It's nice that you provided quote marks indicating you were quoting, but you should provide the source. It's The adaptation of bacteria to feeding on nylon waste by Don Batten at Creaion Ministries International. We're well acquainted with Mr. Batten and CMI, and with Ian Musgrave's excellent Nylonase Enzymes demolishing Mr. battens "arguemnts" such as they are.
Since the sun introduces ultraviolet rays, that are harmful (minus plants and other organisms that can harness the energy), entropy should increase over time.
that's a great mix of bullshit. The Sun produces the vast majority of its output in the visible range - that's why it's visible! Much of the UV is filtered out as we well know.
The important point is that the Sun's energy arrives in the visible and is re-radiated in the infrared. That means there's a hell of a lot more photons radiated by the Earth than arrive on the Earth from the Sun. The emitted photons carry away many more degrees of freedom than arrive and so the local entropy decrease apparent in Evolution is miniscule compared to overall entropy increase.
The "low entropy" photons enter the life-cycle through photosynthesis, and thus help drive the whole process of evolution. Simple.
Since you didn't respond, do I have your agreement that you are wrong about entropy? Can we start a conversation with the correct idea of what scientists mean by entropy? Because if you are still unwilling to accept the scientific meaning of entropy then it seems there is no need for a conversation at all.
Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
quote:And if Borel had written that, which he didn't 'cos he isn't Dembski, it still wouldn't be "Borel's Law", because "Borel's Law" refers to something else.
Borel's Law tells us that anything with a probability less than 1 in 10^50 is "mathematically impossible." There are 10^80 particles (electrons and protons) in the universe (best number I could find online) estimated. Even if each particle in the universe performed (10^20) events per second, and the universe was 15 billion years old (10^18 seconds), then 10^80 x 10^20 x 10^18 = 10^118. Even in the most generous situation, the number far exceeds Borels Law. You have better odds of winning the lottery (1:13,983,816, 6/49), than convincing me that Borels Law does not apply to chemical evolution.
quote:I am not inclined to take his word about what anyone else means by anything.
So you are not inclined to accept what I wrote, you would rather attack his character, than answer intelligently. DING! Next.
quote:Got any quotes
Yes. I do.
quote:Nobody has actually seen evolution take place over a long period but they have seen the after effects, and the after effects are massively supported. It is like a case in a court of law where nobody can actually stand up and say I saw the murder happen..." Charles Dawkins
quote:Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
Sure. Thats not where I got it, but it's probably there too. All the more reason to respond?
quote:Really, if everyone is on your side you'd think you could quote some of them saying so.
I already got one, but I'll go get more:
quote:"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact." (Dr. T.N. Tahmisian. Atomic Energy Commission)
quote:"most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretation of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true." (Dr. David Raup, Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, 1979)
quote:"A five million year old piece of bone that was thought to be the collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib...The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone." (Dr. Tim White, anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley, New Scientist, April 28, 1983)
quote:"All the above (radiometric) methods for dating the age of the earth, its various strata, and its fossils are questionable, because the rates are likely to have fluctuated widely over earth history...It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological clock.' The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologist and evolutionists..." (W.D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytech State University, The Science of Evolution, Macmillan, 1987)
quote:"When the blood of a seal, freshly killed at McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic was tested by carbon-14, it showed the seal had died 1,300 years ago." (From W. Dort Jr., Ph.D. -- Geology, Professor, University of Kansas, quoted in Antarctic Journal of the United States, 1971)
quote:"The hair on the Chekurovka mammoth was found to have a carbon-14 age of 26,000 years but the peaty soil in which is was preserved was found to have a carbon-14 dating of only 5,600 years." (Radiocarbon Journal, Vol. 8, 1966.)
We both have faith Doc. Yours faith is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links unseen.
Borel's Law tells us that anything with a probability less than 1 in 10^50 is "mathematically impossible."
But it doesn't. It just doesn't. Borel's Law is just the Law Of Large Numbers as it applies to the statistics of experiments.
And I believe that I have already explained why things at long odds are not actually "mathematically impossible".
You see that "Dr" thing in my name, just before it says "Adequate"?
Well, the subject in which I have a PhD is in fact mathematics. Do not misuse the phrase "mathematically impossible" in my presence unless you want me to hunt you down and slap you about the face with a wet fish.
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Your irrelevant quotations which are not relevant to this question are in fact irrelevant because of them not being relevant to this question. When I asked: "Got any quotes?" I didn't mean any quotes relating to anything you might want to get off your chest, I meant any relevant quotes.
Indeed, looking at my post, I find that what I actually wrote was: "Got any quotes from Borel?". (Emphasis added.)
If you wish to be shamefully and ludicrously wrong about something that is not on topic in this thread, then start another thread.
Fair. So then would you perform an experiment 10^118 chances of getting the desired outcome? You are a math whiz. Do the math.
Pointing out that Borel's Law does not say what creationist liars say it says does not require me to do any math so much as have a passing familiarity with it.
