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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Response to flames
Message-ID: <864@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-May-85 09:44:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.864
Posted: Fri May 10 09:44:48 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 02:23:08 EDT
References: <253@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> <303@scgvaxd.UUCP> <1518@hao.UUCP> <310@scgvaxd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 41

Dan Boskovitch writes:
>    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.

    Sorry, Dan, but I just couldn't pass this one up.  Please perform the
following thought experiment:  Dump a lot of sugar cubes into a box.  Stir
them up so that they are all jumbled up.  Now shake the box gently for awhile.
Notice that the sugar cubes all tend to line up into a cubic lattic structure 
which is highly 'ordered'.  
    Where is the 'specific program to direct its growth', or the complex
mechanism to convert the incoming energy into specific work?  Answer:  there
isn't any.  The system just naturally becomes more ordered when vibrated.
    See what kind of *incorrect* results you get when you try to apply the
second law of thermodynamics while misinterpreting 'entropy' as 'disorder'?
> 
>    This driving mechanism is absent in the case of supposed evolution.

    Just as it was absent in the case of annealing the sugar cubes.

> > What is the difference between
> > between God creating Adam, and a reptile giving birth to a bird?
> 
> Nothing, since neither happened.
> Dan:
>    Thats not what the Punctuationists say. You better had read up on
>    the new evolutionary trend. Hopeful monsters is where its at, man!

     I'm not sure if Dan is just totally misrepresenting Punctualism here
out of either ignorance or malice, or whether I just haven't heard of this
new evolutionary theory called punctuationism.  The latter seems rather
unlikely, of course.
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
     "I said, 'Doc, a world war passed through my brain.'
      He said, 'Nurse, grab your pad, the boy's insane.'"-Dylan