Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site scgvaxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!pertec!scgvaxd!dan From: dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (Dan Boskovich) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Response to flames Message-ID: <311@scgvaxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-May-85 11:55:21 EDT Article-I.D.: scgvaxd.311 Posted: Wed May 8 11:55:21 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 10-May-85 12:28:23 EDT References: <253@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> <303@scgvaxd.UUCP> <1518@hao.UUCP> <310@scgvaxd.UUCP> Reply-To: dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (Dan Boskovich) Organization: Hughes Aircraft Co., El Segundo, CA Lines: 267 Summary: WOW! What a series of flames. But so far all I got was name-calling and NO SCIENCE!! But, like the good little creationist I am, I will go ahead and comment on some of them. DAN: More positive evidence for creation is in the Second Law! The universe is running down. It can't be running down forever. Somewhere it must have been wound up; a starting point. FLAME: Are you just looking for flames or what? Do you even know what the second law says? Obviously not. DAN: Evolutionists say the Second Law does not apply to the earth because it is an open system. However the universe is a closed system. Given this, how could it have started in the first place. Before Evolution could have started on earth, it first had to produce earth, in a closed system; The Universe! FLAME: Evolution "started"? "on earth"? you mean evolution actually had a beginning? you mean evolution does not occur elsewhere? PLEASE! Get some real understanding of what you criticize before you begin criticizing it! Evolution is not limited to the earth! What do you think we are? Special? Evolution does not have a beginning! Evolution is just another name for the natural flow of things. There is no reason to believe that there is actually a beginning for the natural flow of things. DAN: Do you know how the English language works. I said, "Before E. could have started on earth...it first had to produce earth" Where did I say that it started "ON" earth. Who is quoting who out of context? Evolution had no beginning? Sounds like Hinduism! What kind of science is this? Is this net.ORIGINS or net.naturalflow? FLAME: Closed systems can produce smaller parts (Earth) with higher order than the rest of the environment. This is not a problem. DAN: I guess I should restate this from my last posting! Truly, an oversimplification! This is an example of your brand of science; the science of evolution! The first Law of T. states that nothing is being created or destroyed. Therefore, the universe did not create itself. There is nothing in the present structure of natural law that could possibly account for its own origin. Every system when left to its own devices always tend to move from order to disorder, its energy tending to be transformed to lower levels of availability, finally reaching the state of complete randomness and unavailability for further work. When all the energy of the cosmos has been degraded to random heat energy, with random motion of molecules and uniform low-level temperature, the universe will have died a heat death. The second Law requires the universe to have had a beginning. The first Law precludes its having begun itself. There are systems which do manifest an increasing degree of comlexity. These are open systems and draw on external sources of energy. However, merely having an open system and energy available from the sun does not automatically generate higher order in that system. All real systems are open systems and are open in one way or another to the sun's energy. But most systems normally proceed to lower degrees of order in accord with the law of entropy. In light of this, there are certain conditions which must be satisfied to cause any finite system to advance to a higher degree of order. No system shows an increasing order unless it also possesses a specific program to direct its growth and a complex mechanism to convert the suns energy into specific work. Examples of such directive programs are DNA in living systems, and plans and specifications for construction of artificial systems. Mechanisms for storing and converting energy would be photosynthesis in plants, metabolism in animals, and machinery in artificial construction. This driving mechanism is absent in the case of supposed evolution. Saying that the sun's energy is adequate to sustain evolution without saying HOW is like saying that there is enough energy in a waterfall to fly an airplane. Even if true, it is irrelevant until a mechanism for converting such energy into a useful medium is accomplished. FLAME: Why do you say that ice is more ordered than liquid water? Dan Amazing how these so-called "scientists" fail to display any understanding of the out-of-context quotes by which they presume to discredit evolution. Is it any wonder that most mainstream scientists and educated persons dismiss such presentations as not worth their time? DAN: Just because I ask you a question doesn't mean that I don't know the answer. Actually, I got exactly the answer I was hoping for! Below! FLAME! Why do you say that ice is more ordered than liquid water? Dan Because it is less random; the molecules are not free to wander around to the same extent that they can in a liquid. DAN: In other words, water, when acted upon by an external energy source, (electricity), with a driving mechanism and a program for specific work, (refrigeration), is transformed to a state of higher order. But when left to its own devices reverts back to a lower order or random state. Remember this: Every system when left to its own devices always tend to move from order to disorder, its energy tending to be transformed to lower levels of availability, finally reaching the state of complete randomness and unavailability for further work. When all the energy of the cosmos has been degraded to random heat energy, with random motion of molecules and uniform low-level temperature, the universe will