DNAunion: [... PART 2. see other post for PART 1]
>>>David Bowman: The only conceivable special exception to this which may
have any remote relevance whatsoever to the 2nd law of thermodynamics is *if*
one *identifies* what one *means* by the system's so-called 'disorder' to be
identical with the thermodynamic entropy of a system, so then the 2nd law's
insistence that the thermodynamic entropy of the system + that of those parts
of its environment interacting with it not decrease with time means that this
particular (and peculiar) measure of this total 'disorder' doesn't decrease.
Typically such an identification would be an unfortunate choice of definition
for the concept 'disorder' in general. Usually, we think of 'order' and
'disorder' in terms of possible patterns and symmetries of arrangements of
things. Entropy doesn't necessarily have anything to do with such concepts.
Rather, it is only a measure of net uncertainty or total ignorance about the
identity of the system's microscopic state
given only a knowlege of its macroscopic state. It doesn't concern itself
with any possible patterns and symmetries or their absence in general.
***********************
DNAunion: I have already provided several quotes from biologists,
biochemists, and physicists that DO state that entropy is a measure of the
disorder of a system. Here is another.
[quote]"The most unexpected, and possibly the most profound, use of power
thinking [i.e., exponentiation and logarithms] was introduced by the great
nineteenth-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. In his pioneering
investigations of thermodynamics, the study of heat, Boltzmann faced a
dilemma concerning a strange quantity called entropy, which measures energy
that cannot produce work. Entropy, according to the second law of
thermodynamics, tends to increase; it is measurable as heat divided by
temperature.
But Boltzmann knew entropy must also be related to another property of
atoms that also increases - namely, their disorder. Chemists had discovered
that entropy, like volume and energy, is an additive property. Join two
identical vessels of gas, and the combined volume, energy and entropy each
double. But disorder, which is expressed as a probability, is measured by
the number of ways in which a system can be rearranged. So disorder turns
out to be multiplicative, not additive. To illustrate that concept, suppose
the molecules in a vessel can be rearranged in a million ways without any
change to their volume, temperature or pressure. If those molecules are
combined with the molecules in another, identical vessel, the total number of
ways in which all the molecules can be rearranged is not two million, but a
million million.
Faced with the baffling problem of relating an additive property to a
multiplicative one, Boltzmann, in a stroke of genius, reached for the
logarithmic function. The relation he discovered was revolutionary: Entropy,
denoted by the letter S, is proportional to the logarithm of the number of
ways that a system can be rearranged, W. Boltzmann's epitaph, inscribed on
his gravestone in Vienna, is S = k log W, the formula that brought him fame.
The universal constant k, which fixes the units of entropy, is known as
Boltzmann's constant.
That constant happens to be extremely small (10^-23 in standard units),
and therein lies a puzzle. The entropy S is measured in the chemical
laboratory with thermometers, barometers, meter sticks and other macroscopic
devices. In normal, everyday units, its value therefore turns out to be a
normal, everyday kind of number. That implies, in turn, that log W must be
extremely large, to compensate for the small size of k. But the log, as I
noted earlier, is usually not a large number. In fact, the entire point of
the log was to represent large numbers by small ones. But W turns out to be
not just big, but immense. For a bottle full of air at room temperature, for
instance, it is estimated that the number of molecular rearrangements, W, is
something like 10^10^22 (ten to the power 10^22). The only way such a
monster number (a 1 followed by 10^22 zeros) can be tamed is to take its log
and multiple it by the minuscule factor k. Thus the logarithmic function
mediates not only between mind and matter, but also between the macroscopic
world of people and the microworld of atoms." (Hans Christian Von Baeyer,
Power Tool: Thinking with Logarithms Offers Mainline Access to the Worlds of
the Very Large and the Very Small, The Sciences, September/October 2000,
p14)[/quote]
********************
>>>David Bowman: […] But there are multiple problems with this naive and
fuzzy identification of entropy and disorder.
First, the *only* kind of "disorder" that has any relevance to anything
associated with the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and has any relevance at all
to any so-called nature of matter to have a "tendency towards
disorder" is the "disorder" associated with the physical system's
thermodynamic entropy. This is *only* concerned with the system's
*microscopic states* and any possible "order/disorder" at *that* level.
It has *nothing* directly to do with any patterns, or ordering that may or
may not form at any macroscopic level of description.
