This post is a response to Stephen Jones' long post of 27 MAR 00. Even
though much material has been excised it has still ballooned to such a
size that it has been divided into 2 posts. I hope very much that such
extensive responses will not be necessary in any subsequent discussion
with Stephen about this issue. If so, I will not have the time or
stamina to do it.
<snip preliminary discussion of my post of 14 AUG 97 explaining why the
cosmic argument mentioned by Ratzsch is invalid>
SJ>Thanks to David for this. But *1996* and *1997* (below) hardly qualifies
>for me "repeatedly bringing the quote up"!
Huh? What does the date of the correction have to do with it?
> ...
SJ>And reading David's 1997 post now, it does not say that the "*both* the cosmi
c
>*and* the Earth-based arguments are completely bogus".
It doesn't have to. The phrase was my characterization of those
arguments that they were completely bogus. That characterization was not
intended as a quote from 3 year old posts. The characterization is
correct. Both arguments *are* completely bogus. The message I referred
to explained why the cosmic argument was incorrect. The fact that the
earth-based argument was, too, incorrect was already settled, I presumed,
because its refutation is so widespread, because it was previously
pointed out to you on an at least one other occasion, and because you
brought up the Ratzsch quote in the first place it seemed that you were
conceding the earth-based argument but were standing behind the cosmic
one.
Regarding this invalidity of the earth-based argument and the invalidity
of your previous claim that "an energy conversion mechanism" needs to be
supplied for the growth of macroscopic order in an open subsystem I wish
to point out that these things had cetainly already been previously
pointed out to you before my post of 14 AUG 97. In a private reply I
sent to you dated 20 AUG 96 17:42:51 -5:00 in response to comments you
made to the reflector on the thread whose subject was "Re: TE is an
oxymoron 1/2" I explained why both claims (need for "energy conversion
mechanism", and earth-based 2nd law argument) are wrong. A copy of that
message is given below (on the outside chance that someone on the list
might be interested in the arguments). Even though I never intended that
my characterizing phrase "completely bogus" has to explicitly appear in
these old messages it is interesting anyway to note the concluding
paragraph and the last sentence where I even happened to characterize the
2nd law argument (earth-based) as "thoroughly bogus" back in 96 (before
anyone started talking on the reflector about the Ratzsch quote about the
cosmic argument which also has a 96 copyright).
====================insert old 11k message==========================
>Subject: Re: TE is an oxymoron 1/2
>Creator: dbowman@tiger.gtc.georgetowncollege.edu
>Original Msg Id: 199608182112.VAA198151(a)smtp-gw01.ny.us.ibm.net
>Create Date: 08/20/96 17:42:51
>FROM: dbowman@tiger.gtc.georgetowncollege.edu
>TO: sejones@ibm.net
>
>Hi Stephen,
>
>You wrote to the evolution reflector (answering Neal Roys):
>
>> NR>*Evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics:
>> >producing order from disorder is possible with the addition of
>> >energy, such as from the sun.
>>
>> Too simplistic. Energy alone is insufficient. There must also be an
>> energy conversion mechanism:
><snip>
>
> You then extensively quote from Thaxton, et. al.'s "The Mystery of Life's
>Origin. Whether or not some pre-existing "energy conversion mechanism" is
>present is *irrelevant* regarding the 2nd Law. The law does *not* address the
>issue one way or another. Neal is correct that evolution does not violate
>the 2nd law. Whether or not spontaneous abiogenesis can occur and whether or
>not some major macroevolutionary hurdles can be crossed via purely
>naturalistic processes is a legitimate concern. But this issue of whether or
>not such things can happen has nothing to do with the 2nd law. Probablistic
>arguments might be made, but these do not concern the 2nd law in themselves.
