THE END OF EVOLUTION?

I agree with Onfire in saying that there is no such thing as a perfectly closed system except for the universe itself, by the very definition of what the "natural universe" is (a closed system containing all matter and energy and it's physical laws i.e. thermodynamics, etc.). However, the overwhelming energy from the sun effectively closes off the biological system of life on the Earth and provided it with a seemingly unending source of energy and thus it is effectively (though not absolutely) a closed thermodynamic system. With an unending source of enegy (at least for the next several billion years) there is no way that all the chemical reactions of life can come to an equilibrium simultaneously. Thus biological equilibrium, which depends on chemical equilibrium, is impossible in a system with a large steady supply of energy which provides a catalyst for change. How is a boiling pot of water at equilibrium? What is unchanging about a boiling pot of water? The molecules water are continuously being evaporated into steam? How is that unchanging? And what does this have to do with the biological processes of evolution?Just my two cents.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

I think the general problem here is that many layman clearly do not understand what entropy really is and how it applies to open and closed systems.It is quoted over and over that entropy is "the measure of order/disorder in a close system". Unfortunately, this definition is so mind boggling vague and watered down that this statement gets abused by nonscientists, non-religious as well as your typical religious creationist. In the background, the real physicists and scientists are shaking there head in disbelief of how much the Laws of Thermodynamics are pulled out of context and misused even by educated science teachers in classrooms.I myself am also a layman, but I have enough knowledge in the subject to know that I am not a subject matter expert in this area and therefore not qualified to give an adequate description of what entropy truely is. However, what I will do is point you to one of the books I am reading, 'The Fabric of the Cosmos' by physicist Brian Green; which goes into great detail into the subject of entropy and its affect on the arrow of time and other quantum physic and cosmological subjects.Read it, as well as other books from renowned physicists such as Stephen Hawking and the like and these will show you how off the mark and misconcieved some of you are in trying distort the concept of entropy to support your ideas of how you think the cosmos and life in general operates.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Banging head into wall Not trying to be condescending but Lucy, you really do need to take a college (or even high school) level physics class.The 2nd LoT (as well as the 1 LoT) only applies to closed systems. If a system is open to being fed "usable" energy from an outside source than these laws are essentially negated (entropy can actually reverse and decrease in this open system i.e. biological evolution, development and growth of living organisms, formation of stars/galaxies, etc) for this open system. In otherwords the LoT apply strictly to a closed system i.e. the universe (though there is some speculation that even our universe is not a completely closed system). Entropy in an open system is more of a comparative function used to determine the amount of usable energy in that system (area of spacetime) at a given moment in time compared to the areas around it.In an open system, entropy may increase or decrease but in a closed system entropy never decreases. The real question is, what can be considered truley a closed system. Now you are just being deliberately ignorant which is worse than just being misinformed. If 99.9% of scientist told you were wrong, would you still be obnoxiously stupid and disagree with them? #1 You need to define the terms "information" and "process".
#2 You need to provide clear cut evidence to back up this claim.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Thanks for the correction Percy. Like I said previously, I am not the best person to make sense of entropy and sometimes what I am trying to say does not come out the right way.Though, I think we are mainly arguing semantics here. I guess what I really meant to say is that the LoT applies to a closed, isolated system as a whole aka the universe. Therefore, a decrease of entropy in one area of the universe i.e. life on Earth will inevitably result in an increase of entropy (in the form of heat loss) in another but overall the entropy of a closed system aka the universe will never decrease. It is a complex phenomena which is not easily measured due to the immense quantities of energy and matter (in the whole universe) involved; and also because entropy from one open system will effect the level of entropy in another open system.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

The very definition of a perpetial motion machine is that it never requires energy outside of itself to keep it in motion. Therefore a perpetual motion machine would be considered a closed system. However, there is no theoretical way of producing such a machine or any absolutely closed system and even if we could do so the 2 LoT would require this machine to eventually run down as a result of a net increase in entropy. In what way? You make a claim please clarify. We don't know absolutely if the universe is an absolute closed system but we treat it as such because we have no evidence to counter this assumption.Yes the LoT applies to open and closed systems but we can only observe the net effect in a closed system. Very similar to how Rhavin did. Also see my first paragraph about perpetual machines and entropy. This does nothing to further your argument. I asked for a scientific definition for your terms and you gave me vague, non sequitur examples.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Wow, that's a scientific expression if I ever saw one!So there is no disorder in the universe? Entropy does not exist?All things are ordered? Which things? What do you mean by "things" and what do you mean by "ordered"?

