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Author | Topic: Evolution vs. Thermodynamics | |||||||||||||||||||
monkenstick Inactive Member |
okay, well my chemistry is a bit shaky. But might I suggest that the engine you're looking for which can accomplish macroevolution is called "DNA polymerase"
it doesn't solve the problem of abiogenesis, but I see no reason why DNA polymerases cannot be an engine which causes macroevolution.
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Bart007 Inactive Member |
quote: Okay, good enough answer.
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
So Bart you think I am insulting and maybe bigoted. Maybe you shouldn’t have started talking about how the education system failed in teaching science including the 2LoT. I am getting tired of creationists implying that scientists, including myself, don’t really understand thermodynamics and I replied in kind. I have studied the subject off and on for about 40 years, I have done thermodynamic work professionally and now teach thermodynamics of surfaces and colloids. There are many evolutionists with even more detailed training and experience in thermodynamics and statistical mechanic who agree with me. Some of them even post on internet boards. Of course there are also quite a few creationists, some with considerable understanding of thermodynamics who also understand that the second law does not prevent evolution(See below). Since you insist I will answer the major points you have obtained from creationist books and/or sites. In my experience these debates lead to long posts very fast and can chew up a lot of time.
quote: This might be relevant if evolution actually violated the second law but since it doesn’t this is meaningless. It is a subset of the creationist who are carrying out the misinformation campaign. Maybe you don't think accusing science of a misinformation campaign was insulting but I might disagree. If you are going to dish it out you should be ready to take it.
quote: What??
quote: So do you have this issue of C&E News? I was taking it then but can’t find issues that far back. Maybe I’ll get it at the library. The point is that while the differential of the entropy produced in parts of the system considered to be in or near local equilibrium is positive the entropy flow term can be negative. There are many examples of this.
quote: Equating entropy with probability and disorder is not as straightforward as you think. If you are going to do Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics, which is where the idea comes from, the system in question must follow the fundamental postulates of statistical mechanics. That is it the ensemble average must equal the time average in the limit that the ensemble size approaches infinity and also the system must be ergodic. You must also specify that the disorder is represented in a 6 dimensional phase space consisting of the position and momentum of each particle in the system. Further, this is not relavant because entropy, however defined can decrease in open systems.
quote: I have Feynman’s lectures on physics and he uses this example, which is also found in one form or another in virtually all undergrad thermo texts and statistical mechanics texts usually to illustrate how to calculate the entropy of mixing. Have you actually read the lecture or just someone else's take on it? Clausius understood that the second implied an arrow of time about 150 years ago. Is this supposed to be news to us?
quote: This is a popular way to try to explain entropy and the second law but it is fundamentally wrong to equate human concepts of order and disorder with entropy. For more on the subject see Frank Lambert’s explanationJust a moment... quote: The problem that creationists have is that an open system is enough to generate order from disorder and there are many examples and the room example is bogus.
quote: This is something some creationists have invented that is no part of the laws of thermodynamics. Why do you think Dembski is trying to invent a fourth law of thermodynamics? It is because he knows that the first three laws (or four if you count the 0th law) do not prevent evolution.
quote: Strawman alert!! I don't want to get into an endless debate on term but I think that equating abiogenesis with spontanous generation is a strawman. Maybe this should be another thread.
quote: Prigogene and Yockey! You should read Yockey’s paper "Origin of life on earth and Shannon's theory of communication, Computers and Chemistry 24(2000) 105-123. IIRC he is quite definite in his opinion that the second law does not prevent evolution or abiogenesis and that information and entropy should not be equated. I'll look it up again tomorrow. As for Prigogene here is a quote from Modern Thermodynamics from Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures, by Dilip Kondepudi and Ilya Prigogine (which I highly recommend, it is available online in paperback.)Many detailed studies of such structural instabilities and molecular evolution have been conducted[34-37]. These models are beyond the scope of this text but we will note an interesting thermodynamic feature summarized in Fig. 19.13. Each new structural instability generally increases the dissipation or entropy production in the system because it increases the number of reactions. This is in contrast to the near-equilibrium situations discussed in chapter 17 in which the entropy production tends to a minimum. Structural instability may progressively drive far-from-equilibrium systems to higher states of entropy production and higher states of order. Needless to say, biochemical evolution and the origin of life is a very complex process which we are only beginning to understand. But now we see instability, fluctuation and evolution to organized states as a general nonequilibrium process whose most spectacular manifestation is the evolution of life. quote: Are you sure this quote is in context? Perhaps he gave an answer in the following paragraph. Quoting rhetorical questions out of context as if they had no answer is a favorite creationist tactic. Wallace does it more than once on his TrueOrigin thermo page, in fact he does this on every quote I have checked to the original paper (3 out of 3) and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it here since this quote is on his page. Do you have the book? I don’t but I can try to get it. If anyone wants to read what Patterson actually has to say on the subject here is a link. Thermodynamics, Creationism, and Evolution - Summer 1997 Watch out. He really is insulting.
