Harsh Truth: If Intelligent Design is Untestable . . .

[JM2C]

The problem here is that life is not a closed system, so the 2nd law doesn't prevent reanimation.

Tis the chemistry of life which prevents it, ie, a dead organism from becoming alive again.

Remember that there are more laws & processes at work than just thermodynamics.


But there's another way to view this.

Dead organisms do provide energy & material for existing & new life, just different individuals.

So long as the system is open (with energy flowing in), life continues, with some lives being replaced with others.

Does not this life that gives life also the cause of increase in entropy in an open system.

 

[JM2C]

Easy mistake to make.



And I still must object that "you can't reverse life" is NOT the "main principle" of the second law. The second law says absolutely nothing about life or living systems whatsoever - it deal exclusively with closed systems.

but

The main principle of the second law of thermodynamics is that in a closed system no instance can occur in which the transfer of heat energy is from a cooler to a hotter body.

IOW, you can’t reverse this process is what you’re saying here, right?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Does not this life that gives life also the cause of increase in entropy in an open system.

No. Why would it?

And nothing about the second law of thermodynamics states that evolution is impossible. If we only lived in a universe where the second law of thermodynamics was in effect with no other laws to counter and shape the way the universe works then you would have that argument. But for example why isn't the sun exploding into a million billion pieces and spreading throughout the universe? Why is it in such neat and tight sphere? Why is it so steadily and with such precision and order fusing two hydrogen atoms into a helium atom? Why is it that the life of stars are like clockwork and we can predict what will happen, when it will happen (roughly) and why? Why are they not balls of chaos and it might explode to destroy the Earth any minute?

 

[JM2C]

Stop lying. 2nd LoT does notprevent non-living matter organising into living matter. It limits the conditions where it may happen but those limitations do not come into force when you are talking about the earth or anything upon it because the earth is not an isolated system.

”It limits the conditions” meaning entropy. That is the principle of the 2nd LoT, entropy. Life cannot go on forever because of disorder and if you say life starts from a non-life then this non-life did not encounter these limitations at all. It went smooth sailing since its inceptions to where we are today.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

IOW, you can’t reverse this process is what you’re saying here, right?

What it's saying is that in closed systems, heat energy dissipates. That is all. What does that have to do with open, living systems?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

”It limits the conditions” meaning entropy. That is the principle of the 2nd LoT, entropy. Life cannot go on forever because of disorder and if you say life starts from a non-life then this non-life did not encounter these limitations at all. It went smooth sailing since its inceptions to where we are today.

The vast majority of life has dissipated. Only a minor amount of this system has survived.

 

[metis]

I think there's often a misunderstanding as to what even "entropy" even is, so let me quote this, but please note the underlined word (mine):

In thermodynamics, entropy (usual symbol S) is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a thermodynamic system may be arranged, commonly understood as a measure of disorder. According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy of an isolated system never decreases; such a system will spontaneously proceed towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the configuration with maximum entropy. Systems that are not isolated may decrease in entropy, provided they increase the entropy of their environment by at least that same amount. Since entropy is a state function, the change in the entropy of a system is the same for any process that goes from a given initial state to a given final state, whether the process is reversible or irreversible. However, irreversible processes increase the combined entropy of the system and its environment. -- Entropy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, a key word is "equilibrium", so note that disorder doesn't mean falling apart but actually involves a shift from an area of greater energy to one of lesser energy. So, "disorder" in this case doesn't mean randomness but that there's a shifting of energy from one location to another.

 

[David M]

”It limits the conditions” meaning entropy. That is the principle of the 2nd LoT, entropy. Life cannot go on forever because of disorder and if you say life starts from a non-life then this non-life did not encounter these limitations at all. It went smooth sailing since its inceptions to where we are today.

No, just stop demonstrating your ineffable ignorance. "Limits the conditions" means that if a cell was the sole thing in an isolated system then it could never develop or reproduce. BUT THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN ON THE EARTH BECAUSE THE EARTH IS NOT AN ISOLATED SYSTEM.

By your misrepresentation of 2nd LoT it would be impossible for embryos to develop because that is a decrease in entropy. And yet they do develop because it a localised decrease in an open system which is of a smaller magnitude than a related increase elsewhere - which precisely what the 2nd LoT ALLOWS.

