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***0
As I wanted to comment on
virtually everything Frank Steiger said, I have interleaved my comments with
his. This involves some repetition as there is repetition in his file.
This is partly in laymans terms to try to
clarify it as some people juggle the scientific information and concepts as
separate pieces of data and never get it to coalesce into one easy understandable
concept. References are given for those who want more exacting scientific
data.
To clarify the comments mine start with
***0
and end with.
Frank starts:-
Wallace echoes the creationist propaganda that evolution violates the second
law of thermodynamics, which states that a thermodynamics property called
entropy can never spontaneously decrease.
***1
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There is no known example of entropy spontaneously decreasing in the living
realm, which is what creationists must be referring to as it is about the
evolution of life, and not in any way about the non-living, physical
systems realm. Evolutionists cause confusion and
misunderstanding because they treat both realms as if they are identical,
ie: that life reacts the same as rocks and gas. As you will see Frank (and
evolutionists in general) has a fixation on "ideal gas" which he uses to
try to prove that life should obey the same laws, in exactly the same way
as a gas, and be processed through the same equations, looking only at
aspects that apply to the non-living, and not considering how it applies
to the various aspects of the living. Both do obey the laws of
thermodynamics, both suffer from entropy, but the aspects that are
important are vastly different, so the way in which the calculations are
done must be different.
His, and evolutionists in general, reasoning is
that if radiation from the sun can raise the temperature of the ideal gas,
or any other body, and this can be calculated as an entropy decrease,
because there is now more heat that can do work, that bombarding life
forms with the sun's radiation must also be an entropy decrease, even if
it desiccates the life form into oblivion. But this does not increase the
information or complexity of the life form, which is what creationists are
referring to.
The problem is the measurement of the aspect that matters in
the application being considered. If you are operating a coal-fired steam
engine then the temperature is all-important, the intricacies of the
pressure regulation or valves is not a part of consideration at the
moment, for the completion of this trip. Our dog often lies out in the sun
and eventually gets too hot, and moves into the shade. If we now process
this through the same formula as the "ideal gas" then the hot dog has had
an entropy decrease as it now has more heat that can be used to do work,
according to the formula. But we know that the dog is now too hot to do
anything, and in fact lost energy in having to move into the shade. This
cannot do anything useful in the realm of evolution, it won't add any
useful information to the dog's DNA, it won't cause an improvement in the
breed. Heat is not relevant to evolution, provided the temperature is
satisfactory for the species.
What creationists are pointing out is
that entropy applies to everything, and unless there is some factor or
force which for the moment is overcoming the tendency for entropy to
increase, everything is on a downhill path towards wearing out, decay, or
losing its useful potential. Life is different from non-life in that
life and the DNA instructions, and the processing equipment in the
initial cell, are designed to overcome entropy, until the end of life. In
accordance with the laws of thermodynamics the chemical processes that
take place to support life use up more energy than the life form gets, and
more is lost in the process of using it, this is the entropy of the
"mechanical" side of life, but entropy also degrades the DNA data, but
there is no known way the useful data in the DNA can accidentally
increase, that process needs intelligence and manipulation. Living things
can make the effort to overcome entropy of the cells, if multi-cellular
replacing cells, but there is no way they can upgrade their DNA program,
they cannot go beyond the limits of the variability that is already in it.
New features or improvements require large amounts of specific, exacting
information to define the change, evolution can never provide this, it can
only introduce errors and defects, as in the hundreds of types of
disease or defects in humans directly attributable to genetic
defects. |
F.S.
However it is only the over all entropy of a system and its
surroundings, when the surroundings are isolated from any interaction
with other outside systems, that can not spontaneously decrease.
***2
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In this circumstance entropy can still increase as the usable
resources in the system break down and heat evens out in the system. But
this reference is not about life, which is the subject under
discussion. Also it seems to imply that a "system" can spontaneously decrease of its own accord, but in fact it cannot. The decrease is imposed on it from outside, ie heat or radiation etc, at the expense of another system where entropy is increasing.
|
F.S.
