The Second Law: In Force Everywhere But Nowhere?

_{Barry Arrington

July 13, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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I hope our materialist friends will help us with this one.

As I understand their argument, entropy is not an obstacle to blind watchmaker evolution, because entropy applies absolutely only in a “closed system,” and the earth is not a closed system because it receives electromagnetic radiation from space.

Fair enough. But it seems to me that under that definition of “closed system” only the universe as a whole is a closed system, because every particular place in the universe receives energy of some kind from some other place. And if that is so, it seems the materialists have painted themselves into a corner in which they must, to remain logically consistent, assert that entropy applies everywhere but no place in particular, which is absurd.

Now this seems like an obvious objection, and if it were valid the “closed system/open system” argument would have never gained any traction to begin with. So I hope someone will clue me in as to what I am missing.

Comments

Salvador:
It is pretty much agreed, a closed system near equilibrium won’t yield new life.
So?Mung_{July 14, 2014
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Salvador:
When the term closed system is used in discussion of OOL, it means closed and near equilibrium.
That's just silly. Eric, you're too kind.Mung_{July 14, 2014
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Sal @32: You raise an interesting point. Let me see if I can parse it a bit.
When the term closed system is used in discussion of OOL, it means closed and near equilibrium.
I'm not sure that is what most people mean. The evolutionary retort from most people, certainly those folks Sewell has been arguing with, does not really have anything to do with equilibrium. Indeed, the Earth is most definitely not an at-equilibrium system, even without the Sun. There are lots of options for energy fluctuations within the system (volcanic vents, radioactive decay, hydrothermal vents, etc.). Eventually, in perhaps a few billion years, the Earth might reach equilibrium (ignoring the Sun). But that has never been the case on Earth and is not assumed for purposes of OOL. Of course we could just redefine our "system" to be a particular pool of water or a particular mud globule, sans the nearby energy, and then proclaim that our tiny system is an "open system" because it is receiving energy from the nearby volcanic vent or the geyser or the lightning strike. So, yes, there has to be energy to perform the work, but whether that energy is already within the system or is coming into the system from outside is purely a rhetorical definitional game. The only reason the people arguing with Sewell, for example, bring up the "Earth is an open system" refrain is not because they understand some nuance about systems at equilibrium, but because they completely misunderstand Sewell's argument about the non-thermal requirements to get life off the ground.
Thus the openness of the system is important, but not specifically to reduce entropy, but to allow an external organizing influence. But being open is only a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient condition.
I understand what you're saying, and you make a good point about the organizing influence (in the sense of specified complexity type of organization). But again the open-v-closed terminology is a definitional game, nothing more. That is why we must keep our eye on the ball. The open/closed terminology is an utter red herring. Any time we hear someone talking about an open-v-closed system as though it teaches us something about how life could arise, we can immediately know -- as a matter of principle -- that they are on the wrong track. It is best to avoid the red herring altogether. When I press people on OOL I sometimes find it is helpful to grant them all the energy they want, in any form they want, for as long as they want, just so they don't get hung up on the silly open/closed game, and then pose the question: "You've got all the energy you want. Now what? How does life arise?" When we do that we quickly see, as you say, that energy is necessary but not sufficient. Not even close to sufficient. Not even in the ballpark. Not even addressing the primary issues that have to be resolved.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2014
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Salvador, there is no difference between the entropy argument and the information argument and the probability argument.Mung_{July 14, 2014
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Joe:
Adding heat to a frying pan helps cook my pancakes, eggs and home-fries.
And the pancakes, eggs and home-fries helps keep you alive. Ergo, adding heat is all that's required for OOL.Mung_{July 14, 2014
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Barry:
...every particular place in the universe receives energy of some kind from some other place. And if that is so, it seems the materialists have painted themselves into a corner in which they must, to remain logically consistent, assert that entropy applies everywhere but no place in particular, which is absurd.