quote: As I said above Asimov’s example is bogus.
quote: Please! Your are reminding me of Jeptha. I don’t want to go through all that again. (about 40-50 pages of debate with myself and many others on OCW and ARN)
quote: And you claim to have read the posts on this thread! Gene and I just spent quite a bit of time explaining this to Blitz77. I don’t want to repeat it. Look back.
quote: Sorry but I have seen all those quotes and very similar wording used to introduce them in debates with at several other creationists on several different boards over the years so I think the assumption was natural. IIRC the infamous Jeptha used all of them as well as many more. As to BELIEF how do you explain creationist who disagree with your BELIEF that the second law prevents evolution.
quote: Well you set yourself up for this when you presumed to teach us thermo and then repeated creationist claims and quotes that I have seen and either refuted or seen refuted several times before. I suspect that is true of some others here. Since you may have missed my earlier posts I will point out again that not all creationists accept the claim that the second law prevents evolution. Creationist Physicist Doug Craigen has written an interesting page on entropy and disorderEntropy, Disorder and Evolution And one on entropy and evolutionThe page you were looking for doesn't exist (404) and creationist Allan Harvey, a Ph.D. chemical engineer has written a page onThe Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Context of the Christian Faith by creationist Allan H. Harvey http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/thermo.html Neither of these creationists thinks that the second law prevents evolution and Craigen explain why entropy does not correspond to human conceptions of order and disorder. Have a nice vacation. Randy
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blitz77 Inactive Member |
quote: Since we are discussing abiogenesis, this site says that this argument may be used, thus you will still have to argue how the chemical mechanism works. It says that evolution doesn't have this problem, but abiogenesis does. As your other site says, disorder does not equal to entropy, which is true, it gives the example of crystals. However, the entropy of a crystal increases as it warms up. Therefore you have to think up of a mechanism to convert this form of energy into negative entropy. [This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-08-2002]
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
Blitz,
Please note this sentence from the quote you give. quote: It is certainly legitimate to argue about the plausibility of proposed mechanisms of abiogenesis but I agree with Harvey when he says that those who use such arguments should not say their position is based on thermodynamics. I think the reasons for this have been given in sufficient detail in previous posts. Randy
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halcyonwaters Inactive Member |
This isn't where people are headed with the discussion, so forgive me if I ruin anyones day.
From what I understand about the 2LOT, is that the same principle can be applied to things we experience directly everyday. Let's say I have a deck of cards, and I begin shuffling one card at a time. What happens? Occasionally, I may move cards towards the ultimate goal of orderliness (seperated by suits, ace to king, jokers at one end, and plug for Hoyle at the other) -- but *on average* I won't be going anywhere near that. It will tend towards disorder. Is that not a conclusion of the 2LOT? If not, is there another law that this relates to? David [This message has been edited by halcyonwaters, 08-11-2002]
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
quote: I don’t think your understanding is quite right. Examples such as shuffled cards or marbles getting mixed up are often used to illustrate entropy and the second law especially in popular writing. However, these analogies are only analogies and it is not correct to take them completely literally. Compare mixing marbles to mixing gases for example. If I have a partioned box with equal sized partitions and with one mole of ideal gas A on one side and and one mole of ideal gas B on the other at room temperature and remove the partition mixing will occur until after a long enough time there will be A and B equally distributed throughout the box and the entropy of mixing can be calculated(deltaSmix = 2Rln2 in this case). However, if I have a partioned box full of red marbles on the one side and blue on the other and remove the partition they will not mix. If leave the box undisturbed a million years there will still be red marbles on one side and blue on the other. A similar fact is true with cards. If you leave the cards alone and don’t put in energy by shuffling them they will never get disordered You can find discussion of why human concepts of order and disorder do not really relate to entropy and the second law by Frank L. Lambert : Shuffled Cards, Messy Desks, and Disorderly Dorm Rooms - Examples of Entropy Increase? Nonsense! Just a moment... and by creationist physicist Doug Craigen: Entropy, Disorder and Evolution: Entropy, Disorder and Evolution Randy
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halcyonwaters Inactive Member |
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Allright, I think I'm following. 1. entropy is defined as useable energy2. total entropy always increases in an open system The cards have no useable energy, only I do. When I shuffle the cards, the energy I use to do so is no longer useable. The order of the cards is irrelevant -- as they still have no useable energy to lose. Is this correct? If so, I can see why it wouldn't apply to the areas of Evolution as I thought it did. If it's not 2LOT, then what natural law is it that says that randomly shuffling cards will move towards disorder? Just a matter of probability? David
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
quote: Not quite. 1. Increasing entropy results in a reduction of the energy available to do work. In classical thermodynamics it is the interal of dQ/T where T is temperature and Q is heat.2. Total entropy always increases in an isolated system. quote: I think the point is that no useable energy resides in the order of the cards. The order only means something because we assign meaning to particular suits and numbers that are painted on the cards. Cooling a deck of cards will lower its entropy and heating it will raise its entropy but neither will change its the card "order" and the energy released by burning a deck of cards will not depend on card order. As to shuffling cards leading to randomness I guess it depends on who shuffles them. I know a magician who can do several perfect shuffles in a row. IIRC there are even a few magicians who can do enough perfect shuffles to get the deck back in its original order. Randy
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blitz77 Inactive Member |
As the entropy is higher when it is warmer, that is why you have to come up with a mechanism to convert negative heat entropy into negative bond entropy.