As long as an entropy decrease in the system is compensated for by a
larger entropy increase in the surroundings, a change is
thermodynamically possible
***3
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This is misleading. The formula is used for
one aspect in the non-living realm, then the results are said to apply to
a different aspect in life. Keep in mind that the real discussion should
be about entropy as it applies to life.
Radiation from the sun can
cause an entropy decrease in non-living substance, if you are just
considering the heat, light or radiation, but it does nothing at all to evolve life, unless
life already exists in a form that can utilize the heat or light to
promote life and growth. In this case the radiation is used by life in
complex chemistry, which conforms to the laws of thermodynamics, but the
radiation does not cause the decrease in entropy. It is the life, its DNA
program and processing ability of the cell that causes the decrease, in
the living entity: the radiation is just the fuel for the process. The
energy in the radiation is reduced to a lower level of available
energy during the process, thus conforming to the thermodynamic laws,
while the life form, usually plants, gain a lesser amount of usable
chemical energy for their use. |
F.S.
In their arguments, creationists constantly confuse the entropy change of a
system, which can spontaneously decrease, with that of a system plus its
isolated surroundings, which can not spontaneously decrease. In other words,
if the entropy change of the isolated surroundings is
greater than the entropy decrease of the system, then the change
can take place (although the rate may be extremely slow).
***4
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If the "isolated surroundings" are isolated then how can they inter-react with the system to allow or limit the change in entropy, and its direction? Does he mean a system and its surroundings which together form an isolated unit? Even then why would one part of it have a change in entropy different from the rest, particularly a decrease? This needs some clarification, preferably an example that applies to life.
His claim confuses the issue, as you probably think that he is referring to how the laws on thermodynamics
operate in living things, since that is what the argument is about, but
he isn't. He has switched to the non-living realm where the
processes and energy relationships of physical systems, are different, and
the aspects that matter are different.
The creationists are
correct, it is the evolutionists who confuse themselves because they do
not properly define the systems they are talking about, just spout their
dogma. The subject the creationists are talking about is life, and the
evolutionists do not work out an exact example and its parameters, that
apply to life, nor do they define an experiment to show that they have
some evidence. Their claim seems to be based on manipulating a
mathematical formula about non-living substances, which is not "real
world" evidence, concerning living things, but the
non-living. |
F.S.
Creationists believe that evolution represents an increased biological
complexity, which they interpret as an increase in molecular order.
***5
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7 Sounds true enough for this discussion. It needs a meaningful
molecular order in the DNA to specify the increased complexity, required
for evolution, random changes won't do it, nor will adding solar radiation
to non-living material, or even to life forms.
Why doesn't Windows 3.1
perform the same as Windows 98? Because a lot of thought, research, trial
and testing went into making the improvements. This is the problem
evolutionists cannot explain: how did a similar thing happen in living
things to produce perfection in design, in a myriad of complex designs,
covering such a vast range, without some intelligent
designer. |
F.S.
Based on the above entropy-probability relationship for an ideal gas,
creationists claim that evolution would require a spontaneous entropy decrease,
which (they claim) would violate the laws of thermodynamics.
***6
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The deceitful trap here is that the reference is to formula for an
ideal gas, where the aspects being calculated are probably temperature and
pressure, but the reference is made to apply it to evolution where the
aspects the creationists are referring to, and Frank ought to be debating, is
information and design arising without intelligent input. The ideal gas
formula does not apply to this, it can never produce information and
design. What has gas got to do with solid living biology? Creationists
don't lay claims based on an "ideal gas" for living things overcoming
entropy. Name one life-form composed
entirely of gas (ghosts excepted, as we cannot as yet define them).