>As a matter of fact Prigogine got a Nobel prize for showing how certain self-
>organizing "dissipative structures" form and work in open systems. Such
>structures form a certain amount of complexity at the macroscopic level
>*spontaneously* and *are themselves* "energy conversion mechanisms". They
>macroscopically order and complexify things while *not* violating the law--on
>the contrary, they are driven BY the 2nd law. We know that a heat engine
>(energy conversion mechanism) can produce order "by force" by doing macroscopic
>work on a system. In a sense dissipative structures are spontaneously forming
>heat engines which produce macroscopic order by doing macroscopic work. In
>order for such dissipative structures to form the system must be maintained in
>a state of disequilibrium by the boundary conditions on the system which
>enforce a gradient of (some of) the intensive thermodynamic potentials across
>the system. For convenience a fluid-like system can be imagined for
>definiteness. For instance, a temperature gradient is necessary where one part
>of the system's surroundings is hot and another part of the surroundings is
>cold and it is assumed that for the system to have thermal energy transported
>across its boundaries (i.e. the system can be heated or cooled from the
>outside because it is not thermally insulated). Such temperature differences
>must be maintained via external boundary conditions for a dissipative
>structure to form inside the system. Similarly, a gradient in the chemical
>potentials (or concentrations) of the various particle species present across
>the sample is could be externally maintained if the sample's boundaries are
>permeable to a particle flux. Or a pressure or stress gradient may be
>externally enforced if the location of the boundaries are dynamically
>adjustable (i.e. the volume, or shape of the system is not a priori fixed).
>
>In ordinary equilibrium thermodynamics no such gradients exist, and it is
>straightforward thermodynamics to show that the system equilibrates by
>acquiring uniform values of these intensive parameters across the sample
>which are equal to the values of them in the environment which are enforced by
>external conditions. In other words the temperature, pressure and chemical
>concentrations become uniform internal to the system and equal to their values
>in the environment of the system given that heat flow into and out of the
>system is allowed, the volume is flexible, and the system's boundaries are
>permeable to particle fluxes. As the system equilibrates macroscopic fluxes
>across the boundaries which allow the intensive parameters inside the system
>to change and match their external values. It is straightforward to show that
>the combined entropy of the system plus the entropy of the environment is
>maximized as these intensive parameters become uniform everywhere.
>
>If in this case the system's boundaries are impermeable to particle flow then
>the system will equilibrate with a discontinuity in particle concentration
>at the boundary. And the final particle concentration is uniform with a value
>which is the total conserved particle number inside the system divided by the
>system volume. If the system's boundary is rigid and allows no shape or
>volume change then the internal pressure and stress inside the system is
>discontinuous across the boundary but is uniform throughout the system. If the
>system is thermally insulated so no heat can cross the system's boundaries,
>then the temperature is discontinuous at the system's boundaries and the final
>temperature is uniform throughout the system and its value is determined by
>how much conserved total energy was trapped inside the system and is a function
>relating the value of the number of assessible microscopic states the system
>has as a function of the energy inside. (The logarithm of this function is
>the isolated system's entropy and the deriviative of this logarithm evaluated
>at the energy the system actually has gives the reciprocal of the (absolute)
>temperature that the system equilibriates to.)
>
>If the system remains open and external conditions are themselves *not*
>uniform the system cannot equilibrate to them. For instance if one side of
>the system has a high temperature enviromnment and the other side has a low
>temperature environment then the internal temperature of the system cannot be
>uniform and equal to two different numbers at once. In this case a relatively
>uniform temperature gradient forms across the sample continuously connecting
>the temperature on one side of the sample with the other side. Things
>settle down in this case to a steady-state flow of heat from the high
>temperature side through the system to the low temperature side. This steady
>state is as close as the system is allowed to come to equilbrium. Similarly
>for a permeable system a particle flux current flows relatively uniformly
>across the sample from the high particle concentration side to the low
>concentration side, and the particle concentration smoothly connects across
>the sample from the high value on one side to the low concentration value on
>the other one.