********************
DNAunion: Those that say entropy is associated also with disorder in
macroscopic entities come from many scientific disciplines. I believe you
are claiming to have *the* definition, because you are using a definition
from physics, which underlies all the other sciences and therefore has
priority. Is this your position? Are all those molecular biologists
mangling and distorting the true meaning of entropy? (If so, does that make
them Creationists? :-) )
********************
>>>David Bowman: Physical systems have *no* problem spontaneously forming
any ordered or complex
arrangements at an aggregate or macroscopic level.
That's why such things as oak trees form from acorns,
******************************
DNAunion: All life requires that it actively maintain itself far above
thermodynamic equilibrium. For an acorn to grow into an oak, it must fight
against, and "overcome", entropic tendencies at every moment along the way.
This example does not contradict my statements.
*******************************
>>>David Bowman: hurricanes form from masses of unstable humid airover
warmocean water
********************
DNAunion: Hurricanes are not organized, just ordered. Being organized is a
higher state than being ordered, as organization implies multiple parts
operating together as a whole. A pile of leafs is ordered, but not
organized. A car's engine (or a cell) is both ordered and organized.
********************
>>David Bowman: … regular mud cracks form when a muddy field dries out in
the hot direct sunlight,
*********************
DNAunion: Again, not organized.
Besides, I could come up with a long list of things that "fall apart" in
nature spontaneously.
*********************
>>>David Bowman: stars and planetary systems form from interstellar clouds
of gas & dust, etc. etc. all with no problem whatsoever from the limitations
of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
***************
DNAunion: No, all life "defies" the second law on an ongoing basis (note the
double quotes around "defies"). That is, left to itself, with no input of
energy and/or matter from the surroundings, all life follows entropic
principles and becomes less and less ordered until finally it lives no more.
Life - every cell that currently exists or has ever existed - must
continually struggle against entropy. Entropy is against the
highly-organized and complex arrangements of atoms and molecules associated
with life. ***************
>>>David Bowman: In fact, such macroscopicly organized systems
spontaneously, form *by* the action of the 2nd law when a sufficiently
far-from-equilibrium condition is maintained by the boundary conditions
imposed on the system as it interacts with its environment in ways that
generate more total thermodynamic entropy in the universe at a higher rate
when the system organizes than would be the case if the system remained
unorganized at the macroscopic level.
****************
DNAunion: If I read this correctly, it sounds like what I stated: that local
increases in order (decreases in entropy) can occur if equal or greater
decreases in order occur elsewhere; and the flow of matter and/or energy
through a system can generate local increases in order.
****************
[…]
>>>DNAunion: I may not understand your question, but a flow of matter/energy
through a system can "overcome" the local natural tendency towards disorder.
>>>David Bowman: Any such flow itself *is* a natural tendency. There is
nothing to"overcome" here. Laws of nature are not "overcome" or abrogated by
other natural processes. (At least in physics they aren't.)
**********************************
DNAunion: I disagree. By "natural", I am assuming you mean governed
completely and only by the laws of physics and chemistry. A human must eat
in order to survive - in order to "overcome" entropy (i.e., his or her cells
must actively maintain their cellular reactions far above thermodynamic
equilibrium). The flow of matter and energy through a human that allows him
or her to survive is not provided naturally from the environment, as in
photosynthesis (which itself relies on preexisting photosynthetic complexes).
Humans have to *actively* and *consciously* obtain their food. They
themselves are responsible for the flow of matter/energy that "overcomes"
entropy. Mammals, reptiles, birds, fruit flies, squids, etc. also all have
to seek out and actively obtain their food - they can't just lie around in
the sun and manufacture their own, or absorb nutrients directly through their
"skin" by diffusion. The flow of energy through these organisms is a product
of mere physics and chemistry - it also requires the active, "conscious", and
direct participation of the organisms themselves. Without their own
involvement, entropy would take over and they would die.
************************************
>>>Ccogan: Thus, the question arises: Might not some small bits of it become
complex through natural, material processes not involving design?
>>>DNAunion: Sure, matter can become *ordered* without design: the birth of
stars, the spontaneous formation of vortices when water is let out of a
drain, clouds forming from dispersed water droplets, etc. But these examples
of order forming do not deal with specific complexity arising by purely
natural means, and specified complexity is one of the main properties of all
life.