Evolution would require an increase in information to specify some new
feature. Such an increase is contrary to entropy, and also to all observed
cases of mutations, which are a loss of information, or the ability to
properly use it, or in cases, such as a sheep with an extra leg, an error
causes information to be used out of context, which is the corruption of
the correct information, the loss of correctness, equals entropy. The
creationist claims are not based on an ideal gas, but usually on
information technology. You get nothing useful without specifying it, and
the information does not come by random errors. Try telling Bill Gates
that he shouldn't pay his programmers, because the programs generated
themselves by accident, the proof being that some errors still exist in
the programs, as the code hasn't yet fully evolved. The code in the
simplest DNA is more complex than the Windows program, and it can't
re-boot to try again, it's do or die, so it has to be nearly
right the first time or it can't survive and reproduce. |
F.S.
Therefore, according to the creationist argument, evolution is impossible.
***7
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Since the fossil record shows stasis, even over supposed millions of
years, and no intermediates have been found, this is certainly as true as
science can get. There have been many claims of intermediates, but they
all get downgraded to another species, after further research.
There is
a theory of Panspermia, but this is just an attempt to sidestep the issue,
by putting the start of life so far away that it cannot be studied,
therefore anything can be imagined, without any logical restriction. But
it does nothing to suggest how life could start by accident. Also if
whales, birds and dinosaurs didn't drift in through space, then they must
have evolved here, and there should be transitional fossils showing at
least some of the evolution, but stasis is the most obvious characteristic
of the record, so evolution couldn't have happened.
Saltation, is the
theory that new genetic design builds up by accident, without guidance,
then is suddenly expressed in the next generation. Because there is no
guidance to decide that now is the time to jump to the new configuration,
there should be many oddities and obviously erroneous designs, many of
which should be in the fossil record. But everything studied in sufficient
detail is of excellent design, so the theory is of no help at all in
explaining evolution and the perfection of design in life.
To
those with an open mind, who are prepared to investigate all the
possibilities, it is obvious that evolution could never
happen. |
F.S.
Of course, creationists have a an obvious problem: how then to explain the
development of the increased order in the formation of crystalline snowflakes
from randomly moving water vapor molecules
***8
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This is setting up a false claim. Increased order requires order in
respect of some defined parameters such as a purpose for the order (such
as eyes or flight feathers or legs, or encoding in some meaningful, usable, way some
information). The supposed increase of order in snowflakes has no purpose
or formula to give meaning (and evolutionists never explain the order or
its meaning and purpose) and therefore cannot be defined as an increase in
order, randomness is not order. If there was an increase in order, then it
could be decoded, to get a meaning or purpose, but as Frank says, it is
formed by randomly moving water molecules, which will obviously give a
random result, and every snowflake is different. They are beautiful under
a microscope, to our way of thinking, but meaningless, order-less,
randomness. The appearance of order is due to the shape of the molecules
and the ways they can attach to each other under ideal conditions,
stacking neatly to our way of thinking, but it is still a random
meaningless assembly process. Evolutionists try to make out that it takes
some highly complex explanation, on the same basis as living things
overcoming entropy, like the chicken in the egg. But it doesn't need a
complex explanation like that, it is too simple. For a fuller explanation
see snowflakes. |
F.S.
and the development of a chick from an egg?
***9
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Many people don't think this chick development, and crystal
formation, out. They have been indoctrinated not to think, but accept
dogma as truth. People are able to overcome entropy by building roads,
buildings, equipment, improving farmland etc. This is because, besides
life, they have the ability to think, imagine and plan, all mental
processes, They are able to manipulate materials to form what they have
imagined and planned, or get someone else to work according to plans and
instructions. Following plans requires effort and the ability to
manipulate the materials required, if available, but may not require an
understanding of the eventual outcome, or an understanding of part of the
plan, or, as mentioned below, at some stages, not even being aware that
there is a plan. It is not possible to follow plans or instructions if
they were never thought up and specified, so some intelligent being is
required to do that. The plans will not materialize by accident, without
thought, and cannot be followed unless specified, by demonstration,
verbally, written or encoded in some usable way. You can work it out by
planning a fence or a house, that you must have life, thought, enough
intelligence for the project, knowledge (in your mind) to be able to
imagine the plan, and the ability to carry it out physically, if the
materials are available. This applies to all living systems, though
"simple " life forms may have only life and the DNA program to follow, and
the ability to absorb and manipulate materials required for life. Living
systems can overcome entropy, and they must do it to stay alive, repairing
damage and wear and tear and getting nutrition, to grow and reproduce.