>
>The above senario is always valid for a system where the externally enforced
>differences in the intensive parameters is "small" across the system with
>correspondingly small gradients. If, OTOH, such differences across the sample
>system become "large" the system maintained is in a far-from-equilibrium
>state. When the system is in such a far-from-equilibrium state with a
>strongly nonlinear dynamics, the system, in many cases, spontaneously forms a
>"dissipative structure" which is characterized by non-uniformity in space and
>time at the macroscopic level. The dissipative structure gives the system
>both complexity and order at the macroscopic level. Examples such dissipative
>structures can be things as diverse as weather systems including hurricanes/
>typhoons, tornadoes, and thunderstorms in the atmosphere to more mundane, but
>complicated, convective fluid flows, to the dynamical structures which power
>sun spots, to weird chemical reactions such as the Belousov-Zhaboitnsky
>reaction where the various relative concentrations of the reactants and
>product chemicals undergo complicated oscillations in time.
>
>The important thing to keep in mind about such a spontaneous self-organization
>process involved in making the order seen in the production of dissipative
>systems is that the presence of the order is fed and maintained BY the 2nd law
>rather than being a violation of it. The dissipative structure "energy
>conversion mechanism" which appears on its own actually causes the system to
>generate more total entropy at a faster rate in the composite (system) +
>(environment) than the system would be capable of generating if it remained a
>steady-state with time-independent uniformly smooth gradients of the intensive
>parameters (as would be the case when the disequilibrium is small).
>
>The *open* earth spontaneously generates dissipative structures that produce
>the complicated atmospheric, oceanic, and deep mantle circulations seen in the
>earth. For surface structures the disequilibrium is ultimately caused
>because the surroundings of the earth are not at a constant temperature. The
>temperature in space around the earth is at about 2.7 K in most directions,
>but is at 5800 K in the direction towards the sun. This huge temperature
>difference allows energy to enter the earth's upper layers (atmosphere,
>oceans surface rock layers) and then be radiated back out to the cold of
>outer space. The net energy flow is from hot (the sun) to cold (outer space)
>(allowing heat engines to operate between these two heat reserviors). Also
>complicated self-organizing dissipative structures (acting effectively like
>a heat engine) may spontaneously form on the earth which then aid and speed up
>the pumping of the energy through the system. In fact is this surface
>disequilibrium which provides the habitat for living things which siphon off,
>for their own use, some of the throughput of this energy flow and keep
>themselves organized with it.
>
>What allows us to understand why the 2nd law is not violated is remembering
>what entropy measures, and how that changes as a system interacts with it's
>environment. The entropy of a system is: *the amount of information needed to
>predict, with certainty, which exact microscopic state it is in given only the
>macroscopic description of the system*. This concept effectively only
>measures disorder at the microscopic level of the individual degrees of
>freedom of the individual particles which make it up. This concept is
>effectively irrelevant at the macroscopic level of systems and their parts
>substantially larger than the individual constituent subatomic particles which
>make up the system.
>
>A single zygote or an acorn does not have much of an apparatus (at the
>macroscopic level) as an "energy conversion system" but such things
>spontaneously turn into elephants and oak trees, each with their own
>complexity. The complexity of the organism grows as the organism grows.
>The elephant is much more complicated than the zygote from which it formed.
>This does not violate the 2nd law and neither would the process of repeated
>generations of living things gradually changing into other organisms
>(i.e. evolution).
>
>It very well may be (as far as I'm concerned) that the special order seen in
>the DNA of the genome of a complicated living being is more than can be
>explained by the usual naturalistic Darwinian mechanisms. But this is a
>DIFFERENT ISSUE and NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SECOND LAW.
>
>As far as I'm concerned the philosophical naturalists have by no means proved
>their case that the most major macroevolutionary jumps can and do happen as
>seen in the fossil record as well that original life arose spontaneously from
>non-life. It's just that the 2nd law objection to it is thoroughly bogus.
>
>David Bowman
>dbowman@gtc.georgetown.ky.us
=====================end inserted old 11k message===================
<snip a quote by SJ from my last post and a repitition of the charge that
my post did not contain the phrase "completely bogus">
SJ>Second, David still misses Ratzsch (and my) point. *No one*, not Henry
>Morris, not me, not anyone, is claiming that "the SLOT...does... preclude
>various *subsystems* of the universe from increasing in macroscopic
>complexity and order *and* from even locally decreasing in thermodynamic
>entropy itself."
