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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: thermodynamics again
Message-ID: <95@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-May-85 18:25:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.95
Posted: Wed May 15 18:25:32 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 17-May-85 06:16:10 EDT
References: <1083@uwmacc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
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> 
> /* Written 11:32 pm  May 13, 1985 by miller@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA in uiucdcsb:net.origins */
> /* ---------- "thermodynamics again" ---------- */
> It has been suggested by some, that thermodynamics does not apply to evolution.


Ray, this is garbage. You have been reading too much creationist writings
to see clearly on this issue.

1) Evolution says nothing about thermodynamics.

2) Creationists are the ones who regularly bring up the second
   law of thermodynamics in the mistaken belief that it is relavent to
   the discussion. Evolutionists are only showing that evolution does
   not necessarily contradict it.

3) The laws of thermodynamics, that you appeal to, concern equilibrium
   systems that are closed. It is completely incorrect to try to
   invoke them when discussing evolution, since biological systems
   are not closed.
   

Your arguments are absurd. You run to the first science that gives you
something that you can distort and use against evolution. You seem to 
ignore the fact that the science that you currently appeal to, thermodynamics,
is also the one that can quite capably deal a death blow to creationism
as regards: Where did the heat of condensation/vaporization go/come from when
the flood occurred? If everything requires preprogramming then who
preprogrammed the programmer? Don't forget that this science also
has a first law: Matter/Energy can neither be created or destroyed.
Why don't you subject creationism to this consequence of thermodynamics?

The fact that you pick and choose between laws in such a selective
and convenient fashion, while at the same time ignoring those that
destroy the basis of your position, illustrates quite unambiguously
the pseudoscientific nature of your platitudes.

>Personal comment here.  Why don't you evolutionists all move your homes over a
>toxic waste dump?  Mutations are how you claim evolution progresses; increasing
>the mutation rate should increase the rate of evolution.  Should we disband the
> EPA?  I'd really like an answer to this question from any evolutionist who
> doesn't consume heavy metals with his scrambled eggs for breakfast.
> 
> A. Ray Miller
> Univ Illinois

We don't have to move anywhere to be exposed to toxic waste; your
diatribes give us more than enough to handle.


Padraig Houlahan.