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
quote: Not exactly. It is why reactions that release sufficient heat can be spontaneous even though they may lead to products with lower entropy than the reactants. Delta H is negative when heat is released and long as delta H is greater than TdeltaS the reaction is spontaneous even if deltaS is also negative. The only "mechanism" you need is for the reaction to have negative free energy under the conditions where it occurs. I think we have been over this before in some detail.Randy
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blitz77 Inactive Member |
Yes-with extremities of temperature. However, water boils at 100C, which can only be raised with the addition of solutes or higher pressure. However, higher pressure produces the opposite effect, making it even harder. So with no other "mechanism" but extremities of conditions, it invalidates many other possible starting conditions--limiting it to hydrothermal origin of life--along with all the problems it entails. If you want the negative entropy source to be the sun, you have to find a mechanism to convert light quanta energy, for heat gradient, something to convert that heat gradient energy, etc.
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Randy Member (Idle past 6276 days) Posts: 420 From: Cincinnati OH USA Joined: |
quote: All of this has been answered before by myself and others. I suggest you look back at post #66 by Percy or any of several I and others have made on this subject. You can question the plausibility of any of the several current scenarios put forth as possible paths to abiogenesis but to claim that you can show that abiogenesis must have violated the second law is simply wrong for reasons that have been explained several times to you now. You don't know what the required reactions may have been or what sequence they may have occurred in let alone the reaction conditions where they may have occurred. Without this knowledge you can't prove that abiogenesis violated the second law. If I were really going to explain abiogenesis I might need to come up something similar to the mechanisms you describe (though your wording is a little confusing) but they really do go beyond thermodynamics. I am not trying to prove that abiogenesis occurred or how it occurred. I am only saying that you can't prove that it didn't occur naturally by using the second law. If you want to discuss how abiogenesis might have occurred, this board has a separate forum on the origin of life.Randy
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Brad McFall Member (Idle past 5061 days) Posts: 3428 From: Ithaca,NY, USA Joined: |
I have not been able to figure out who said "the first step is abiogenesis" but I have tried to read the lib about biology not to the point in the process of uncovering what Pasteur's student said about and using the word "proximate" which might lie within this phrase quoted no matter who said it here, but I have sought to find a way to read the protoplasm as something other than a diaelectric.
I have failed to do this and all there seems to be is quantum mechanics as the material basis of biology say by following Pauling's idea of what constitues a chemcial bond. But there are some "out there" ideas of the implication of quantum mecahnics one of which shows how non-thermal undulations can affect more than steady motions even possibly how enzymes work and yet if this SICENCE of an a biogeneic nature is brought up to sensory biologists they take( I mean it was took) as me the guy not the subject is "schizophrenic" or simply to reduce the thuoght "double mindedCarnal" etc. So it is easy to rely on history when trying to situate ones thought on biogeneisis vs molecules to man but when attempting to even DISCUSS the actual science that is current it seems that something other than anthropomoriszing is acutally going on. What I was trying to say is that it seems possible to derive much of biology from matter but not in Cricks sense of syntheziing a virus and a bacteria from the same thought in (out) protocol but that molecules to man is possible IN SO FAR as the change is possible BUT NOT IN THE SENSE OF visualizing the Wolfram fold into any opening that specifies both his substition system & his notion of shells and horns (2-d vs 3-d). I can explain this a little more if one likes. Can someone please tell me if BART started this idea of abiogeneisis here or someone else. I never really find this clear kind of distiction of a creationist and evolutionist that I am trying to read around to the place to post here. A little help anyone?
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Richard Inactive Member |
The essence of entropy from a thermodynamic standpoint is simply that the tendency of the universe is to seek the minimal energy level. This is why all forms of free energy will diffuse and why chemical bonds will only spontaneously form when they will can establish that minimal bond energy. The problem that the slot causes for evolution is that at the temperatures and pressures that are necessary for the precursors of dna and rna to survive the amino acids will not SPONTANEOUSLY form. This why abiogenisis is a problem where the origin of life is concerned. To my knowledge no expiriment has yet been perfomed that will give spontaneous development of the necesary amino acids unless enormous expirimenter interference is involved. Every abiogenis scenario postulated from the prebiotic soup to clays to hydrothermal vent and far from equilibrium thermodynamic fail either due 1: reaction is not spontaneous at the suggested temp and pressure so experimentor interference is needed. 2: the environment would destroy the amino acids at a rate that would not leave sufficient concentrations or acids to combine. 3) No mechanism is shown to account for the complex specified information that is inherent in the genetic code.
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