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Author Topic:   Thermodynamics, Abiogenesis and Evolution
rineholdr
Inactive Member


Message 61 of 128 (99989)
04-14-2004 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Loudmouth
04-14-2004 2:36 PM


What is the input of energy? It was already there in the (egg). I would assume this to be the ultimate closed system, and with the 2lot as well working on it. Something as dense as this egg and the extreame high heat and pressure would only allow for simple sub atomic particals to be present. So I would think that logic would conclude that the explosion (which is another good question...what caused it) would be such a devistating event as to make un-thinkable any kind of useful organization could occure following the event. Unless ofcourse the explosion was not fine tuned enough to allow escape velocity and the whole thing collapsed (the mother of all black holes), but we know it didn't do that because of the obvious expansion of the universe we know. What mechinism caused all the angular mometum, The condesation of galexies, stars, planets etc. Sub atomic particals, individual as only they could be after such an event traveling at the speed of light...boggles my mind to understand what forces played into the obvious wonder and organization on a galactic scale we see with our own eyes!
[This message has been edited by rineholdr, 04-14-2004]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Loudmouth, posted 04-14-2004 2:36 PM Loudmouth has replied

Replies to this message:
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rineholdr
Inactive Member


Message 62 of 128 (99992)
04-14-2004 2:58 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by rineholdr
04-14-2004 2:53 PM


I used the wrong term...radial momentum should have been angualar momentum. Appologies

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by rineholdr, posted 04-14-2004 2:53 PM rineholdr has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 63 of 128 (99993)
04-14-2004 2:59 PM
Reply to: Message 56 by DNAunion
04-14-2004 2:20 PM


Re: Let Confusion Reign
You know, some guys you piss off, they're just regular members, there's nothing they can do. Other guys, they own the joint.
Bye.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 64 of 128 (100009)
04-14-2004 4:32 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by DNAunion
04-14-2004 2:51 PM


Re: Let Confusion Reign
I have not claimed impossibility, not at all. I mentioned problems - problems are solvable; impossibilities aren't.
So, as myself and at least one other has mentioned, you have no point whatsoever. Your entire contribution to this thread has been empty rhetoric.
You continue in your dishonesty.
That's an an unwarranted insult. I have been polite, honest, and patient. I have a hypothesis as to why you stoop to such ...

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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 65 of 128 (100012)
04-14-2004 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by rineholdr
04-14-2004 2:53 PM


quote:
What is the input of energy? It was already there in the (egg). I would assume this to be the ultimate closed system, and with the 2lot as well working on it.
The input of energy was energy. At the start of space/time in that small singularity there was all the energy and mass that ever was in our universe. Imagine squeezing all of the mass and energy in the entire universe into the palm of your hand. And also, don't forget that mass and energy can change camps, mass becoming energy and energy becoming mass.
quote:
Something as dense as this egg and the extreame high heat and pressure would only allow for simple sub atomic particals to be present.
Which is exactly what has been hypothesized.
quote:
So I would think that logic would conclude that the explosion (which is another good question...what caused it) would be such a devistating event as to make un-thinkable any kind of useful organization could occure following the event.
First of all, there was no explosion. Space/time expanded and matter/energy expanded with it, similar to a balloon being blown up. Secondly, from what I understand hydrogen and helium were the predominant forms of matter directly after the Big Bang. Only through nuclear fission within massive stars were heavier elements made, and then dispersed through the universe when these massive stars became supernovae. Hence the phrase "we are all made of stardust." I agree that within the original space no "organized" matter or heavier elements could have been present, but this doesn't mean they couldn't form afterwards in separate conditions (stars).
quote:
What mechinism caused all the angular mometum, The condesation of galexies, stars, planets etc.
Gravity. A slight difference in mass on one side of a loose, gaseous body can cause a preferrential spin. Imagine two cars coming at each head on and hitting off center. What results is that each car will start to rotate around the other one. Same thing happens when matter starts to come together in a vacuum.
quote:
Sub atomic particals, individual as only they could be after such an event traveling at the speed of light...boggles my mind to understand what forces played into the obvious wonder and organization on a galactic scale we see with our own eyes!
Something that evolutionists and creationists can both agree on. The only difference is how we investigate these wonders to learn more about them.
Added in edit: to prevent a drift into the Big Bang event, we should probably take the cosmological questions to the appropriate thread. Start one of your own if you feel you still have questions.
[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 04-14-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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wj
Inactive Member