Sort of like gravity then? Gravity applies everywhere but nowhere in particular, which is absurd.Mung_{July 14, 2014
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When the term closed system is used in discussion of OOL, it means closed and near equilibrium. If we put a frog in blender, and then pour the contents in a sealed jar, after its remains achieve equilibrium when supposedly even all microbes feasting on its remains are dead, presumably, this closed system will not spontaneously yield new sustainable life since it is in a state of changeless equilibrium. Hence the last hope is to make the system open and not at equilibrium. The universe may be said to be closed, but there are pockets that are not at equilibrium thus parts can be somewhat modeled as open. Thus the openness of the system is important, but not specifically to reduce entropy, but to allow an external organizing influence. But being open is only a necessary condition, it is not a sufficient condition. It is pretty much agreed, a closed system near equilibrium won't yield new life.scordova_{July 14, 2014
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Joe @30: I like it!Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2014
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Eric- The Earth's design allows it to harness energy and release it as lightning. In turn the lightning makes nitrates out of the abundant nitrogen in the atmosphere which then rains down as fertilizer for the plants to utilize. Talk about design details...Joe_{July 14, 2014
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revelator, Henry Crun, Joe: Yep, the whole issue has nothing to do with whether a system is open or closed. It has to do with whether there is an ability to harness the available energy to do useful, ongoing work. Doesn't make one whit of difference whether the energy is already in the system or whether it is coming into the system.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2014
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If someone asked, "if not the 2nd law, then what law would you use to argue ID?" I've said, "the law of large numbers". See: Fundamental Law of ID and The Paradox of Almost Definite Knowledge in the face of Maximum Uncertainty And regarding design identification: To recognize design is to recognize products of a like-minded process These ideas are simple, straightforward. Even kids can develop an intuition about it. Next is the Humpty Dumpty/Dead Dog principle: Do Dead Dogs Stay Dead Dogs? see follow-on: Vernal Equinox sees Outbreak of DDS The 2nd Law and Boltzmann/Clausius entropy are non-trivial, full of math, and of marginal (occasionally damaging) relevance to ID. I've advocated arguing basic probability (starting with coin/homochirality illustrations). Then argue Humpty Dumpty illustrations, etc. Simple and succinct is better than incomprehensible and verbose. High powered math doesn't necessarily make a more convincing case than simple math and humpty dumpty illustrations. KISS (Keep It Simple, Soldier!)scordova_{July 14, 2014
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Adding heat to a frying pan helps cook my pancakes, eggs and home-fries. Adding energy to a fridge helps it cool. IOW if you take a closed system, ie an isolated freezer/ fridge, and add energy to it the thing starts working. And if you take a person, put him/ her in a closed system, ie a fully isolated room, that contains a lighter and flammable materials, I bet it would be quite easy for that person to add heat to that closed system. Just sayin'...Joe_{July 14, 2014
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Revelator @ 24, Damn - and there are all these people using incubators who don't realise they don't work. And by the way, if you can add heat to the system, it's not closed.Henry Crun_{July 14, 2014
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BTW, the Coursera "Emergence of Life" course from the University of Illinois starts today. If I can stay on top of it in between work/vacation the next 2 months, I'll let you know if this "open system" business comes up in the class.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2014
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Adding "energy" (heat) to a "closed-system" usually destroys. It never creates. Set a library on fire and see how much more information you get with that added energy. (Zilch.) The heat of the sun DESTROYS and PREVENTS any opportunity for OOL, unless directed by an intelligent entity. See here for more information regarding thermodynamics.revelator_{July 14, 2014
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Piotr @17:
Did anyone say that the origin of life or its evolution was explained by the second law of thermodynamics? Who said so? Where? But it’s those on the ID/creationist side who argue again and again that life would somehow violate the 2LOT if it were not for an intelligent designer’s interventions, because the processes that support life require entropy to decrease, which is allegedly impossible, or because the 2LOT prohibits the rise of “order out of chaos”, or… (insert more examples of how thermodynamics and the concept of entropy are misunderstood).