Yes, some do so claim. Many creationists (even you as seen above) have
also claimed it was only possible by having some "energy conversion
mechanism" in place. Such a mechanism has nothing to do with the second
law. It's wrong anyway.
If I missed your point you didn't make it. You keep hiding behind the
Ratzsch quote. There is no reason to bring up the cosmic argument either
because the result applies to it just as much as it applies to other
smaller subsystems such as the Earth. In the case of the cosmic venue,
the matter of the universe spontaneously organizes itself (with the help
of gravitation) to form a whole hierachical array of complex macroscopic
structures with their own complicated organized internal dynamics:
planets, dwarfs, stars, black holes, quasars, galaxies, galactic
clusters, superclusters, etc. This organization of the matter of the
universe does *not* violate or go against the direction of the 2nd law.
No pre-existing "energy conversion mechanism" is needed for this either,
and even if it was, it would not be part of the 2nd law anyway. The
spontaneous macroscopic organization of the matter of the universe is a
consequence of the action of the 2nd law (among other things); it is not
a process that opposes that law. The simple fact is that the matter of
the universe is a small subsystem of the universe as a whole when it is
quantified by its relevant measure, (i.e. the number of degrees of
freedom pertaining to the matter). The number of degrees of freedom in
the EM field (which is the venue of the highly equilibrated cosmic
background radiation) completely swamps those of the matter. The EM
field has no problem being an entropy sink for all the matter.
If you think that there is some point of yours and/or Ratzsch's that I
missed, would you please make that point clearly yourself. Please do not
submit a barrage of quotes.
<snip SJ quote from my message>
SJ>See above. David needs to clear his mind of his preconceptions and look what
>Ratzsch and I are *really* saying.
If you think my mind is clouded by preconceptions, would you explain what
you think you and Ratzsch are "*really* saying"? From my perspective, I
think I know what Ratzsch has said in your oft-repeated quote. Maybe you
interpret that quote and the situation differently. If so, please
explain your take on the matter.
>>SJ>2. I am unaware that anyone on this Reflector, including David, has ever
>>>pointed out to me that "*both* the cosmic *and* the Earth-based
>>>>arguments are completely bogus".
>
>DB>Apparently you forgot. BTW, why did you stipulate "anyone on this
>>Reflector"? Has this been possibly pointed out to you in some other
>>venue, too?
>
SJ>First, I did not forget. I am well aware that I have discussed the second law
>before and that I have posted the Ratzsch quote before. What I was
>referring to was the "completely bogus" part of David's claim.
What I meant you "apparently forgot" was the fact that both arguments
have been pointed out to you as invalid (i.e. completely bogus). I did
not refer to you forgetting that you had repeated those arguments.
SJ>Second, the "anyone on this Reflector" means just what it says: no one on
>this Reflector, AFAIK, "has ever pointed out to me that `*both* the cosmic
>*and* the Earth-based arguments are completely bogus".
They have. You probably just forgot or didn't notice, and instead of
simply acknowledging it, you try to justify yourself by arbitrarily
requiring that an exact wording of a characterizing phrase appear in the
messages that pointed this out.
SJ> ...
>Second, David has not even made a "refutation" of it. All David has done is
>repeat what Ratzsch in his chapter "Creationist Theory: Popular
>Evolutionist Misunderstandings" calls "Perhaps the most prevalent of the
>misconstruals of creationism" (Ratzsch D.L., "The Battle of Beginnings,"
>1996, p.91)
Huh? I'm well aware (thanks to your repetitions) what the quote says.
What other "misconstruals of creationism" do you think I have repeated?
I don't think I have repeated any pertaining to the quote itself.
My explanation *did* explain why the cosmic argument is wrong. Its wrong
because the 2nd law doesn't forbid the cosmic macroscopic stucturing of
the matter in the universe, as I illustrated with the example of the
collapsing process that forms stars from clouds of gas and dust. (The
errors of the earth-based arguments have been explained before, too.)
To be continued on part 2
David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 29 2000 - 21:48:01 EST