Message 66 of 128 (100074)
04-14-2004 8:39 PM


Let's take the venom out of the thread and relook at DNA's opening assertions in message #2
DNA writes:
The second law of thermodynamics poses no problem at all for evolution: abiogenesis is a different story.
This is one source of confusion over what DNA's position is. Many seem to have misinterpreted the above to mean that the 2LOT presents an insurmountable problem for abiogenesis which cannot be solved in principle. This is the typical creationist bleat. DNA only means the much weaker, and accurate, assertion that the 2LOT is a constraint imposed on any credible mechanism for abiogenesis. As some have already remarked: so what?
Actually the original assertion is somewhat inaccurate. The 2LOT also poses a problem for evolution. However the mechanism for overcoming this problem is known: the capture of solar, geothermal or chemical energy by biochemical processes. So, the 2LOT posed a problem for the theory of evolution which has been solved.
Equally, homochirality of biological amino acids poses a problem for abiogenesis. And homochirality of biological carbohydrates poses a problem for abiogenesis.
Any credible mechanism for abiogenesis must address all of these issues and more. Nothing new in that.
Maybe the storm in the teacup can now subside.

Replies to this message:
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berberry
Inactive Member


Message 67 of 128 (100250)
04-15-2004 3:48 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Percy
04-14-2004 9:42 AM


Re: Let Confusion Reign
Percy writes:
quote:
Life is just complicated chemistry. Abiogenesis was also complicated chemistry. Chemistry obeys all laws of physics, including 2LOT (which began life as a chemical law, anyway). There are no "themodynamic implications of abiogenesis" that uniquely distinguish it from all other chemical reactions.
Yeah, I see what you mean and I realize that was a poor choice of words. What I meant was that identifying a mechanism by which abiogenesis can occur should not be necessary before we can observe that abiogenesis obeys the 2LOT (as well as the 3 or 4 other LOT, I forget the exact number). To put it another way: until that mechanism is identified it is pointless to speculate that the 2LOT might have been violated.
I tried to follow your link, but each time I click on it I get nothing. Something appears to be loading for a second or two, then I get a blank screen without even an error message.
Somewhere up the line in this thread (I did a brief search but couldn't find it, it might have been in the parent thread) someone objected to the use of the word 'disorder' in defining entropy. I agree that that is a poor definition but there is still a rather simple way to look at it: equalization of energy. If I remember correctly, a scientist studying the principles by which a steam engine operates was the first to stumble across the 2LOT. The uneven distribution of heat allowed the engine to operate. Once the heat was used, the energy it contained was dissipated into the environment. The energy still exists but is unusable for work because it can't be harnessed (or made uneven again).
Therefore, entropy could be better defined as the even distribution of energy, unless I am very much mistaken.
EDIT: Changed my mistaken use of the word 'uneven' in the final sentence to 'even'.
[This message has been edited by berberry, 04-15-2004]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 04-14-2004 9:42 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Brad McFall, posted 04-15-2004 4:12 PM berberry has replied
 Message 69 by Percy, posted 04-15-2004 4:20 PM berberry has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 68 of 128 (100261)
04-15-2004 4:12 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by berberry
04-15-2004 3:48 PM