Piotr, you are correct that evolutionists bringing up the "open system" business is typically in response to someone arguing that evolution (speaking broadly) would violate the 2nd law. *However,* the actual debate situation is more nuanced than that. Specifically: 1. When this "open system" stuff is brought up, it betrays a profound misunderstanding of what is required to get life going or new systems to come into play. The whole business about "entropy can decrease here because it is increasing somewhere else in the universe" is nonsense, probably generally, but certainly in the context of thinking about, say, OOL. 2. There are many systems in biology that are in fact thermodynamically unstable and that cannot or would not arise on their own if you were to stick the constituents in a tube and let them mix. Saying that the thermodynamic situation in that location can somehow be changed because of a change in the thermodynamics of a system in some other location betrays a deep misunderstanding of the issues. This is most certainly not a creationist talking point. There are a number of papers from committed evolutionists that seek to understand how it is possible for such far-from-equilibrium systems to come about naturally. (Nick even sent us down a rabbit hole a while back with one set of researchers who came to the wholly laughable conclusion that such systems, contrary to appearances and all calculations, must be thermodynamically preferred after all because, hey, such systems exist.) The issue of far-from-equilibrium systems is a perfectly legitimate issue that far too many evolutionists just do not appreciate. 3. Perhaps most relevant for this specific thread, the terms "thermodynamics" and "entropy" are not reserved just for thermal calculations, whatever their initial history. Dr. Sewell is probably the most well known on these pages for making an argument in this regard. Personally, I am not sure whether Dr. Sewell's argument is convincing (I still need to spend more time with it), but I do know that Dr. Sewell did not invent the idea of thermodynamics/entropy being applied to information and/or the organizational aspect of systems. There is an interesting and valuable discussion to be had on this last point. Sal loves to proclaim himself as a lone wolf and a voice crying in the wilderness, but the situation is much more nuanced than that. Whatever Dr. Sewell's use of terminology (which, again, he did not make up), the responses he has gotten from evolutionists have been sadly instructive. Typically: (i) they completely misunderstand the point that there are certain engineering and informational problems that can be addressed in much the same way that we think about thermodynamic systems, (ii) they assume he is talking about simple heat/energy flow, then (iii) they throw out the old "Earth is an open system" nonsense (based, I might add, on evolutionist talking points they read somewhere) as though it were some kind of an explanation, when not only is it (A) irrelevant to Dr. Sewell's point about information, but also (B) unhelpful in explaining the classic heat/energy situation found in many living systems. Then they go off patting themselves on the back and laughing, "Gee, those creationists are so dumb. They don't realize the Earth is an open system and gets energy from the Sun!" When, sadly, they have only demonstrated themselves to be utterly clueless about the issues that are even being discussed. ----- I personally would be interested in a more detailed discussion of thermodynamic principles as they relate to living systems in #2 above and as they relate to information as in #3 above. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of baggage surrounding the specific terminology, which makes it hard to proceed in a rational fashion with any large group.Eric Anderson_{July 14, 2014
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PPS: See for yourself, here.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2014
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PS: Of course heat engines etc COUPLE energy from a source to produce work -- organised or orderly forced motion -- and exhaust waste heat etc. Something like a hurricane is a spontaneously formed hear engine, but something like a jet engine is based on FSCO/I and is maximally implausible on a spontaneous heat engine like a tornado passing through a junkyard. The machinery and coded stored info and info processing in living cells dwarfs the jet engine in terms of FSCO/I.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2014
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F/N: A few points: 1 --> While I prefer the isolated > closed > open system terminology Physicists prefer, it seems Engineers often use a different terminology where closed systems mean isolated ones in the physics sense (no boundary-crossing energy or matter). 2 --> That the observed universe is isolated is a debatable point; as Sears et al pointed out in their classic textbook many years ago. 3 --> If you look at the inner structure of Clausius' formulation of the 2nd law, you will see he considers energy interchanging sub-systems in his analysis. A at Th --> d'Q --> B at Tc. From this the rise in S for B overbalances the loss for A. Where dS >/= d'Q/T, as Th > Tc. 4 --> Thence, we see that if a subsystem absorbs energy, it tends to increase entropy. That is, the number of ways at micro level that mass and energy may be arranged consistent with macro-level thermodynamic parameters such as P, V, T etc defining macro-level state, rises. (A very small amount of matter in human scale terms easily has in it 10^18 or more molecule scale particles ~ 10^-10 - 10^-9 or so m across. A cube 1 mm across -- 10^-3 cc -- has in it [10^6]^3 = 10^18 1 nm cubes. That's a tiny speck like a grain of sand.) 5 --> Switching to micro level, and a statistical/ informational view . . . cf. Jaynes et al down to Harry S Robertson etc . . . the entropy of a body can be seen as a measure of the average missing information to specify the microstate provided by the macrostate information. This is already in log terms and implies a probability metric. It also gives additivity and bridges to information theory, explaining the average info per symbol metric. 6 --> We see emerging a phase space on position and momentum of particles, with degrees of freedom linked to number of particles and the ways energy can be distributed across different forms of motion or potential energy. Thus, temperature as a measure of the avg energy per degree of relevant freedom per particle. 7 --> Knocking off the motion part, as this may not be particularly relevant for purposes in hand, we arrive at, configuration spaces, with huge numbers of possibilities. 8 --> We are very close now to the FSCO/I issue, of isolated islands of function in very large config spaces where for a space with W possibilities, a search is a selection from its power set, of cardinality 2^W. 9 --> That's where the search for search exponentiation of challenges comes in. For 500 bits, there are 2^500 possible configs, about 3.27 * 10^150. The space for possible searches is 2^[3.27 * 10^150] . . . a number that would exhaust the observable universe's atomic resources and still could not be fully written out as a decimal. 