Dogs, squirrels etc. have less communication and planning options.
Bees have a good, well defined "dance" to communicate where there is a
good place to get pollen. Bacteria may not be able to think, but they can
exchange small samples of DNA, does this require thinking or is it done on
"auto pilot" of a rigid servo system? How can you tell?
This brings us
to the chicken in the egg. The egg contains all the nutrients required,
and the fertilized cell has life and can absorb the nutrients, because
it is designed to, and has been provided with life, the information and
instructions in the DNA program, that runs automatically, manipulating
the cell mechanism, to carry out the chemistry required to grow and divide
into two cells, and continue growing and dividing. This is done without
knowing that there is a program or instructions to follow, and having no
concept of the intended outcome.
Plants can overcome 'mechanical' entropy by building large plants and
trees, which may last for hundreds of years, but they cannot create an
entropy decrease in their DNA by adding design information on their own.
Many varieties can be bred by crossing plants, but this is not adding
newly-created information, as it is done by combining existing information
of two or more plants to get a variation of the design expressed in the
subsequent plant.
Occasionally a plant becomes polyploidy, doubling the
number of chromosomes, but though this may produce some differences, there
were no new specifications, as the chromosomes had already existed in the
same or another plant. It is just the result of accidentally combining two
lots of existing design, which somehow both exhibit some of their design
in the resultant plant. This is not an example of how evolution is claimed
to evolve new life forms, as it didn't make up new specifications.
It is still a mystery to us as to how eventually some cells specialise
into various organs. How do some cells "know" to become muscle or liver,
is this in the DNA, if so, is it in the sections some scientists call
"junk DNA"?
This same process applies to humans and bacteria. Life and
the necessary facilities and a specialized program for that particular
species is provided in the DNA, and the living cell blindly follows the
instructions, without knowing the plan or purpose, automatically
overcoming entropy for the rest of its life. But how can this be done
without instructions that were thought out and planned by a mind and
intelligence that had the knowledge and ability to set up the original
first cell of each kind (as the fossil record clearly shows stasis, and no
intermediates). Claimed intermediates are usually disputed by
evolutionists, and eventually downgraded quietly, but kept up in the
public arena particularly in schools and universities as if true. Life
cannot happen without information! Information cannot happen without
thought and knowledge, which is useless without the ability to encode it
in a useful usable way. And that takes thought and the simple first cell
requires an enormous amount of planning and information, that can never
come about by accident. The DNA itself is too complex and is composed in a
way that is entirely different to the way the chemicals and enzymes etc.
would join up in a "primordial soup" situation, which evolutionists seem
to have thoroughly discredited. There is nothing "out there", and never
was as far as we can tell, that could do this by accident. It requires
thought and planning and manipulative ability.
Life is required to enable
the overcoming of entropy and creating complex organisms. This is totally
different from structures caused by non-living natural forces that produce
icebergs, mountains, valleys, caves, snowflakes, and an ideal gas.
So
where did life come from? What is life? Is it a substance? Is it a
spiritual force? The difference between living and being dead may be only
a fraction of a second, the body hasn't changed, so what left the body
that it is now dead? |
F.S.
In the case of the inorganic change (the snowflake), they admit that the laws
of thermodynamics in fact do operate in a matter that permits order to arise
from disorder, which would seem to contradict their assertion that order can not
arise from disorder.
