuming that they care if you think they are bad Christians–their belief set might be such that whatever “heathens” like you think doesn’t matter.
True, Joseph. Fortunately, scripture backs me up on this one.
Isaac Asimov wrote a good column a long while back taking on that Second Law argument, in which he compared the Earth-Sun (mostly) closed system with a refrigerator and the local power company. I’ve found it a useful analogy in many arguments; people seem to understand it better than they understand the sun.
If you want to further rile up the fundies, refer them to http://www.talkorigins.org, and throw in http://www.randi.org as a freebie.
It’s really astonishing to me how supposedly truth-loving christians will distort or ignore reality to avoid messing with their belief system (ooh, ooh, that reminds me of a great definition for reality: That which does not go away when you stop believing in it). Consciously setting aside that system (which I never clung to much to begin with) was quite liberating for me. Contrary to what seems to be the religious expectation, I find atheism (well, probably agnosticism, but I don’t worry about the distinction) to have opened up the universe, and indeed to have more respect for other people and for life in general. Given a couple of beers and place to sit, John, I think you and I could prattle on for hours on the subject. Well, assuming I could get past your goofy haircut…
did
Well, that and the fact I don’t drink.
To be fair, though, everybody distorts or ignores things, even when they don’t mean to. We all have our blind spots. That’s why science relies on repeatable experiments and observations.
Speaking as a former Creationist, I think you’ve hit it right on the money. These people, for the most part, are ignorant. All it took for me was reading a couple of chapters of Origin of Species and a partly open mind and suddenly I realized how dumb I’d been.
The amazing thing is that they don’t even realize that they lack the knowledge to prove or disprove evolution either way. I’m always astonished to hear my mother insist that people finish their whole rounds of antibiotics because otherwise the germs become resistant to them, yet declare that there is no such thing as evolution.
Root beer, then.
did
As usual, great comments.
Although…
I do have a wee beef with your beef that creationists stop tryng to disprove evolution. Obviously, I believe you meant that in the sense of “without providing something new to the discussion that hasn’t already been goddamn addressed for 150 years already,” but anyway:
Evolution (as a theory; it is also a fact in a different sense) is supposed to be disprovable (sensu faslifiable). A few creationists have tried novel ways of accomplishing this, which are sort of blunders in and of themselves. Behe, obviously, blew it by admitting that microevolution was possible (a fact often glossed over by creationists), and then by getting much of his reasoning and science wrong in his biomolecular arguments (I have cites if anyone wants ’em).
Because this is the way the process is supposed to work, evolution is a much stronger theory because of it. Obviously, refinements to the current synthesis continues not merely without creationist participation, but regardless of it.
Creationists who advocate creationism as a science tend to do so by way of politics, not science (“get it into the schools”). I think that says right there they have no scientific faith in their own views. I also think that says they have chosen dishonesty over ignorance. I’ve had enough debates (online and otherwise) to realise that the more informed the creationist, the less honest his/her position is.
Oh, no. I have no objections to anyone, creationists or scientists, using solid science to disprove or call into questions particular aspects of current evolutionary theory, but that’s not “hijacking science,” that’s just part of the scientific dialogue. One of the nice things about science is that the process is robust and designed to continually get closer to the truth. However, most of the “science” I’ve seen out of creationists simply isn’t very good science.
“FWIW, I totally agree with you. I consider myself a scientist (well, an engineer who believes in science) and also believe in God. Many tell me this is not possible, but that is a false dilemma.”
An interesting survey done a while ago at Universities. Well over 90% of professors in “Hard Science” (I believe they went with Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and subfields) believe(d) in God, in some form or another.
(For comparison, something like 40% of professors of Philosophy did). I -REALLY- Wish I could find this article again, but considering the key-terms for this particular study, Google’s gonna be less than no help.
Science and God are not incompatible. Science and Buddhism aren’t even incompatible (though, the Buddhist may believe it’s a waste of time, to so thoroughly investigate the illusion of Earthly Law).
Just ’cause we came from OTHER apes doesn’t mean we aren’t special.
Always a pleasure to see another Scott.
Myself, I’ve always favored the JMS/Minbari “We are the universe trying to figure itself out” approach to mysticism.
Maybe that’s not very mysticval. But it is pretty cool.
I think my favorite line of thinking on this topic came from a fictional character in Neal Stephenson’s book Snow Crash.