10 --> Now, the search challenge on strings is WLOG, as arbitrary configs can be represented by coded strings describing a nodes-arcs pattern. That's what AutoCAD etc do. 11 --> This then leads to the real problem brought out by the logic of the second law. Sewell aptly summarises it as, the mere opening up of a system will not make a vastly improbable configuration of matter and energy become more likely, unless something specific is happening that makes it not unlikely. (That is, organisation can be injected and can even be arranged in a von Neumann self replicator so that it will propagate from generation to generation.) 12 --> Where given the search challenge, there is a maximally implausible constraint on the idea that blind chance plus mechanical necessity will or could reasonably produce the FSCO/I found in life forms within the resources of our observable cosmos. But, FSCO/I is a routine product of design, to the point where FSCO/I -- functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information -- is an empirically highly reliable sign of design. __________ The problem with this is not its logic, it is that it cuts across the a priori materialist ideology that dominates most schools of thought on origins of life and of body plans. KFkairosfocus_{July 14, 2014
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it’s those on the ID/creationist side who argue again and again that life would somehow violate the 2LOT if it were not for an intelligent designer’s interventions
Agreed, and I'm in the dissenting minority of ID/creationists who says to avoid 2LOT arguments regarding OOL. For the reader's benefit, I've suggested to first pick which definition of the 2nd law and entropy one is working from, and then proceed with an analysis. Let's start with the conceptually easiest form for entropy -- Shannon-Dembski entropy for a system of fair coins.
Q. What is the Shannon-Dembski entropy for a symbolic system consisting of 1 fair coin? A. 1 bit

Q. What is the Shannon-Dembski entropy for a symbolic system consisting of 1 billion fair coin? A. 1 billion bits or 1 giga bit

Q. in light of the above, does a system of high CSI require more Shannon-Dembski entropy or less? A. MORE!
Now how about traditional thermodynamic entropy (Boltzmann, Clausius, Kelvin, Plank etc.)
Q. Under standard textbook methods for calculating entropy as would be expected of students of physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering: does a living adult human have more or less entropy than a dead cell? A. MORE! by a factor of 100 TRILLION. In general, more of the same kind of particles imply more entropy.
In light of this, I've wondered: 1. Why ID/Creationists have such an anti-entropy bias, since more entropy is not necessarily a bad thing in the creation of life. God had to infuse our bodies with entropy. Otherwise we'd be dead! 2. Why materialists like Bill Nye even bother appealing to open systems since more entropy is not necessarily bad, and the amount of entropy is not just about the structure of the solar system but involves basic considerations like how the system boundaries are drawn.scordova_{July 14, 2014
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scordova:
Most definitely, universal entropy cannot increase without decrease in entropy in some locations (just like the hot bricks example).
It's the other way round. Entropy can't decrease locally unless thermal energy is exported to the environment (which serves as a heat reservoir), increasing overall entropy. As long as there are energy tranfers in the Universe, some of the flowing energy can be (but doesn't have to be) diverted from the thermal pathway to do some work.Piotr_{July 14, 2014
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Eric Anderson: Did anyone say that the origin of life or its evolution was explained by the second law of thermodynamics? Who said so? Where? But it's those on the ID/creationist side who argue again and again that life would somehow violate the 2LOT if it were not for an intelligent designer's interventions, because the processes that support life require entropy to decrease, which is allegedly impossible, or because the 2LOT prohibits the rise of "order out of chaos", or... (insert more examples of how thermodynamics and the concept of entropy are misunderstood).Piotr_{July 14, 2014
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Barry, you are not missing anything. The old "Earth is an open system" idea to support evolution is utter bunk. First, as you hinted at, in thermodynamics the "system" under consideration is whatever we want it to be. It is an arbitrary construct that simply helps us think through various thermodynamic exchanges. So if some genius (cough) asserts that the Earth is an open system because it receives energy from the Sun and, therefore, OOL is possible/likely, we can simply say, "Great. Let's consider the Earth and Sun together as a closed system. Now explain to me again, how this naturalistic OOL is possible/likely?" The entire open/closed system nonsense is an utter, complete red herring. It is a rhetorical shell game, nothing more. Second, it makes not one whit of difference whether we are dealing with an open or closed system. The question is how those energy inputs could possibly lead to the formation of living systems. Simply having energy inputs does not help in that regard, and might as well hurt in many cases.Eric Anderson_{July 13, 2014
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supplemental note on 'pouring raw energy' onto the Earth: Visible light is incredibly fine-tuned for life to exist. Though visible light is only a tiny fraction of the total electromagnetic spectrum coming from the sun, it happens to be the "most permitted" portion of the sun's spectrum allowed to filter through the our atmosphere. All the other bands of electromagnetic radiation, directly surrounding visible light, happen to be harmful to organic molecules, and are almost completely absorbed by the atmosphere. The tiny amount of harmful UV radiation, which is not visible light, allowed to filter through the atmosphere is needed to keep various populations of single cell bacteria from over-populating the world (Ross; reasons.org). The size of light's wavelengths and the constraints on the size allowable for the protein molecules of organic life, also seem to be tailor-made for each other. This "tailor-made fit" allows photosynthesis, the miracle of sight, and many other things that are necessary for human life. These specific frequencies of light (that enable plants to manufacture food and astronomers to observe the cosmos) represent less than 1 trillionth of a trillionth (10^-24) of the universe's entire range of electromagnetic emissions. (Gonzalez; Privileged Planet,, Denton; Nature's Destiny).