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Incorrect. You seem to not understand what information is. Information is data which is used to describe the "state" or "status" of something. Information in itself does not exist, without something to which it describes (and since this something exists, it is located within the spacetime of this universe).You cannot isolate information from the "something" to which it describes. Take this example: "The bird is blue". The "something" that exists is the bird. The information or data desribing this entity (the bird) is the color "blue". The color "blue" does not exist as a seperate entity unto itself. It is merely a description of how light reflects off of (and is absorbed by) objects.Therefore, this "something" (such as the bird) is some form of energy/matter in the universe, which itself is subject to the LoT. Therefore information is indirectly subject to the LoT the same with the physical energy/matter which it describes.Also, in the case of information transmission from one point of spacetime to another, the information is being carried using photons of electromagnetic energy which themselves are subject to the LoT. LOL, in what way? Broad, baseless claims with no evidence to support do not help your argument but just add to your discredit. The scientific method was developed over millenium as an accumulation of the best practices to learn about the world around us. This is an oversimplification of the scientific method. It also is comprised of qualitative analysis.So can you propose a better method for understanding the universe? Can your religious book send us to the moon, find cures for AIDS and other delibitating and life threatening diseases, eradicate plagues such a small pox which has killed hundreds of millions of people, discovere new methods of making food more safe, extend the lifespan of humans by over 200%, and increase knowledge of the universe by several thousand fold?BTW, I am not anti-religious (I have many friends and family that are Christians). In fact, I do believe that you can be a scientist and be a theist with no threat to science or technilogical advancement. However, extreme religious fundamentalism which attempts to undermine and water down the very foundations of science, as in the case of vehement creationists like yourself, is a danger to the survival of the whole human race. This just my opinion so take it for what it is worth.Again, I have yet to see any shred of hard evidence and data to support your anti-evolution rampage.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : Fix spelling

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

IOW, you are a one-way funnel for creationist propoganda. Just admit it

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Actually, there is a real "information theory" but has nothing to do with creationism and fully supports the ToE and the rest of science (more acurately the information theory does not contradict the ToE).If Lucy wants to propose that this "information theory" contradicts the ToE, than he/she needs to provide specific rationale/evidence to support this. Otherwise it is just another parotted creationist PRATT in which creationists misunderstand and misuse valid scientific theories (many of which are developed by scientists who in no fashion dispute the ToE).Specifically, this idea that information theory contradicts the ToE comes from creationists such as William Dembski. However there are many rebuttals to his notions as shown here: Information Theory, Evolutionary Computation, and
Dembski's \Complex Specied Information" and
"A bit confused: creationism and information theory." Skeptical Inquirer 25(2) (2001), 40-42.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Yes and no, there is no requirement that this "data" or "information" has to originate from an intelligent source only that for it to have meaning outside of itself it has to be interpreted by a source of intelligence i.e. humans.This is akin to the often used zen phrase "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound". The answer depends on how you define the word "sound". It is all a matter of semantics.Sound is often defined as the reception and interpretation of low frequency electromagnetic waves in the range of human auditory perception. Therefore, if there is no person/animal to hear the sound than does the sound really exist? Well yes and no. The vibrations of sound actually exist, but there is nothing to interpret these vibrations into meaningful information.So to is the meaning of the word "information" tied to a source of percpetion i.e. the human brain, computer, etc used to interpret it. If there is nothing to interpret this data, the data or information actually exists. However, there is nothing to make meaning of it all. And like sound, information can originate from a non-intelligent and even non-living source. Huh? No, you missed my meaning completely. Appreciation of art has more to do with nuances of intelligence and communication than it does with mere color perception. Bees can see more colors than humans can, does that mean they have a greater appreciation for art than humans?A human can be a virtual vedgetable and see the nuances between shades of blue. It has more to do with sensatory perception than understanding or knowledge of a subject. Some animals can see more or less colors (and some not at all) than others. Again colors can be said to be a product of our brains interpreting the very minute differences in frequency between electromagnetic radiation collected by light reflected off an object. It really has less to do with intelligence and more to do with sensatory sensativity to light.Like hearing, color perception only makes sense when we talk about something used to intepret this data/information i.e. the brain, artificial intelligence (a computer), etc. Your point? You seemed to be crapping on the scientific method, which is the foundation of all modern scientific inquiry and investigation. Do you have something that trumps the scientific method? Please enlighten us!BTW, to clarify. Are you saying that the Greek scientists/philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Archimedes, etc had nothing to do with helping to lay the groundwork of the scientific method? Granted, the Arabs of the Dark Ages helped add to this foundation but they contributed more by reintroducing the Hellenstic foundations of science to medevial Europe. WTF are you talking about? Where did the car come into play in my statement??? You really need to work on your reading comprehension.So are you saying that we could accomplish any of the above mentioned feats of technology without science? If so, please elaborate. Thanks I will Um, many (though not all) real scientists are naturalists (if you define naturalism as the philosophy that all phenomena can be defined by natural causes/laws vice supernatural ones).BTW, I have no problem with belief in the supernatural i.e. religion, however, it lies beyond the definition of what science is. Science by its very definition attempts to explain natural phenomena not supernatural phenomena (since supernatural phenomena are capricious in nature and are not subject the laws of logic or cause and effect). Many scientists are religious and believe in the supernatural, however, they do not let there beliefs to interfere with how they conduct scientific inquiry of natural phenomena.It is only when pseudoscientists aka creationists attempt to surplant the established scientific methodolgy and logical inquiry of real science with unsubstantiated (and unsubstantiable) pseudoscientific methodology do real scientists get ticked off.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Sorry, I mispoke. You are correct. Sound is a pressure wave of molecules (commonly air & water molecules) not an electromagnetic wave. However, my analogy still stands.

Wow, never heard of geological engineering. Sounds interesting.I have a computer & information science degree yet fully embrace evolution and natural selection as the underpinnings of modern biological science. Not all of us computer scientists are IDers and creationists . Of course I also branched out and took some biology, chemistry, and other related science courses so I have a wee bit of knowledge in those areas as well (enough to get me in trouble).

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan