Infuriating arguments

Well I wasn't aware of this level of ignorance until a while into my posts on EVC. I'll always remember my absolute shock at reading "Let's be honest, you cannot stand on the surface of the Earth, it doesn't exist" by some poster here a few years ago.Unfortunately the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a particularly difficult concept to set right to an audience of this kind. This is because a lot of presentations make it appear to be about order and disorder (where as this is only a common, but not universal, consequence of it). Unfortunately an "increase in disorder" fits with all sorts of notions such as the decline of the world after the "fall". I've seen many Creationists using it as scientific proof of their world view, i.e. "Look the world really is decaying!"

I have always asked creationists this question:You developed from a single cell into a fully functioning, multicellular human being in just 9 months. If this does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, then how does the same thing occuring over a 3 billion year time period violate the same law?To counter this argument, creationists have actually argued that the laws of thermodynamics can be violated within the womb. I kid you not. They also try to claim that if you have instructions on how to violate the laws of thermodynamics (i.e. DNA) then it can occur. I guess all we need are plans which say that a body of water at equilibrium can spontaneously produce boiling water and ice cubes at the drop of a hat.

The ironic thing is that they don't realise that eating bypasses the 2LoT.

In a debate about how many men had demons cast into the herd of pigs, two gospels claim it was one man, one claims it was two. So, naturally, if you accept one acount, the other must be wrong, you'd think, since they are mutually exclusive, it's either one OR two.You'd be wrong, according to the genius I spoke to. He says both are right becase it was one or two!!! Then the site buffoon waded in and here's his little gem of reasoning.

That is actually a misleading statement. No reaction bypasses the 2LoT. Rather, a reduction in entropy is fully allowed when energy is added to the system. A freezer does not bypass the 2LoT when it produces ice cubes from tepid water in a room at 70 degrees F. Rather, it requires an input of energy just as the 2LoT states it should.

I laugh at them and then start trolling.

Yes, quite, Taq. But you're failing to take into account that they believe nothing and I mean NOTHING will ever under any circumstances will see a reduction in entropy. They even claim that an input of energy only ever increases entropy. As far as they are concerned the 2LoT states that entropy always increases. They see the "isolated system" as irrelevant and can't see that in a system which is not isolated, the statement that entropy always increases doesn't apply. They insist it applies to everything and that sunlight on skin damages DNA so increases entropy which shows that sunlight can't put energy into earth's systems.I said "bypasses" because it makes the claim of "entropy always increasing in an isolated system" irrelevant in an open system.

Sunlight on skin damages DNA?HUH?

And in doing so they only highlight their ignorance since I am very, very sure that pyrimidine dimerization requires a local decrease in entropy. Sadly, their misunderstandings of entropy go very, very deep and is only compounded by their anti-intellectualism.

Im currently interested in the evolution of the ability of energy storage.

Trixie writes: Maybe the three other guys ran off into the woods before the pigs ate them...