So you are saying that the lottery is the best bet for retirement savings...
No, I am not.
You can tell that I'm not saying it by the way that I'm not saying it.
What I am saying is that stupid creationist liars tell stupid creationist lies.
You should not interpret this as advice on your retirement fund.
You asked me for quotes twice. Read your message.
I have in fact read my post #87, the one to which you were replying. Indeed, by a freakish coincidence, I wrote it. And it contains the words: "Got any quotes from Borel?" And it does not contain the words "Has anyone ever said anything stupid about anything?"
Again, I would urge you that if you want to be wrong about something else entirely you should start a new thread. If you don't, that's good too. I am not urging you to be wrong about something else, I am merely pointing out that if that is what you wish to do, there is an established mechanism for doing it.
So you are saying that the lottery is the best bet for retirement savings...I got it.
I suspect you are pretending to be just slightly dumber than you may actually be.
However, I will take your idiocy at face value and explain his statement and its meaning for you.
You are claiming that extremely unlikely events are essentially impossible. Winning the lottery is an extremely unlikely event. But that's only true if you look at the lottery as a single trial against a single event at very long odds. If you look at the lottery as it ACTUALLY IS, which is multiple trials by multiple individuals against a single event of long odds, you discover what happens in reality.
In REALITY the lottery is won quite often.
The math you presented earlier fails for the exact same reasons.
Borel's Law tells us that anything with a probability less than 1 in 10^50 is "mathematically impossible." There are 10^80 particles (electrons and protons) in the universe (best number I could find online) estimated. Even if each particle in the universe performed (10^20) events per second, and the universe was 15 billion years old (10^18 seconds), then 10^80 x 10^20 x 10^18 = 10^118. Even in the most generous situation, the number far exceeds Borels Law. You have better odds of winning the lottery (1:13,983,816, 6/49), than convincing me that Borels Law does not apply to chemical evolution.
Are you even paying attention to what you are writing?
I'm going to break it down for you:
Borels Law - 1:10^50 - is a description of long odds for a hypothetical event.
Your other number: 10^118 - is a description of (apparently) all the possible things which could happen to all the possible particles since the Universe began.
The fact that 10^118 is LARGER than 10^50 means that there are MORE possible outcomes than are required for your "Borel's Law" event.
In fact, there are SIGNIFICANTLY more.
In other words (pretending for a second that your numbers are correct and that they are in any way relevant to the discussion at hand) you just soundly disproved your own point with your own data.
So then would you perform an experiment 10^118 chances of getting the desired outcome?
Do you have any idea how many possible outcomes there are when you add a drop of molecules to a beaker full of molecules? Every experiment has long odds against one possible outcome but the dice are rolled so many times that that outcome will eventually happen.
dennis780 writes:
Yet somehow you still expect me to play the lottery.
Remember that somebody always wins.
"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi
As a bit of help to dennis780, the way this bit of pseudo science is normally done is to assess the probability at something like one in 10150 and to compare that with the number of events available, i.e. 10118.
Of course even when this PRATT is done right, it is still pointless. The reason the calculation is meaningless is because the underlying assumption in calculating the tiny probability is that nature is trying to reach a single predetermined state in a single step from absolute chaos using random chance. That's not a proper model for either abiogenesis or evolution.
With regard to the entropy argument. I can understand 780's confusion about entropy meaning disorder. Nearly every article/book written for lay persons and dealing with the concept of entropy links increasing entropy with increasing disorder, and gives the bastardized statement of the 2nd law that disorder must always increase.
What is peculiar is a lay person's refusal to give up on this misconception even when confronted with real science. Counter examples of this goofy restatement of entropy are staring you right in the face. The freezer in your refrigerator will reduces the entropy of its interior as long as you put in warm stuff, close the door and supply electricity.
I blame this refusal to accept science on organizations like ICR who make it appear that accepting pseudo scientific defenses of Genesis is an essential part of being a real Christian.
That said, 780's attempts to teach math to Dr. A are pretty entertaining. Hopefully that will continue...
What is peculiar is a lay person's refusal to give up on this misconception even when confronted with real science. Counter examples of this goofy restatement of entropy are staring you right in the face. The freezer in your refrigerator will reduces the entropy of its interior as long as you put in warm stuff, close the door and supply electricity.
There is an even simpler example. All of us on these forums started life as a single cell and over a 9 month period we developed into a multicellular, well organized human. If the same thing can not occur over millions of years, then how can it occur in 9 months? Embryonic development appears to be a much more serious violation of the creationist 2nd Law of Thermodynamics than evolution is.
Borel's Law tells us that anything with a probability less than 1 in 10^50 is "mathematically impossible."
Let's see if that is true.
If you shuffle a deck of cards and then lay them out one by one the order of those cards is 1 in 52! or 1 in 8x10^67. According to you, each and every time we do this little experiment we end up looking at a mathematical impossibility.
that's a great mix of bullshit. The Sun produces the vast majority of its output in the visible range - that's why it's visible! Much of the UV is filtered out as we well know.
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