I agree that viewing Creationists as concerned about the effects of
the Second Law on evolution isn't seeing them in their best light, but
I think Creationists (yourself being exhibit #1 here in this very
thread) simply refuse to let the issue drop. It is hard to know what
to think in these situations. On the other hand, it *is* a naive (in
a negative sense) viewpoint to simply think that when biologists say
'evolution' the sense in which they mean the term has somehow osmotically
spread to the population at large. We're undoubtedly stuck with the
term for now, but as I hope we'll have occasion to discuss further down,
it can be a misleading one, since it is loaded down with a lot of
parallel and finely separated meanings.
[Dobzhansky and de Chardin]
> "The place of biological evolution in human thought was, according
> to Dobzhansky, best expressed in a passage that he often quoted from
> Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, `[Evolution] is a general postulate to
> which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must hence forward
> bow and which they must satisfy in order to be thinkable and true.
> Evolution is a light which illuminates all facts, a trajectory which all
> lines of thought must follow-this is what evolution is.' " (de Chardin
> P.T., "The Phenomenon of Man", 1955, p241, cited by Ayala F.J.,
> "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution":
> Theodosius Dobzhansky", Journal of Heredity, Vol. 68 (January-
> February 1977, pp3, 9, in Bird W.R., "The Origin of Species
> Revisited", 1991, Vol. II, p247)
The title should tip you off: "Nothing in *biology* makes sense except in
the light of evolution..." (emphasis mine), which D. was fond of saying.
Even in Ayala's original article, he prefaced the remark by pointing out
that 'biological evolution' was the subject of the word. I think D. is
right to congratulate de Chardin on pointing out the far-reaching
implications of biological evolution. In fact, the quantity of these
implications is a key factor, in my opinion, of what mobilizes opposition
to it these days. If our bodies and minds are shaped by evolutionary
forces, this has implications for society, psychology, politics, families,
ethics, what we can hope to learn and conceive in other disciplines, and
more. What it does *not* mean, however, is that somehow the cosmos as
a whole is in some kind of biological evolution, with mutations, selection,
and so forth. I don't know whether D. held to this view anyways, or not.
I guess de Chardin may have.
> This is no mere bit of recklessness. It is the mature reflection of two of
> the giants of Neo-Darwinism. They saw deeper than most, realising
> that evolution, if it was to be true, just *had* to be the most
> fundamental aspect of reality. After all, if matter is to evolve itself
I think you are reading more into their words than what they put there.
Perhaps they said "in biology" for a reason. And, yes, they felt that
evolutionary theory was the most fundamental factor in human existence.
Unfortunately for us, however, the universe seems largely indifferent
to human existence, and attributing what makes humans exist to be some
kind of 'fundamental aspect of reality' seems more than a little arrogant.
[what my kids textbooks say about thermo]
Stephen, thermodynamics applies to more than gases. Historically, it
was born dealing with properties of gases. Nowadays nobody cares about
gases, and thermo is used to do semiconductor physics, where particle
velocities often don't play a role--the canonical thermo example now is
the magnetic spin system, where all velocities are zero. Isn't this the
entire argument? That thermo applies to everything, not just gases? Is
it surprising, then, that "molecular velocities" are a secondary effect
in *some* systems, and not the basic fundamental of thermodynamics?
Consult a dedicated thermodynamics book (like Kittel, _Thermal Physics_)
if you are for some reason feeling very interested in the subject :-).
[entropy as evil]
> Nowhere did I say (or even think) that entropy is "evil". Ross points
> out that without the laws of thermodymamics, life would be impossible:
>
> "Considering how creatures convert chemical energy into kinetic
> energy, we can say that carnivorous activity results from the laws of
> thermodynamics, not from sin. Large, active, agile land animals either
> must spend virtually all their waking hours grazing, drinking, or
> digesting or they must consume meat. And I don't think we should
> hastily label the thermodynamic laws as evil. Without them, life in this
> universe would be impossible." (Ross H., "Creation and Time", 1994, p63)
Why did Ross feel the need to make this argument? Because, in many circles,
as I'm sure you're aware, it is believed that there is no death, no
carnivorous behavior, before evil. No break-down, no decay, etc. If you
agree with me that entropy isn't evil, so much the better :-), but there
*is* a view to that effect "out there." (I didn't mean to imply you
shared it, however. Why don't we agree that when we make a point, it
doesn't mean we believe the other person thinks the opposite.)
[confusion between biological evolution and cosmical evolution]
> No. I and my sources are not "confused" at all. On our first point, we
> agree with you that "entropy raises big question marks about the sort of
> cosmic evolution proposed by Tipler, for instance".
Due to your quote of Dobzhansky about biological evolution to bolster
this point, I'm inclined to think you remain confused.