have died a heat death. Now we know exactly what any system requires to produce higher order. And what Evolution lacks! FLAME "Design" is evidence of a "Designer"! Geez, to bad he wasn't all that good at it! Whale and anteater embryos develop teeth that are absorbed before birth. Woops! Maybe the embryos development traces the steps God went through while developing the animal (ontogeny recapitulates creation! :-) Uh-oh, dodo and penguin wings don't work, darn, and the mole and cave salamander's eyes don't see. Oh, and let's give some humans resistance to malaria, woops, at the cost of sickle-cell-anemia. BOY, he sure likes beetles, musta spent a WHOLE day on beetles (250,000 known species). And WOW 90% of the species he created is now extinct! It would (be) a waste of time and space to give the numerous examples of BAD design in our world. DAN: Just like an arrogant human being to think he knows and understands everything about all of life and nature. If you would like to discuss each of these in depth just say so. There is much more to it than your oversimplification of things. FLAME: Well, I don't know offhand how it started. But, I can see the facts, and the facts say: Evolution! DAN: What Facts? All I have heard so far is flames! FLAME: Darwinism is on its way out! If you don't think so, you are not up on current Evolution theory. Punctuationism is whats happening and this is just as much magic as you say Creation is. What is the difference between God creating Adam, and a reptile giving birth to a bird? Come on! No punctuated equilibriumist will tell you that a reptile ever gave birth to a bird! Quit misrepresenting things which you obviously know little about! DAN: See "The Wonderful Egg", IPCAR, 1958. Specific recommendation from the American Association For The Advancement of Science and the American Council on Education. FLAME: P.E. is a theory, not a fact like evolution. It is a theory that attempts to explain some aspects of evolution that some scientists feel are not adequately explained by natural selection. Disproving P.E. does not affect the fact of evolution. The idea is, I think, not so much if there is evidence for P.E., but if it explains the facts involved better than other theories of natural selection etc. If it does, then perhaps experiments can be designed to test the theory, (which will have the effect of generating 'evidence' either for or against). I don't know offhand, where P.E. stands at the moment as far as all this is concerned. It still has nothing to do with the fact of evolution, just some of the methods. DAN: So far, P.E. is a theory based on a lack of evidence for gradualism. What FACT of Evolution? FLAME: "Design" is evidence of a "Designer"! Fool! You people never give up, do you?! Would you care to explain how one defines "design"? (I warn you, I will nail you to the wall if you even try 'cause I know you will have to strain logic beyond its limits to do this.) DAN: Design - Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary - verb. To conceive and plan out in the mind. To have as a purpose. To devise as for a specific function or end. To conceive or execute a plan. noun. A mental project or scheme in which means to an end are laid down. A particular purpose held in view by an individual or group. Deliberate purposive planning! Design can be described as that which has irreducible properties of organization. For example, what does it take to make an airplane fly? Creative design and organization. Take off the wings and see if they will fly! Take out the engine and see if it will fly. In other words, an airplane is a collection of non-flying parts! But what makes it fly? Creative design and organization. Second, among all the molecules that translate DNA into protein, there'e not one molecule that is alive. Not a single molecule in your body is alive. A living cell is a collection of non-living molecules. What does it take to make a living cell alive? Design and CREATION! Here is where design and order intersect. In "Scientific American", one issue was made into a book; "Evolution" in 1978. Dickerson, after describing the problems in producing the right kinds of molecules for living systems, says that those droplets that by "sheer chance" contained the right molecules survived longer. He continues, "This is not life, but it is getting close to it. The missing ingredient is AN ORDERLY MECHANISM!" In other words, life is a property of organization that was produced by an orderly mechanism or a "deliberate purposive plan" or a design! OK. Go ahead! Nail me to the wall. Make my day! FLAME: Before you say there is no evidence of design, first read what Darwin himself had to say concerning the "eye"! Why don't you present us with the quote(s)? (Same warning as above.) DAN: "Darwin Life and Letters", Vol 2, page 67, "The eye to this day gives me cold shudders". "The Origin of Species", page 160, "To suppose that the eye, with all of its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." FLAME: Creation - Definite beginning, design, order, running down, hmmm, seems to fit my origins theory! Sweet dreams. DAN: Thank you! I do! FLAME: Dan, are you try to give us a good laugh or what? I guess it would take some beating to convince you that you don't even understand the surface of the second law of thermodynamics and that there is much more than just "a running down universe". The design argument is bogus. How do you perceive design? What "designed" things are you using to compare? What "non-designed" things are you using to compare? If, as creationists claim, God designed everything, how do you perceive design when you can't tell the difference between a "designed" article and a "non-designed" article (because you can't)? I am interested as to what you will propose to get out of this bind. The difference between a tumbled pebble and an arrowhead, an automobile and a junkyard, a statue and a mountain, a human being and a pile of chemicals is that one is a result of time, chance, and inherent properties of matter, and the other has irreducible properties of organization that were produced by design and creation. Dan (A created being)