Extreme Fine Tuning of Light for Life and Scientific Discovery - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/7715887 Fine Tuning Of Universal Constants, Particularly Light - Walter Bradley - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4491552 Fine Tuning Of Light to the Atmosphere, to Biological Life, and to Water - graphs http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMTljaGh4MmdnOQ Michael Denton: Remarkable Coincidences in Photosynthesis - podcast http://www.idthefuture.com/2012/09/michael_denton_remarkable_coin.html
bornagain77_{July 13, 2014
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Open systems obey the second law when energy flows across the system boundary are accounted for. A good example is a car or truck, considered as a thermal system. Fuel flows across the boundary into a fuel tank or battery. Exhaust byproducts and heat flow out of the system. Kinetic energy is produced, with efficiency losses governed by the second law. The entropy (unavailable energy) of the universe increases each time the vehicle is operated.jabo_{July 13, 2014
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Further comments on ATP synthase:
ATP: The Perfect Energy Currency for the Cell - Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. Excerpt: In manufacturing terms, the ATP (Synthase) molecule is a machine with a level of organization on the order of a research microscope or a standard television (Darnell, Lodish, and Baltimore, 1996). http://www.trueorigin.org/atp.asp ATP Synthase, an Energy-Generating Rotary Motor Engine - Jonathan M. May 15, 2013 Excerpt: ATP synthase has been described as "a splendid molecular machine," and "one of the most beautiful" of "all enzymes" .,, "bona fide rotary dynamo machine",,, If such a unique and brilliantly engineered nanomachine bears such a strong resemblance to the engineering of manmade hydroelectric generators, and yet so impressively outperforms the best human technology in terms of speed and efficiency, one is led unsurprisingly to the conclusion that such a machine itself is best explained by intelligent design. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/05/atp_synthase_an_1072101.html Miniature Molecular Power Plant: ATP Synthase - January 2013 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8m6o0gXDY Thermodynamic efficiency and mechanochemical coupling of F1-ATPase - 2011 Excerpt: F1-ATPase is a nanosized biological energy transducer working as part of FoF1-ATP synthase. Its rotary machinery transduces energy between chemical free energy and mechanical work and plays a central role in the cellular energy transduction by synthesizing most ATP in virtually all organisms.,, Our results suggested a 100% free-energy transduction efficiency and a tight mechanochemical coupling of F1-ATPase. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/10/12/1106787108.short?rss=1 See also: Davies et al., “Macromolecular organization of ATP synthase and complex I in whole mitochondria,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and: Tamás Beke-Somfai, Per Lincoln, and Bengt Nordén, “Double-lock ratchet mechanism revealing the role of [alpha]SER-344 in F0F1 ATP synthase,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
There is a profound 'chicken and egg' dilemma with ATP surrounding the Origin Of Life problem for evolutionists:
Evolutionist Has Another Honest Moment as “Thorny Questions Remain” - Cornelius Hunter - July 2012 Excerpt: It's a chicken and egg question. Scientists are in disagreement over what came first -- replication, or metabolism. But there is a third part to the equation -- and that is energy. … You need enzymes to make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes. The question is: where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/07/evolutionist-has-another-honest-moment.html
It is also interesting to note that entropy is the primary reason why our physical bodies grow old and die,,,
Entropy Explains Aging, Genetic Determinism Explains Longevity, and Undefined Terminology Explains Misunderstanding Both - 2007 Excerpt: There is a huge body of knowledge supporting the belief that age changes are characterized by increasing entropy, which results in the random loss of molecular fidelity, and accumulates to slowly overwhelm maintenance systems [1–4].,,, http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0030220 *3 new mutations every time a cell divides in your body * Average cell of 15 year old has up to 6000 mutations *Average cell of 60 year old has 40,000 mutations Reproductive cells are 'designed' so that, early on in development, they are 'set aside' and thus they do not accumulate mutations as the rest of the cells of our bodies do. Regardless of this protective barrier against the accumulation of slightly detrimental mutations still we find that,,, *60-175 mutations are passed on to each new generation. per John Sanford Phd, - Geneticist- author of 'Genetic Entropy and The Mystery of The Genome' (inventor of the 'Gene Gun')
This following video brings the point personally home to us about the effects of genetic entropy:
Ageing Process - 85 years in 40 seconds - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A91Fwf_sMhk
Verse and Music:
Romans 8:18-21 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Evanescence – The Other Side (Lyric Video) http://www.vevo.com/watch/evanescence/the-other-side-lyric-video/USWV41200024?source=instantsearch
Supplemental note:
Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: The quantum Zeno effect is,,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect “It has been experimentally confirmed,, that unstable particles will not decay, or will decay less rapidly, if they are observed. Somehow, observation changes the quantum system. We’re talking pure observation, not interacting with the system in any way.” Douglas Ell – Counting to God – pg. 189 – 2014 – Douglas Ell graduated early from MIT, where he double majored in math and physics.
This is just fascinating! Why in blue blazes should conscious observation put a freeze on entropic decay, unless consciousness was/is more foundational to reality than entropy is? And seeing as to how entropy is VERY foundational to reality, I think the implications of all this are fairly obvious, i.e.
"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it,"
bornagain77_{July 13, 2014
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Here is a video based on Granville Sewell's 2013 Biocomplexity paper
Evolution and Entropy - Granville Sewell - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMHzFoOcdFA
It should also be noted that just pouring raw energy into a system (as with the sun pouring energy onto the earth) actually increases the disorder of the system,,,
Thermodynamic Arguments for Creation - Thomas Kindell (46:39 minute mark) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1yto0-z2bQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=2799
,,, and that the raw energy coming from the sun must be harnessed in a very precise way in order for it to be useful for life and not detrimental to it.
Scientists unlock some key secrets of photosynthesis - July 2, 2012 Excerpt: "The photosynthetic system of plants is nature's most elaborate nanoscale biological machine," said Lakshmi. "It converts light energy at unrivaled efficiency of more than 95 percent compared to 10 to 15 percent in the current man-made solar technologies.,, "Photosystem II is the engine of life," Lakshmi said. "It performs one of the most energetically demanding reactions known to mankind, splitting water, with remarkable ease and efficiency.",,, "Water is a very stable molecule and it takes four photons of light to split water," she said. "This is a challenge for chemists and physicists around the world (to imitate) as the four-photon reaction has very stringent requirements." http://phys.org/news/2012-07-scientists-key-secrets-photosynthesis.html
Moreover, 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum mechanical principles are utilized to accomplish the initial steps of photosynthesis. At the 21:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr Suarez explains why photosynthesis needs a 'non-local', beyond space and time, cause to explain its effect:
Nonlocality of Photosynthesis - Antoine Suarez - video - 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhMrrmlTXl4&feature=player_detailpage#t=1268s
Also of note:
Quantum Mechanics Explains Efficiency of Photosynthesis - Jan. 9, 2014 Excerpt: Previous experiments suggest that energy is transferred in a wave-like manner, exploiting quantum phenomena, but crucially, a non-classical explanation could not be conclusively proved as the phenomena identified could equally be described using classical physics.,,, Now, a team at UCL have attempted to identify features in these biological systems which can only be predicted by quantum physics, and for which no classical analogues exist. ,,,said Alexandra Olaya-Castro (UCL Physics & Astronomy), supervisor and co-author of the research. "We found that the properties of some of the chromophore vibrations that assist energy transfer during photosynthesis can never be described with classical laws, and moreover, this non-classical behaviour enhances the efficiency of the energy transfer.",,, Other biomolecular processes such as the transfer of electrons within macromolecules (like in reaction centres in photosynthetic systems), the structural change of a chromophore upon absorption of photons (like in vision processes) or the recognition of a molecule by another (as in olfaction processes), are influenced by specific vibrational motions. The results of this research therefore suggest that a closer examination of the vibrational dynamics involved in these processes could provide other biological prototypes exploiting truly non-classical phenomena,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140109092008.htm
Photosynthesis and ATP synthase are very intensive, integrated, processes:
The 10 Step Glycolysis Pathway In ATP Production: An Overview - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kn6BVGqKd8
At the 14:00 minute mark of the following video, Chris Ashcraft, PhD – molecular biology, gives us an overview of the Citric Acid Cycle, which is, after the 10 step Glycolysis Pathway, also involved in ATP production:
Evolution vs ATP Synthase – Chris Ashcraft - video - citric acid cycle at 14:00 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rUV4CSs0HzI#t=746 The Citric Acid Cycle: An Overview - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6vQKrRjQcQ
bornagain77_{July 13, 2014
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As to 'entropy applying everywhere', first it is good to note how broad entropy is in its explanatory power for physical events in the universe:
Shining Light on Dark Energy – October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy. ,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/ Evolution is a Fact, Just Like Gravity is a Fact! UhOh! - January 2010 Excerpt: The results of this paper suggest gravity arises as an entropic force, once space and time themselves have emerged. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-is-a-fact-just-like-gravity-is-a-fact-uhoh/
In fact Black Holes are found to be the greatest contributors to the entropy of the universe:
Entropy of the Universe – Hugh Ross – May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe Roger Penrose – How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized, whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space." "Einstein's equation predicts that, as the astronaut reaches the singularity (of the black-hole), the tidal forces grow infinitely strong, and their chaotic oscillations become infinitely rapid. The astronaut dies and the atoms which his body is made become infinitely and chaotically distorted and mixed-and then, at the moment when everything becomes infinite (the tidal strengths, the oscillation frequencies, the distortions, and the mixing), spacetime ceases to exist." Kip S. Thorne - "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" pg. 476
In fact it was in large measure by working from entropic concerns of black-holes that Penrose was able to deduce the initial entropy of the universe:
The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: "The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the "source" of the Second Law (Entropy)." http://www.pul.it/irafs/CD%20IRAFS%2702/texts/Penrose.pdf Roger Penrose discusses initial entropy of the universe. - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhGdVMBk6Zo "This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123." (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 - 1989) "The 'accuracy of the Creator's aim' would have had to be in 10^10^123" Hawking, S. and Penrose, R., The Nature of Space and Time, Princeton, Princeton University Press (1996), 34, 35.
This number is gargantuan and blows all the other constants, in terms of fine-tuning, out of the water. If this number were written out in its entirety, 1 with 10^123 zeros to the right, it could not be written on a piece of paper the size of the entire visible universe, even if a number were written down on each sub-atomic particle in the entire universe, since the universe only has 10^80 sub-atomic particles in it! Besides disorder, entropy is also related to thermodynamic equilibrium. In fact, a 'flat universe', which is actually another very surprising finely-tuned 'coincidence' of the universe, means this universe, left to its own present course of accelerating expansion due to Dark Energy, will continue to expand forever, thus fulfilling the thermodynamic equilibrium of the second law to its fullest extent (entropic 'Heat Death' of the universe).
The Future of the Universe Excerpt: After all the black holes have evaporated, (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, neutrinos, electrons and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. It will be cold, and dark, and there is no known process which will ever change things. --- Not a happy ending. http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/future/future.html Big Rip Excerpt: The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis first published in 2003, about the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future. Theoretically, the scale factor of the universe becomes infinite at a finite time in the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip "We have the sober scientific certainty that the heavens and earth shall ‘wax old as doth a garment’.... Dark indeed would be the prospects of the human race if unilluminated by that light which reveals ‘new heavens and a new earth.’" Lord Kelvin (originator of the second law) Psalm 102:25-27 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
Personally, although I'm not qualified in the mathematics to know for sure, it seems very ironic to me that entropy would be a measure of both the extraordinary disorder of a black-hole and of the apparent order that would be represented by the thermodynamic equilibrium inherent in the heat death of the universe. (note that the initial measure of the entropy of the universe is extreme order, the second measure of the entropy is extreme disorder, i.e. black-holes, and the final measure of entropy is order once again, i.e. thermodynamic equilibrium, heat death. Strange! And, again although I'm not qualified to know for sure, it seems that the tension between Sal and Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Sewell, (in which Dr. Sewell felt personally attacked by Sal because of the way Sal presented his opinion), may have to do with this apparent schizophrenia apparent in the measure of order and disorder in the entropy of the universe.,,,