>>>David Bowman: DNAunion's own examples here show that matter does not have
the "tendency" he supposes.
**************
DNAunion: The examples I gave here are not examples of organization, but
merely order. FMAJ included organization in his original statement to which
I was replying. My above statements do not contradict my others.
**************
>>>David Bowman: The 2nd law is not at all concerned one way or the other
with the presence or absence of specified complexity. Any appeal to the 2nd
law of thermodynamics and to thermodynamic entropy to attempt to justify a
supposition that only ID can create specified complexity is a red herring,
non sequitur, and just plain wrong.
**************
DNAunion: To whom are you preaching? Where did I use the second law to show
that only intelligent agents can create specified complexity? In fact, just a
few sentences later in the post to which you are replying I stated: "…I feel
it safe to conclude that no IDist has yet been able to create an airtight
case for specified complexity's not being able to arise by natural
processes".
You are stereotyping my comments, applying a prejudicial bias. Please pay
attention to what I myself say, and not what you have heard others say, when
addressing my statements and making implications as to what I am trying to
demonstrate.
Please refrain from incorrectly labeling my statements as "red herring, non
sequitur, and just plain wrong" if you do not understand them.
**************
>>>FMAJ: So show how specified complexity cannot be formed by evolutionary
pathways?
>>>DNAunion: I already gave a general example: the latest issue of "Origins
of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere".
*************
DNAunion: No response here by David Bowman?
*************
>>>DNAunion: Now, if I could give honest-to-goodness, verifiable, valid
examples from biology - and fully back them up in excruitiating detail - then
we probably wouldn't be having this discussion at all as ID would have
catapulted up in scientific credibility. Since ID has not made the leap, I
feel it safe to conclude that no IDist has yet been able to create an
airtight case for specified complexity's not being able to arise by natural
processes ("airtight" being required for IDists).
>>>David Bowman: This is a refreshing bit of candor. So instead of simply
demonstrating that 'mindless' natural processes are incapable of generating
specified complexity as DNAunion and other IDers claim, he (and often others)
instead, try to substitute fuzzy and invalid appeals to entropy, 2nd law or
some supposed ill-defined tendency of matter toward "disorder" hoping that
the audience will be duped, and only if they object will it be conceded that
such appeals are, in fact, without any real foundation.
****************
DNAunion: Again, you are reading stereotypical biases into my statements -
interpreting them subjectively - and making them say things I never did.
Please stick to my statements when saying what "DNAunion" is stating.
I did *NOT* say in these exchanges that entropy prevents evolution, or
prevents the origin of life, or prevents order or complexity from arising in
nature. What I said was, contrary to FMAJ's claim, there *is* something that
is against matter's becoming or remaining in a complex, organized state:
entropy. That is true. But entropy can be "overcome" - in the same sense as
gravity can be "overcome" - by the flow of matter and/or energy through a
system.
*****************
>>>David Bowman: If you want to take the claim of the impossibility of
natural processes to be able to generate specified complexity as a matter of
faith, that's fine.
***************
DNAunion: Would you please read what I *actually* said, and not what you
*wish* I said.
***************
>>>David Bowman: Just don't go around also trying to also claim that these
IDist articles of faith are a form of science.
*******************
DNAunion: Why don't you stop going around twisting IDist's statements, then
claiming your altered versions to be wrong in an attempt to refute the IDist.
Now David. I have provided several biological examples that clearly show
that there *is* something that opposes matter's becoming organized in complex
ways in relation to biology. Proteins decomposing spontaneously; amino acids
not polymerizing spontaneously; monosaccharides not linking spontaneously;
nucleic acids decomposing spontaneously; nucleotides not spontaneously
joining into polynucleotides; cells having to actively maintain themselves
far above thermodynamic equilibrium; etc. I call this *something* entropy,
in agreement with the college texts and other scientific materials I have
read, and referenced.
What is your position? Is it that the examples I listed here are false?
That would be a bad position to take. Or is it that they are true, but that
the molecular biologists and others who explained them have distorted the
"true" meaning of entropy, and/or its use in relation to the 2nd law? If so,
then you would still be agreeing that there is something that opposes matters
being organized in complex ways, just that that something is not
*thermodynamic entropy*. Or have I overlooked a possibility?
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