> GB>How has the determination been made that the products of radioactive
> >decay are "simpler" than the initial elements? Is the definition of
> >'simple' here coherent?
>
> The products of radioactive decay are more "simple" than the initial
> elements in the sense that they are less "complex".
:-) This simply won't do. We need a publically available metric here,
not more word games.
> >SJ>modern astronomical evidence is showing that there is unidirectional
> >>"evolution" of matter from the state of high atomic complexity to one
> >>of atomic simplicity and a breakdown of matter farther into radiation.
> >>(Betts E.H., "Evolution and Entropy", JTVI, 76:1-18, 1944)" (Ramm
> >>B.L., "The Christian View of Science and Scripture", 1967 reprint,
> >>p193)
>
> GB>Imagine that.
>
> Maybe you miss the irony in Betts use of the word "evolution" to indicate
> the complete opposite from what evolution is normally thought to be?
No, this is the core of the problems surrounding the word. In popular
usage, it means some kind of developmental change--"the cutting edge of
societal evolution" for instance. In more systematic usage, it refers
to the change over time in a system--"stellar evolution," "unidirectional
'evolution' of matter", the "evolution of the quantum system" and so forth.
In biology, it refers to the complex of theories about mutations, selection,
speciation modalities, genetic sampling theories, history of life, and
so on. This is one reason Darwin was leery of the term--it was rapidly
co-opted into the lexicon that 'biological evolution' referred to the
developmental (i.e. teleological) change in organisms over time. This
is still the dominant misunderstanding which I think drives second-law
type criticisms. There is also the view that the cosmos as a whole is
developing along some developmental trajectory, i.e. Tipler, various "Age
of Aquarius" New Age type ideas, etc. I think there's a powerful
thermodynamical argument that this isn't the case, but however that
particular argument plays out, I'm not sure how much it could possibly
have to do with biology.
> >SJ> Clearly there cannot be two diametrically opposed ultimate grand
> >>metaphysical theories. Ultimately "Clausius and Darwin cannot both
> >>be right." (Caillois R., "Coherences Adventureuses", 1976, in
>
> GB>Bingo. Darwin didn't propose any sort of cosmic evolutionary idea.
> >The conversion of the 'philosophically correct' cosmic evolution
> >to biological evolution is complete, illustrating once again why
> >this pernicious misunderstanding is so hard to get rid of--people
> >using it as an ideological axe just can't keep themselves in the
> >left-hand lane.
>
> I think you are over-literalising the word "Darwin". Callois is
> using "Clausius" and "Darwin" as figures of speech.
Yes, Callois is using them as figures of speech for the 'ultimate grand
metaphysical theories.' Except that neither proposed grand metaphysical
theories. I'm not sure what this does to defend Callois--it seems to
me to further accentuate the fact that this is an argument based on
personal metaphorical extrapolation, and not on the theories themselves.
> And the people with "an ideological axe" to grind are not confined to
> the creationist side. Evolutionists (who after all are in the dominant
> position in our society) are constantly trying to link "cosmic
> evolution" with "biological evolution". Here is Dobzhansky and
> Stebbins, et al, (Stebbins being yet another co-founder of Neo-
> Darwinism), claiming "the concept of evolution has been applied not
> only to the living world but to the nonbiological as well...the entire
> universe":
I don't think you've made this case with the above quote, but I agree
in general that there are those who do--i.e. the 'evolution is an
algorithm' stance of Dennett, saying that evolutionary theory can apply
equally to other kinds of 'substrates.' While this may be true in some
very limited sense, there is no evidence that it is cosmologically
occurring, and the potential that evolution as a process is an algorithm
doesn't mean it is metaphysically meaningful--there are more algorithms
than you can devise an algorithm to count.
> "What is the relationship between organic and other kinds of
> evolution? During the century and more since Darwinism came into
> being, the concept of evolution has been applied not only to the living
> world but to the nonbiological as well. Thus, we speak of the
> evolution of the entire universe, the solar system, and the physical
> earth, apart from the organisms that inhabit it." (Dobzhansky T.,
> Ayala F.J., Stebbins G.L. & Valentine J.W. "Evolution", 1977, p9)
We do indeed speak of stellar evolution and so forth, but I'm not sure
what analogies are being claimed for these processes with biological
evolution.
[...]
> Or here is Harvard's dean of living evolutionary biologists, Ernst Mayr,
> linking "Cosmic evolution and biological evolution" together, by "the idea
> of...change over long periods of time":
It may bear repeating that 'change over long times' isn't developmental,
directed, or "anti-entropy" by nature--it is simply the idea that the
universe (or the biosphere) changes. This is exactly what the second
law predicts, BTW.
[partial quote from Mayr...]