Physicist Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts on Sal Cordova vs. Granville Sewell on 2nd Law Thermo - July 2012 Excerpt: The Equivalence: Boltzmann’s famous equation (and engraved on his tombstone) S = k ln W, merely is an exchange rate conversion. If W is lira, and S is dollars, then k ln() is the conversion of the one to the other, which is empirically determined. Boltzmann’s constant “k” is a semi-empirical conversion number that made Gibbs “stat mech” definition work with the earlier “thermo” definition of Lord Kelvin and co. Despite this being something as simple as a conversion factor, you must realize how important it was to connect these two. When Einstein connected mass to energy with E = (c2) m, we can now talk about mass-energy conservation, atom bombs and baby universes, whereas before Einstein they were totally different quantities. Likewise, by connecting the two things, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, then the hard rules derived from thermo can now be applied to statistics of counting permutations. This is where Granville derives the potency of his argument, since a living organism certainly shows unusual permutations of the atoms, and thus has stat mech entropy that via Boltzmann, must obey the 2nd law. If life violates this, then it must not be lawfully possible for evolution to happen (without an input of work or information.) The one remaining problem, is how to calculate it precisely (how to calculate the entropy precisely). note: (And because it is extremely difficult to calculate entropy precisely for living cells, this is exactly where Darwinists try to claim evolution does not violate the second law. Yet regardless of the games Darwinists play because of this lack of mathematical precision, for all intents and purposes as far as we can ascertain, for evolution to occur would indeed violate the 'iron clad' second law of thermodynamics!) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-rob-sheldon-offers-some-thoughts-on-sal-cordova-vs-granville-sewell-on-2nd-law-thermo/ Why Tornados Running Backward do not Violate the Second Law - Granville Sewell - May 2012 - article with video Excerpt: So, how does the spontaneous rearrangement of matter on a rocky, barren, planet into human brains and spaceships and jet airplanes and nuclear power plants and libraries full of science texts and novels, and supercomputers running partial differential equation solving software , represent a less obvious or less spectacular violation of the second law—or at least of the fundamental natural principle behind this law—than tornados turning rubble into houses and cars? Can anyone even imagine a more spectacular violation? https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/why-tornados-running-backward-do-not-violate-the-second-law/
bornagain77_{July 13, 2014
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As an addendum: Consider the total entropy of a closed system consisting of a cold brick and a hot brick in contact with each other where each brick is an "open" system allowing heat flow out of each brick. The total entropy of the both bricks combined will increase as the temperature of the cold brick gets higher and the temperature of the hot brick gets lower. The entropy of the hot brick actually gets LOWER as the total entropy goes up because it is cooling off! The entropy of such bricks is calculated in 4.Entropy changes in the ``hot brick problem'': http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node41.html Thus, even though the 2nd law is applicable to the universe, and even though universal entropy is always increasing, it is inevitable entropy of some objects will decrease for the simple reason they are getting colder, and this will most definitely be true because when stars start to burn out. A lot of this is counter intuitive, but the numbers will bear this out. Most definitely, universal entropy cannot increase without decrease in entropy in some locations (just like the hot bricks example). And again, to repeat, if the Earth had been a frozen low entropy ice ball we'd all be dead. Even materialists should be arguing the increase of the Earth's entropy from a low entropy state would actually be something desirable. The Earth is an open system, but we wouldn't want the entropy of the Earth to escape and go to zero, we'd want the sun giving us entropy as we dump entropy out into cold space. Amazingly, materialists and Darwinists don't give this more direct analysis, and even fumble with basic physics as well. It's not a matter of lowering entropy, it's a matter of having just the right amounts! To paraphrase Godilocks, "the porridge doesn't have too much entropy, not too little, just right". The hot bricks problem should be studied carefully to really grasp the issues. Entropy is not an easy concept. That's why I far prefer basic probability arguments for OOL.scordova_{July 13, 2014
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The 2nd law of thermodynamics allows the entropy of a system to decrease if the system radiates heat (waste energy) to the environment. Actually, the Solar System is not isolated: it is surrounded by cold outer space into which heat is radiated. If instead of receiving energy from the Sun -- a small spot in the sky -- we were surrounded by energy arriving uniformly from every direction, all of it would only heat up the Earth, and no fraction of it could be diverted for any useful purpose. Luckily, thermal energy can escape into the night sky, so the large temperature difference between the Sun and the Earth is maintained in the long run. Living things get rid of heat, which allows them to decrease their entropy without violating the second law.Piotr_{July 13, 2014
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