On Sat, 5 Apr 1997 13:24:53 PST8PDT, Paul Brown wrote:
PB>Thermodynamics, #5. This is the final post of several concerning
>why I think thermodynamics poses a problem for the spontaneous
>origin of life. I started thinking about this because of posts on
>the Sci-Chr home page, and then various posts on this one, including
>those between Steve Jones and Pim van Meurs. I don't know if this
>will turn out to be entirely correct, but at this point it is what I
>believe.
There is no doubt that the Second Law of "thermodynamics poses a
problem for the spontaneous origin of life". Only Intelligent Design
can resolve that "problem".
>PB>I would like to argue that thermodynamics does not present a
>barrier in some absolute sense. We're here. There are ways to
>accomplish the necessary work. Mechanical work, for example, is
>accomplished through the use of machines (such as the piston
>arrangement). A constraining apparatus, such as a machine, is a
>third necessary factor. What we are really talking about is a way to
>convert one form of energy into another taking advantage of an open
>system.
Agreed. Once there is an intelligently designed "machine", then
the "thermodynamics...barrier" can be overcome.
>PB>The "machinery" or apparatus of the cell in a biological system is
>able to couple the energy/mass flow through the system to accomplish
>chemical work, much the same way a steam or gasoline engine couples
>mass and energy flow to mechanical work. To accomplish the desired
>type of work, not just any machine will do, but specific machines are
>required to accomplish specific tasks. For example, mechanical work
>can be used to accomplish chemical work through the use of a
>generator coupled to a battery. For living systems, work must be
>specific to the function of the cell. Biological systems do this
>through chemical machines called enzymes, and through coupling
>reactions of high energy to reactions that are not energetically
>favorable. But living systems have too many non-spontaneous
>reactions to assert that thermodynamics presents no problem for
>chemical evolution. One cannot continually make vague appeals to the
>increasing entropy of the surroundings at the expense of decreased
>entropy of the system. The work must be specified. A plausible
>scenario using only naturalistic assumptions must be introduced.
Agreed. The only "naturalistic assumption" that can account for
"specific machines" and "work" that "must be specified" is
intelligence. And since on "naturalistic assumptions", intelligence
itself was the *end result* of a long process of evolution:
"Future historians will perhaps take this Centennial Week as
epitomizing an important critical period in the history of this earth
of ours-the period when the process of evolution, in the person of
inquiring man, began to be truly conscious of itself .... The earth
was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that
inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as
brain and body..." (Huxley J., in Tax S. (ed.), "Evolution after
Darwin", Vol. 3, 1960 Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993,
pp152-153).
then it must ultimately be extra-naturalistic intelligence that
account for these specifications.
>PB>Naturally, chemists, engineers, biochemists, and so on, may design
>and build apparatus (machinery, etc.), and supply energy which can
>accomplish many of these tasks. Thus, added intelligence may be able
>to design a sufficient constraining system to force the reaction in
>the desired direction. Of course, for a naturalistic explanation of
>the origin of life, chemists aren't around. Neither are the
>molecular machines whose origin we are trying to explain. The
>problem regarding the origin of life is this: the machines used to
>accomplish work and thereby reduce the local entropy in all real
>living organisms (the system), exist themselves as reduced entropy
>states that do not spontaneously form under any conceived natural
>conditions that occur on earth. How does one explain the existence
>of the molecular machinery, occurring in a reduced entropy state,
>before the existence of the machines used accomplish the work
>necessary to create these reduced entropy states? It is probably
>worth repeating, that to argue non-spontaneous (+DG) reactions
>necessary for the origin of life present a problem, is not to say it
>can't be done. It does mean that its highly unlikely to happen on
>its own, and if a person is going to say that it does, it is
>incumbent on that person to tell us how.
They have been trying to tell us "how" for 44 years - since the
Miller-Urey experiment in 1953, and indeed long before tbat. The
long delay indicates that they will *never* now come up with a
plausible naturalistic explanation. As Cairns-Smith admits "we
would know by now if there was some much easier way":
"Perhaps there is some other way of making peptides with more or less
specified amino acid sequences; and perhaps this way does not need
detailed control. Perhaps it could then have operated before there
was life on Earth, before that engineer, natural selection, appeared
on the scene. But it is difficult to see how this could have been
so. I think we would know by now if there was some much easier way"
(Cairns-Smith A.G., "Genetic Takeover and the Mineral Origins of
Life", 1986, p64, in Bird W.R., "The Origin of Species Revisited",
1991, Vol. I, p307)
>PB>I believe the thermodynamic problem, at least in principle, is
>removed upon the formation of some minimum set of machinery capable
>of accomplishing the necessary work. This minimum set is present,
>for example, in something like a fertilized human egg cell that
>turns into someone like you or me. All the necessary machinery and
>information to create the reduced entropy state we temporarily enjoy
>as our bodies is contained in that single cell.
Yes. The only problem for naturalistic evolution is that "machinery"
must assemble itself, when the Second Law says that matter, in the
absence of "machinery", tends towards dis-assemble itself:
"The laws of physics-the laws of thermodynamics- also contradict
evolutionary theory. For according to the experimental results on
which these laws are based, matter alone tends toward chaos or
increased entropy. It does not tend toward autoorganization, even if
one irradiates it with photon energy. Only with the aid of
teleonomic energy consuming machines, the construction of which
require energy and planning, can entropy be reduced in matter and
order and organization increased. But order and organization are the
basis of life. Thus according to the laws of physics it is
impossible for matter to have organized itself without the aid of
energy and of teleonomic machines!" (Wilder-Smith, A.E., "The
Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution", 1981, p7)
Indeed, no one seriously proposes that matter does assemble itself
into machinery.
"Today nobody any longer attempts to create life from natter and
energy only. Nobody places the simple material components of life in
a mixer, or stirring machine, thus adding nonteleonomic energy until
life is formed. This type of nonsense has not been carried out since
the days of Pasteur. Today energy and know-how (information,
concept, logos) are always added. Since this step has been taken
(i.e., know-how has been added), scientists have become successful in
their attempts to create artificial life. Why should it have been
different at biogenesis if the laws governing the autoorganization of
matter today have remained constant since the origin of matter? Why
should matter plus energy plus chance have been vital at biogenesis,
whereas today matter and energy plus know-how are required under the
same laws?...Where in the history of experimental science does one
find a postulate for the construction of a machine from "raw" matter
without concept, know-how, or information-merely by means of
autoorganization? Whenever in the history of the world did a machine
arise spontaneously from matter? Neodarwinism postulates the
development through chance and autoorganization of the most refined
coding system for a machine (the cell) ever seen. This cell machine
is far more complex than any machine ever invented by man. What
information engineer would attribute the development of code and
code- content to chance? Such a postulate would be refuted
immediately in all other areas of science- except the Neodarwinian
biology....But biology retains this plain nonsense in the sole
interest of materialistic philosophy." (Wilder-Smith, A.E., "The
Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution", 1981, p8-9)
>PB>I agree with many that creationists often over-reach with the 2nd
>law argument, wanting to apply this to the entire process of
>evolution (when the machinery is present), the fall, and so on.
Agreed. This gives Darwinists the opportunity to counter-attack
and thus to evade the main problem - the origin of "the machinery".
PB>Still, to ignore thermodynamics is to ignore a problem. "Morowitz
>has estimated the increase in the chemical bonding energy as one
>forms the bacterium Escherichia coli from simple precursors to be
>0.0095 erg, or an average of 0.27 ev/atom for the 2 x 10^10 atoms in
>a single bacterial cell. This would be thermodynamically equivalent
>to having water in your bathtub spontaneously heat up to 360 oC,"
>(Thaxton, et al., 1984).
Yes. They point out that this is "happily a most unlikely event"!
:-) But this is a good way of getting these obscure numbers across to
laymen to show the extreme implausibility of spontaneous generation
theories.
PB>The feasibility of naturalistic explanations to overcome this
>problem may be debatable, but even from only a thermodynamic point
>of view, I am not particularly more concerned about the spontaneous
>origin of life than I am about being spontaneously fried in my
>bathtub. There are good reasons why spontaneous generation does not
>happen. Thermodynamics, including the second law, is one of them.
The problem for the materialist is that the more one gets away from
simple self-assembly scenarios, the more it looks like what Hoyle
calls a "put-up job". IOW, if natural laws are eventually discovered
(a la Prigogine, Kauffman, etc) that predestine non-living matter
towards life - and none have yet been found - then it will be one
further example of fine-tuning of the initial conditions, which is
part of the argument from design.
What the materialist really needs is something fairly ordinary that
flows naturally from the normal laws of physics and chemistry, eg.
Darwin's "warm little pond" with chemicals + energy. Anything that
is too sophisticated sounds like prior planning. Anything that is
unsophisticated but requires bringing together of all the components
in the right place at the right time in the right order, sounds like
intelligent intervention.
I believe the case is closed for Intelligent Design in the origin of
life. If there was something simple and plausible that does not
require intelligent design it would have been discovered by now.
>PB>Ref. Thaxton, C.B., W.L. Bradley, and R.L. Olsen. 1984. The
>Mystery of Life's Origin. Philosophical Library, New York.
A brilliant book and the forerunner of a whole new theistic science
genre. Non-theist origin-of-life specialist Robert Shapiro wrote of
it:
"The authors have made an important contribution to the origin of
life field. Many workers in this area believe that an adequate
scientific explanation for the beginning of life on Earth has already
been made. Their point of view has been widely disseminated in texts
and the media, and to a large extent, has been accepted by the
public. This new work brings together the major scientific arguments
that demonstrate the inadequacy of current theories. Although I do
not share the final philosophical conclusion that the authors reach,
I welcome their contribution. It will help to clarify our
thinking.... I would recommend this book to everyone with a
scientific background and interest In the origin of life...." -
Robert Shapiro, Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Dr.
Shapiro is coauthor of Life Beyond Earlh.
(Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
Origin, 1992, back cover)
I would challenge non-theistis like Pim to read it.
God bless.
Steve
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