> that the universe, the stars the earth and all living things have evolved
> through a long history that was not foreordained or programmed, a
> history of continual, gradual change shaped by more or less
> directional natural processes consistent with the laws of physics.
If this is the 'cosmic evolution' that you're after, you must have noticed
that its been watered down to the point of unrecognizability--"continual
change driven by the laws of physics" has nothing remotely counter to
the second law of thermodynamics involved. Where is the grand conflict
of metaphysical ideas? It vanishes as soon as evolution is stripped of
its popularized "directional" and "developmental" connotations and used
in the more thematized sense of 'change over time' or 'historical change
of some system.' (N.B. "development" itself is used in this stripped-down
sense now). This, in my opinion, is exactly the misunderstanding that
drives this conflict most repeatably--you can quote long beatitudes by
people referring to the 'evolution of the cosmos' and claim that they're
making some grand anti-thermodynamics metaphysical statement about the
fundamental reality of the universe, and all people like me see is a
paean to the fact that "things change over time," which seems to us like
exactly what the second law is saying. As I said at the beginning of
this overly-long post, this confusion in terms is a persistent one, and
needs to be 'educated away' by discussions about the different usages.
>
> See above. Thhen at leaves fully naturalistic evolutionists with the
> task of explaining how the "temporary uphill exceptions" managed to
> bootstrap themselves in a "universe" which "is ultimately downhill".
The exceptions are in open systems; the overall entropy goes downhill
at every instant. The bootstrapping process is in an area which the
second law is very hard to apply--non-equilibrium thermodynamics. (Most
thermo"dynamics" is really thermo*statics*.)
[codes and conversion mechanisms]
> "In order for low entropy complex organized systems to be produced,
> at least four conditions must be satisfied: 1. The system must be an
> open system; 2. All adequate outside supply of energy must be
> available; 3. An energy conversion system must exist to convert the
> raw, uncontrolled energy coming in from the outside to a controlled
> form that can be utilized in a constructive way by the system
> undergoing change; 4. There must be a control system capable of
> regulating the activities of the system undergoing change, such that
> the changes are progressive and integrative rather than meaningless
> and destructive." (Gish D.T., "Creation Scientists Answer Their
> Critics", 1993, p177)
So in the case of the pond, we've got the first: the system is open.
We've got number 2, the energy is adequate, I'm not sure what 3 and 4
are, and they seem to be the key to the whole problem. Where is the
energy conversion system in the pond which "controls" the energy and
"utilizes" it in a "constructive" way to change the pond's entropy?
Where is the pond's "control system"? Does every pothole with a bit
of water in it have a "control system"?
> Morris says the "codes" are "a program to direct the growth" (eg. the
> "genetic program" in "the DNA molecule"), and the conversion
> mechanisms" are (or is) "a power converter to energize the growth"
> (eg. "photosynthesis"):
Ponds have something analogous to DNA???? This can't be what they mean...
> (a) There must be a program to direct the growth. A growth process
> which proceeds by random accumulations will not lead to an ordered
> structure but merely a heterogeneous blob. Some kind of pattern,
> blueprint or code must be there to begin with, or no ordered growth
> can take place. In the case of the organism this is the intricately
> complex genetic program, structured as an information system into
> the DNA molecule for the particular organism. In the case of the
> building, it is the set of plans prepared by the architects and
> engineers.
So in a melting pond, the program might be, what, a crystalline imperfection
that creates a center where melting is easier?
> (b) There must be a power converter to energize the growth. The
> available environmental energy is of no avail unless it can be
> converted into the specific forms needed to organize and bond the
> components into the complex and ordered structure of the completed
> system. Unless such a mechanism is available, the environmental
> energy more likely will break down any structure already present. In
> the case of a seed, one of the required energy conversion mechanisms
> is the marvelous process called photosynthesis, which by some
> incompletely under- stood complex of reactions converts sunlight into
> the building of the plant's structure. In the animal numerous complex
> mechanisms-digestion, blood circulation, respiration, etc.-combine to
> transform food into body structure. In the case of the building, fossil
> fuels and human labor operate numerous complex electrical and
> mechanical devices to erect the structure. And so on."
>
> (Morris H.M., "Scientific Creationism", 1985, pp43-45)
I'm afraid I'm at a loss to suggest what the 'power converter' is which
structures melting. It seems rather to be built into the physics of
water that when it is above a certain temperature, it behaves a certain
way.
If this is the case, it seems like at bottom the claims for codes and
converters must be scaled back to the vanishing point where they're
identified with the microphysical qualities of the thing, or, in
thermodynamics terms, with the fact that their partition function is
the way it is. I think there is a lot to be done here--it is clear that
inputting raw energy into a system doesn't *necessarily* lead to
local entropy decreases, but I'm not sure where codes and converters
fit into the ultimate answer.
-Greg