She’s a brilliant scientist, and she thowks athiest scientists on the head for not believing in god. I believe the argument goes something like (paraphrasing) “There’s no point in trying to prove or disprove the existence of god. You either believe or you don’t believe. Stop trying to use your knowledge of science to disprove the unprovable.”
Me, I’m a fence-sitter. I know science works. I simply don’t believe in diefic intervention. That’s not to say I’m trying to prove god doesn’t exist.
It’s too bad creationists can’t take this same example and apply it to their belief system.
John, I love you. In a purely platonic, geeky way, mind, but still.
Scott mentions a study about scientists and belief in a supreme being. I think I’ve found it (and depending on who is citing it to “prove” their “point”, the titles are hysterical):
Leading scientists still reject God
http://www.exmormon.org/boards/honestboard/messages/1767.html
Scientists still believe in God, survey shows
http://www.exn.ca/Stories/1997/04/04/01.asp
Survey of Scientists Finds Stability of Faith in God (Google’s Cache)
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z57B25E84
The article is “Scientists are still keeping the faith.” It was in Nature, 04/03/97, Vol. 368 Issue 6624, p435.
Citation for lookup here: http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=9704172869&db=f5h
–Google Answers Researcher (missy-ga), atcherservice
To quote the late, great Bill Hicks:
“‘Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith.’ Really? I think maybe God put _you_ here to test _my_ faith.”
“God says” Come let us go down and confuse their languages so they will not understand each other.” (Gen. 11:7)”
I believe that’s just the Almighty G’s way of saying “yo, let’s fizuck up they shiznit, knowhutI’msayin’?” Nothing more, nothing less.
Bah. Gen 11:7 is the creationist approach to linguistic diversity.
I see Gen 11:7 as absolute prove that God is the consumate prankster.
A cow-orker of mine once showed me a book called “The case for Jesus,” or somethihng similar to that, where a lawyer looks at the evidence and makes a legal case for Jesus’ divine existence.
All I could say was “That’s great, but the legal system also found OJ Simpson not guilty.”
Ok you sucked me into this one.
I love this debate….
it is so stimulating
One can flex his or her stupidity to the extremes on this topic.
Ok here is one questions never answered in the defense of the open system arena of the s.l.o.t.d. (second law of…I love the acronym for that one).
question:
Why didn’t you start your defense with the f.l.o.t.d.? (first law)
for those who need to know what the first law is I will spare you the time and say go elsewhere to read.
First show me some non-converted purely created energy and we can go to the s.l.o.t.d.
If you insist on starting at s.l.o.t.d.
Then I will humor you.
Even if it is a sad defense of evolution and anyone who had any sense about defending evolution would not even try to wallow through the muck of s.l.o.t.d. due to certain humiliation of oneself through his/her statements.
Open system shmopened system. HOW WEAK!!!
I thought you said you could study and research.
Please, this is unbelievable.
To quote Arthur Eddington
“If your theory is found to be against the s.l.o.t.d. I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
So,unfortunately I am supposing you confuse quantity of energy with conversion of energy.
The mere availabilty of energy does not insure the development of orderly structural growth. There must be an orginazational mechanism to transform the random energy into a state of increased order.
Next you will be telling us that s.l.o.t.d. doesn’t apply to living organisms.
Come now, don’t be so silly as to delve into a realm which no man understands….
Brian
I am a devout ex-roman catholic. That means that I am very clear that I am not a catholic; while I am not a member of any other particular religious faith, I am specifically not a member of the RC sect.
I also believe in God.
This ends the full disclosure.
I am waiting to get into an argument with a devout roman catholic creationist. I know they exist, I just haven’t found one. The reason why the argument would particularly satisfying is that sometime in the mid-90’s the Pope ruled that evolution was the true theory of the descent of humanity. The only thing that a devout catholic has to believe is that at some point, Humanity arose and that God gave those first Humans an immortal soul.
It would satisfy me to no end to accuse a catholic creationist of “cafeteria catholicism”.
Yes I know, I should get out more.
Cheers
Andrew
Brian states:
“Open system shmopened system. HOW WEAK!!!”
What an incisive counterargument, Brian. However, from an entropic point of view the Earth is indeed an open system (which is to say, energy is coming into from an outside source, namely, the sun), so your well-reasoned objection above notwithstanding, using the laws of thermodynamics to deny the process of evolution isn’t revelvant. Since the fundamental assertion is flawed at its root, there is no need to pursue this particular line of inquiry further.
ok then name a closed system?
Brian,
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
I believe the talkorigins.org website has already been mentioned; perhaps you should get caught up in your reading over there before attempting this discussion here, lest you be seen masticating any other outdated chestnuts.
Brian:
No. For the purposes of disproving the “evolution is against the laws of thermodynamics” argument, it need not be shown there is a entropically closed system, merely there is an open one here on Earth.
Please note also that you’re doing what I’ve ask folks like you not to do, in the entry to which these comments are attached.
um I didn’t say the earth was a closed system. I agreed that it was an open system. I did however state that in an open system where energy is being presented that the mere availability of energy does not insure the development of orderly structural growth. There must be an organizational mechanism to transform the random energy into a state of increased order.
You may have categorically disregarded the statement before thinking about it. Not that I mind that I do it myself. What fun would discussions like this be. If we had no passion.
Furthermore my intention was not to disprove evolution with one statement. I was merely addressing a flaw in the argument that open systems can accept random energy and convert it to organized life.
Again I don’t think that this disproves evolution I do however think that those who bash creationists with rebuttals such as this need to be careful that they are not falling into the same patterns of ridiculous assertions they are accusing them of.
I mean should we be arguing this if we have not say read Darwin’s work or Newton’s work or any of these. I would say that you are correct about these creationist yelling folk. They know little about real science and make a fool of themselves and anyone who may actually believe in creation.
My suggestion to anyone who plans to comment on things of this nature is not to do so until having read the theories in full. Then when one has read the arguments and taken them back and applied them to the theories they could consider themselves able to make a decision as to where they stand. Has any of us done that?
I imagine not many.
I have been working on it for 5 years and still haven’t completed comparing the arguments….
Regards
and no offence intended earlier.
Brian
Brian,
“There must be an organizational mechanism to transform the random energy into a state of increased order.”
Life does this. A great book to read is _How Life Works_ (full citation to follow, since I’m away from the home library at the moment).
But even without life, many non-organic chemical processes will do this. Try growing salt crystals or making rock candy sometime.
“…when one has read the arguments and taken them back and applied them to the theories they could consider themselves able to make a decision as to where they stand. Has any of us done that?”
I have. Comments of a wanna-be vertebrate paleontologist: http://www.archosaur.org/index2.html
Unless creationism outgrows its many ideologically-based philosophical flaws, the creationist side will never grow beyond repeating the exact same arguments and mistakes over and over again.
Brian writes:
“I did however state that in an open system where energy is being presented that the mere availability of energy does not insure the development of orderly structural growth. There must be an organizational mechanism to transform the random energy into a state of increased order.”
Which is again well allowed for within the Laws of Thermodynamics,and without the need for an intervening intelligence, so, again, this is a non-issue. And it’s not the question with which I originally took issue, so introducing it is simply a rhetorical “moving of the goalposts.” Which, as I mentioned earlier, is not necessary in this case. Your statement was categorically disregarded because it was not germane.
Scott you said
“Unless creationism outgrows its many ideologically-based philosophical flaws, the creationist side will never grow beyond repeating the exact same arguments and mistakes over and over again.”
You could not be more right. Equally unfortunate are the corresponding flaws in the evolution theory.
Bravo! I have not viewed your site but intend to. Not many who enter these discussions take much time in the learning phase of arguement and I grow weary, as you seem to be, with the repeated chestnuts .
I also must say that it has been a long time since I added an accusation to the list. “masticating old chestnuts” has been added. I laughed pretty good on that one. Thanx I needed a good laugh today.
Thanx for thinking!
John,
Can’t you hit a moving goal?
So, It is an outdated chestnut that isn’t even germane?
I can stop if you wish. It is your site.
Even the talk origins site mentions from what I remember that slotd is mathematical. In that you must reduce life to math. Once that is done the goal has repositioned to the original location and the target will be easier to hit.
have fun John I enjoy the site and the discussion
I need not go any further.
If asked I could and may.
but
the bowl of chestnuts is lookin chewed enough….
g’nite
Brian
Brian asks:
“Can’t you hit a moving goal?”
It’s not whether I can. It’s whether it’s worth my time to do so.
Well it has either been billions of years or several thousand and nobody has hit the target with certainty. So give it a shot. It is a worthy cause. I assure you if you hit the goal. People WILL buy the book. Like I said earlier to Scott, at least you are one of the few who has at least put some thought into his standpoint. As apposed to letting others dictate your thoughts. It is abhorrent to see these creationist and evolutionists who have been told “X” and they believe it with no investigation.
Brian
PS I would ask to be mentioned in the acknowledements. If not as an encouragement, then at least as sand in the vaseline.
Is time like a checking account? I mean does it matter that money (time) keeps getting added to a pot if no one is tracking how much is put in? My pointed rhetorical question is- Does time actually pass if no one is keeping track? Like history is the point at which someone actually started writting down what was happening and before that point was pre-history. Does historical time have a difference from nonhistorical time? If no one was keeping track then would time as a measure of earths’ (or the universes’) history not actually count towards the overall length of time as having passed?
If so, then the six thousand year history of earth could be seen as making a sort of sense (as apposed to no sense at all).”Time” (as refered to in Biblical text) being determined by human history and not the extrapolated timeline of interpreted events is not my idea, but I can’t think of where I heard it before.
If this is true then maybe other bits or whole chunks of creation could be seen as a plausible explanation for the events which took place over six thousand years ago. Think of all the unmeasured time that passed before the “creation of man”. In Genesis, humans came last (on the sixth day), all that happened before the sixth “day” is really up to the person (or persons) who wrote it as to how long those days where.
My point here is not to begin interpreting the bible in order to fit scientific models but to look at the Bible as what it is- a story of how we came to be human beings and what being human means. Also the Judeo/Christian origin story, I think, has some real accurate information about the order in which the universe began and in what order life on earth evolved into the forms we have been familiar with for the past six thousand years.
In a different vein- I have found that arguing as to wether or not extinction happens is a good begining point for any discussions with fundies about evolution. Once they concede that extinction does occur- convincing them that evolution does too won’t happen- but only because they are unwilling to accept the terminology of evolutionist not because they can find anything wrong with it theory itself. If extinction happens then from where do new species arrise? If no new species arises to take the place of the extinct ones, then how long from now will it be before extinction claims all species? These questions at least get them mad and thinking.
I finally found this in the anals of my study!
the real issue in this debate is ended, and should have never been started. The entropy = order to disorder is a late 1800’s idea that was destroyed by the devolopement of statistcal and quantum mechanics. It is not an accurate analogy.
Entropy is not order-disorder!!!!
this is a quote from the journal of chemical education by Frank L Lambert Feb 2002 issue
“To aid students in visualizing an increase in entropy, many elementary chemistry texts use artists’ before-and-after drawings of groups of “orderly” molecules that become “disorderly”. This seems to be a useful visual support, but it can be so misleading as actually to be a failure-prone crutch. Ten examples illustrate the problem.
Entropy is not disorder, not a measure of chaos, not a driving force. Energy’s diffusion or dispersal to more microstates is the driving force in chemistry. Entropy is the measure or index of that dispersal. In thermodynamics, the entropy of a substance increases when it is warmed because more thermal energy has been dispersed within it from the warmer surroundings. In contrast, when ideal gases or liquids are allowed to expand or to mix in a larger volume, the entropy increase is due to a greater dispersion of their original unchanged thermal energy. From a molecular viewpoint all such entropy increases involve the dispersal of energy over a greater number, or a more readily accessible set, of microstates. Frequently misleading, order-disorder as a description of entropy change is also an anachronism. It should be replaced by describing entropy change as energy dispersal–from a molecular viewpoint, by changes in molecular motions and occupancy of microstates. ”
So as I stated before reduce life to math. Find the true meaning of s.l.o.t.d./entropy. Apply it and you still need a mechanism to convert the energy.
Brian
The book I mentioned is called _The Way Life Works_ by Mahlon Hoagland and Bert Dodson.
Entropy: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=entropy
That’s all I’ve time for today.
Brian writes:
“Entropy is not order-disorder!!!!”
Who said it was?
Your breathless discoveries notwithstanding, none of this has anything to do with evolution violating the laws of thermodynamics.
um you
The basic “argument” is that evolution tends towards increased complexity but the Laws of Thermodynamics state that everything moves towards entropy — toward lessened complexity. So evolution is contravening these laws! Someone dig up Issac Newton and have him haul Darwin off to the clink!
What the dim-bulb creationists who use this line of reasoning fail to note is that closed systems tend toward entropy, and the Earth is not a closed system: Energy is constantly being added into it in the form of the energy from the sun, and it’s that energy being added into the Earth’s “system” that rather easily allows for increased complexity. Note that the Earth is gaining energy from an entity — the sun — that is in fact tending toward entropy, since the sun is burning through its nuclear fuel at the rate of millions of tons per second, and that eventually (we’re talking trillions upon trillions of years from now) all matter in the universe will devolve into thin particulate soup. But the Laws of Thermodynamics don’t say that everything tends towards entropy, always, in every instance without exception. You can very easily have localized, short-term (astronomically speaking) increases in complexity. Just like we do here on Earth.
I don’t see the words “order” or “disorder” in there.
Creation or Evolution! What is the issue?
Origins!
Life Origins!
Just to restate something my first note was initiated with this statement
“One can flex his or her stupidity to the extremes on this topic.”
I could stop there, but it hurts too much.
I must prove that I am surely stupid, and there is no chance for redemption.
The short story is this John you have fallen into the trap in which you so eagerly illuminated pertaining to “creationists”
You haven’t even a meager understanding of the issue.
Entropy hasn’t much to do with the complexity of things nor the order of things which in this case could easily be interchangeable terms.
It is a measurment. A scale of energy transfer. Not what you or most of the rest of the people who dive into this debate so readily after reading some arguements and quotes purport it to be.
I encourage you to read the link on entropy that was posted above by Scott. It will clear up some of the confusion.
If you wish to read more I suggest these links
http://www.2ndlaw.com/
this even has a plug FOR evolution
so you will probably enjoy it
but don’t stop there do the math this gentleman has set forth….
http://www.secondlaw.com/
likewise from same source more detail
he links to these
http://www.entropysimple.com/
http://www.shakespeare2ndlaw.com/
also to go backward to the first law
http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/~chem130a/sauer/outline/firstlaw.html
this is a halfway decent representation from the other side.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/docsdis/2002/dc-02-sa09.htm
that is e-form
there is much more in print.
of course you must have read “origin of a species”
also push through Newtons “mathematical principles of natural philosophy”
on to his work on optics. This will take you to the mathematical point of the system and influx from the sun.
You could then go on to Christiaan Huygens’ “Tretise on light” for advanced study on the influx of energy pertaining to the light.
For that matter find yourself a set of Britanica’s “Great Books”
I got mine for 75 bucks at an antique store
It was actually quite amusing. I asked the dude how much he wanted. He said 150. I said well there are 2 missing. He said well I paid alot for those for my daughters school. My reply was oh what college did she attend? His reply was she is not in college yet she is in highschool. Hmm needless to say when I opened up Lavoiseir for him he turned a little red.
Bang your way through them in your spare time. Of course you can skip the theolocial rambligs Like Thomas Aquinas ,Suma Theologica although there is a whole section on creation…
take carful note of Fourier’s Analytical Theory of Heat. It will prove useful.
In all of this and the scads of others that you could and should devour. Take care to cast away the assumptions and assertions that are obviously rooted and grounded in the writers own idiological standing. Take what you learn and make a decision.
My apologies if you have already done this. It does not seem that you have.
I am also not trying to sell to you that I have finished this process. As I stated above it is still in the process. But I assure you things aren’t looking good for evolution.
Especially if people keep defending it with Thermodynamics.
Ultimately the truth of where we originate is not going to change so we have plenty of time to figure this one out John. Lets not look too stupid in the process. I am hoping that the “breathless discoveries” to which you are refering are not the ones put forth by Newton or Einstien or should I say it…. the Pentateuch.
Lastly as mentioned above review the mostly useless ramblings of either side of the debate and compare them back to the theories and all you have learned.
Well I fortunately have some little resemblance to a life so I must go and prepare for my Son’s 4th birthday party.
good day and thanx for the
excersize
Brian
Brian writes:
“You haven’t even a meager understanding of the issue.”
I would disagree, quite obviously, although I would admit to having trouble understanding what you’ve been trying to get at. Which is not the same thing. However, I congratulate you on your ability to create reading lists.
Be that as it may. I was not aware that the interaction of evolution and the laws of thermodynamics depended on my personal level of understanding of them. I suspect it does not.
With that, I announce this discussion tiresome. It is now closed.