Re: Let Confusion Reign
If any one has been following anthing that I have said, and indeed I guess perhaps no one has (the opposite of this opninion could be Wolfram for an instance if one insisted on comparison) I have pointed to Faraday "thermal contact" on various occassions. If I start from Wolfram's ideas then one gets abiogensis more from yours than Percy point of view (if i read any difference correctly) but I am and will continue to be headed in showing that should one grant assumed abiogenesis THEN there likely ARE specific thermo consequence associated with life. Right now I am working on the math as I have indicated prior Berry so though can speculate on the chemisty a bit as I did with Loudmouth yesterday it be best to hold that off too for now.
I will say and I want to should there be secifically NEW (aka chemistry and physics) information for thermodynaics it will be on this first formulation by means of unifiying the Baldwin effect in which a phenotypic property BECOMES genetcially transmissiable via the geography of Stablizing selection from some entropic center to perferiy and the other way around in fidelity to genetic assimilation on which flies 14 generations later had cross veinlessness due to heat shock in the thermal contact environment. The dificulty is getting the physical environement of the chemistry correct for any apriori. MY first circumscription involves usingFaraday's notion of electricty seeking the outside conductor but the actual biology may deviate from the diretives the calculations might restrain on the description. Equal energy would be available at this point in the work. The importance of right angles to thermodynamics would be renewed. I do not yet have any feeling if this only speaks of ecological density (AKA red in tooth and claw) or can speak directly of behvaior soley(AKA female salamander that uses energy to put an egg UP under a rock or FIRST climbs on the rock energetically and then Drops the EGG down to the stony texture.).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by berberry, posted 04-15-2004 3:48 PM berberry has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by berberry, posted 04-15-2004 11:15 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 69 of 128 (100264)
04-15-2004 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by berberry
04-15-2004 3:48 PM


Re: Let Confusion Reign
The link works. I've been working at a remote site for the past couple weeks that has higher speed Internet than I have back home, and here the link loads in about 10 seconds. Back home it would probably take a minute or two.
I thought your characterization of 2LOT, including the bit of history, was pretty much on the mark. Once this is understood, then it becomes more clear that many of the examples used to explain 2LOT, such as cleaning a room or placing a jumble of coins in neat piles, are only useful as analogies, and poor ones at that.
You can probably see that your characterization is consistent with my earlier one where I said entropy increases when external energy becomes stored in chemical bonds. In other words, energy is concentrated more densely and across a steeper gradient than before, therefore entropy is lower.
But I still have to strongly disagree that the chemistry of abiogenesis possesses any unique characteristics that might make 2LOT any more helpful than for other chemical processes. Every chemical reaction since the beginning of time has obeyed 2LOT, including abiogenesis.
It's important to keep in mind that Creationists focus on 2LOT only because it can convince a lay audience in about 30 seconds that there's sometthng rotten in the Denmark of evolution, while correcting the misunderstanding is very difficult. There is no kernel of truth at the center of the Creationist foray into thermodynamics.
--Percy

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berberry
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 128 (100298)
04-15-2004 11:15 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by Brad McFall
04-15-2004 4:12 PM


Speaking of confusion
I follow your first paragraph but you lost me in the second, Brad. From what you say I gather that you are involved in abiogenesis research. Is that true? If so, do you work for a lab? Is it a private or government lab?
I don't mean to pry so feel free to ignore this. I'm just curious.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Brad McFall, posted 04-15-2004 4:12 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
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rineholdr
Inactive Member


Message 71 of 128 (100400)
04-16-2004 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by wj
04-14-2004 8:39 PM


After this I believe I'll be finished...please quiet the applause! Every argument I feel I've made seems legitimate to me and in many aspects make sence. But you who believe that evolution is inevitable because...here we are...is to say the least obsurd. You say that first generation living cells are "simple" and it was no problem under the given conditions that life had to happen. Well just for the record The first living cells are far from simple! The simplist living cells far exceeds in complexity anything man can concive. They make by design a kray computer or a space shuttle seem as mear childs play. So get your lab smocks well laundered, arrange the pencils and pens in the pocket, some new note pads, fire up the bunson burners and start the centerfuges, wash the beakers and tubes and get all the great minds of our time together! From scratch with any means possible (I wont hold you to naturalistic conditions) Construct and make functional a simple cell. Just that simple, I mean if the random combinations of simple molecules can spontaiously evolve into life, this challage should be quit simple.
Thank you and please post your results before 64 billion years pass.

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Replies to this message:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 168 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 72 of 128 (100457)
04-16-2004 6:38 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by rineholdr
04-16-2004 2:06 PM


Well just for the record The first living cells are far from simple! The simplist living cells far exceeds in complexity anything man can concive. They make by design a kray computer or a space shuttle seem as mear childs play
Please supply evidence for your assertions about the first self-replicator ... note that I asked for the first self-replicator, which most likely preceded the first thing we would call a cell by many milions of years.
Your "argument" sounds like nothing more than "I think they must have been complicated" to me.
Construct and make functional a simple cell. Just that simple, I mean if the random combinations of simple molecules can spontaiously evolve into life, this challage should be quit simple.
Nobody has claimed that producing a cell from "primordial soup" is simple or even possible in human time scales. Our inability to do such to date proves exactly one thing ... we can't do it now. It has no relevance to the possibilities of abiogenesis. Nor does it have any relevance to the theory of evolution.
edited to add:
I mean if the random combinations of simple molecules can spontaiously evolve into life, this challage should be quit simple.
Please provide your calculations or other evidence of how simple this should be.
[This message has been edited by JonF, 04-16-2004]

This message is a reply to:
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Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 73 of 128 (100464)
04-16-2004 6:53 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by rineholdr
04-16-2004 2:06 PM


quote:
Well just for the record The first living cells are far from simple!
Even science can't agree on what the first cell looked like. You seem to be assuming things that aren't true. Also, the first "life" or rather the first replicators were not cells but rather acellular systems, according to abiogenesis theories that is. Perhaps your greatest mistake is putting words in the mouths of scientists. Before you attack a scientific theory you should first learn what the theory states, otherwise you are just flailing in the wind.
quote:
Construct and make functional a simple cell. Just that simple, I mean if the random combinations of simple molecules can spontaiously evolve into life, this challage should be quit simple.
Thank you and please post your results before 64 billion years pass.
Sure, lets replicate the original situation on a prebiotic Earth. First, we need an aquatic environment equalling that of the entire ocean. So I guess we will have to build tanks to fit all of the water in the oceans. Then, we need to add the inorganic components, reflecting the ratios in a prebiotic Earth. This would probably require the entire volume of topsoil in the world, but what the hay. Next, we have to let this mixture incubate for about 500 million years. If we follow this procedure, it should result in cellular life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by rineholdr, posted 04-16-2004 2:06 PM rineholdr has not replied

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 74 of 128 (100919)
04-19-2004 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Loudmouth
04-16-2004 6:53 PM


I reckon you'll need a whole lot of gopher wood for those holding tanks.

This message is a reply to:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 75 of 128 (101017)
04-19-2004 7:32 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by berberry
04-15-2004 11:15 PM


Re: Speaking of confusion
No, it's just me. I have had a sustained thought working how one might be able to extract energy from what remains CONSTANT under biological change since the late 70s. I think Percy might have been correct that there was no "new" info about thermodynacis comeing out of abiogeneic studies. I have thought that e=mc^2 might not be immune to any anthing new in this regard. But that is "sanctified" speuclation only on my part while it can be more easily documented that since physicists do not do work from statistical physics say equally mentally on the 1st law thermo and the 2nd there can be little (short of Wolfram's most recent assertions notwithstanding(and I think they need even little more standing biologically but that is just me again))reason to think biologists of any kind have done any better. I know of none but I have not looked in the literature lately. Gould's last big book gave me no reason to look again. I do think however that historically the demise of Volta brought on by Faraday in part in end WHICH USED THE DEVICE OF THERMAL CONTACT might even be an early indication of the exitence of DNA chemically historically. I am in no position to write the history of biochemistry etc however. It was only a guess when considering VOTLA's response to Galvani's electrobiological ideas. Even if thermal currents WERE NOT indicative of transformed bacteria they could still be relevant to the issue of time in directive artifical selections and genetic engineering but sorting out the history of all this has to come once I have successive communicated my whole idea to some person or people. Alas that has not occurred. Dont give up the gun, I have yet to have this much fun in real"" life.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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