***10
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This is repeating the same false claim as in ***8, regarding the
random linking of molecules. I am sure they don't admit to any such thing:
it would be contrary to the entropy laws (the second law of
thermodynamics). Here he again confuses aspects of inorganic materials with the ability
of living things to create order as instructed by their DNA. Increased order required for life,
is not just a repetition like bricks in a wall, or the neat stacking of molecules as in crystals,
but a highly complex arrangement like a computer program.
The supposed increased order in snowflakes, due to the atomic bonding
forces drawing water molecules into an orderly crystalline array, without
any intelligent guidance as to their position, has no purpose, no
information, and therefore cannot be defined as an increase in order in
any sense comparable to organised systems involved in life, just automatic
neat stacking due to the attracting sites on the atoms pulling towards
each other, meaningless assembly does not create designed
order. |
F.S.
In the case of the organic change (the chick from the egg), they postulate,
with no theoretical or mathematical justification whatever, an "energy
conversion mechanism" which "overcomes" the laws of classical thermodynamics.
***11
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The statement "they postulate, with no theoretical or mathematical
justification whatever," is not true. They have justification for it, you
yourself are a proof of it. From a single cell you have assembled a
complex being, yourself, following the instructions in your DNA, without
your knowledge or guidance, and absorbing untold quantities of nutrients.
You can do this while you have life, but eventually entropy will win, and
claim back all you physically have. Much of it has already been claimed
back as heat loss, shed hair, nails and dead cells, and energy converted
into work for movement, digestion etc.
Gathering food, digesting it
and converting it to usable nutrients all require energy, and all of the
processes obey the laws of thermodynamics, both one and two, and entropy,
in that energy is used and lost in the process to get a smaller amount of
energy to use for life. This applies to all life, and all of life's
chemistry, from viruses up, and always obeys the laws of
thermodynamics.
A quote from another web page explains this:-
Energy is usually liberated from the ATP molecule to do work
in the cell by a reaction that removes one of the phosphate-oxygen
groups, leaving adenosine diphosphate (ADP). When the ATP converts to
ADP, the ATP is said to be spent. Then the ADP is usually immediately
recycled in the mitochondria where it is recharged and comes out again
as ATP. In the words of Trefil (1992, p. 93) “hooking and unhooking that
last phosphate [on ATP] is what keeps the whole world operating.”
The total human body content of ATP is only about 50 grams, which
must be constantly recycled every day. The ultimate source of energy for
constructing ATP is food; ATP is simply the carrier and
regulation-storage unit of energy. The average daily intake of 2,500
food calories translates into a turnover of a whopping 180 kg (400 lbs)
of ATP (Kornberg, 1989, p. 65).
To get an understanding of this amazing process see:-
ATP: The Perfect Energy
Currency for the Cell An easily understood explanation of energy
conversion in your cells.
This is where evolutionists go wrong, because they don't like anything that
may show that life is too complex to be an accident: they don't research
the true complexities of life, and try to pass off the results of their research as evidence for evolution, without fully understanding it. Hence Frank's insistence that creationists
don't show an "energy conversion mechanism" which "overcomes" the laws
of classical thermodynamics." but here it is in detail for all to
see! And it does conform to the laws of thermodynamics!
Here at the
page just referenced is an explanation of the energy transfer and
replacement processes that run rapidly in every cell in your body, but the
"dyed in the wool" evolutionist won't read about it in case they have to
change their views, as it is usually the creationists who point out the problems. The evolutionists prefer to believe in their "energy to
information conversion factor", of solar radiation, which nobody can
explain. |
F.S.
Any chemical or physical changes involving thermodynamics, whether
inorganic, organic, or biological, has to be accompanied by some kind of
energy conversion mechanism.
***12
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As I have explained above, the energy conversion mechanism is "life
and a DNA program" that sets up the "factory" in every living cell, and in
larger creatures and plants, whatever digestive or nutrient-absorbing
process they use, always in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics and
entropy, using some of the energy obtained for the processing and
distribution of the nutrients. |
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