 

[JM2C]

No. Why would it?


And nothing about the second law of thermodynamics states that evolution is impossible. If we only lived in a universe where the second law of thermodynamics was in effect with no other laws to counter and shape the way the universe works then you would have that argument.


But for example why isn't the sun exploding into a million billion pieces and spreading throughout the universe?


Why is it in such neat and tight sphere? Why is it so steadily and with such precision and order fusing two hydrogen atoms into a helium atom? Why is it that the life of stars are like clockwork and we can predict what will happen, when it will happen (roughly) and why? Why are they not balls of chaos and it might explode to destroy the Earth any minute?

Didn’t we have CME, solar storm, this year? How about the one in 1859, the Carrington event, that almost destroyed the earth? If that 1859 solar storm would hit us today we would all go back to Bronze Age. And the one in 1989 that crippled parts of Canada? You think that the universe is stable and not heading towards maximal entropy.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Didn’t we have CME, solar storm, this year? How about the one in 1859, the Carrington event, that almost destroyed the earth? If that 1859 solar storm would hit us today we would all go back to Bronze Age. And the one in 1989 that crippled parts of Canada? You think that the universe is stable and not heading towards maximal entropy.

Now you're completely changing the subject. "Occasionally unstable" does not mean "subject to the second law of thermodynamics".

Do you now understand that the earth is not a closed system, and therefore the second law cannot successfully be applied to living systems?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Didn’t we have CME, solar storm, this year? How about the one in 1859, the Carrington event, that almost destroyed the earth? If that 1859 solar storm would hit us today we would all go back to Bronze Age. And the one in 1989 that crippled parts of Canada? You think that the universe is stable and not heading towards maximal entropy.

I didn't say that it wasn't. I just asked you a simple question as to why the sun seems to be so well organized and isn't simply exploding randomly. All of the events we have were, to at least some degree, ordered.

Let me re-phrase the question for you to make it simpler. And I am not interested in any kind of tangent but simply answering this exact question.

"Why is the sun a sphere instead of an explosion spilling all over the universe?"

 

[JM2C]

I think there's often a misunderstanding as to what even "entropy" even is, so let me quote this, but please note the underlined word (mine):

In thermodynamics, entropy (usual symbol S) is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a thermodynamic system may be arranged, commonly understood as a measure of disorder. According to the second law of thermodynamics the entropy of an isolated system never decreases; such a system will spontaneously proceed towards thermodynamic equilibrium, the configuration with maximum entropy. Systems that are not isolated may decrease in entropy, provided they increase the entropy of their environment by at least that same amount. Since entropy is a state function, the change in the entropy of a system is the same for any process that goes from a given initial state to a given final state, whether the process is reversible or irreversible. However, irreversible processes increase the combined entropy of the system and its environment. -- Entropy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now, a key word is "equilibrium", so note that disorder doesn't mean falling apart but actually involves a shift from an area of greater energy to one of lesser energy. So, "disorder" in this case doesn't mean randomness but that there's a shifting of energy from one location to another.

You have a good article here.

 

[JM2C]

I didn't say that it wasn't. I just asked you a simple question as to why the sun seems to be so well organized and isn't simply exploding randomly. All of the events we have were, to at least some degree, ordered.

Let me re-phrase the question for you to make it simpler. And I am not interested in any kind of tangent but simply answering this exact question.

"Why is the sun a sphere instead of an explosion spilling all over the universe?"

Read methis' post

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Read methis' post

Yes I know that he knows why. That is why I was asking you. I also know the answer. But a technique I like to use is where I question you in an attempt to help you figure out the answer on your own through your own reasoning. It usually works better than me hitting you over the head with wikipedia.

Now back to the question.

 

[metis]

My main point of putting forth this article is that entropy and the 2nd LoT does not in any way imply that life could not have emerged from non-life. And since life involves energy, and since energy can shift from one location to another, thus life could hypothetically emerge from non-life.

BTW, that would actually be at least somewhat compatible with what's written in the scriptures, namely that humans were supposedly created from dust, thus non-life to life. And when we croak, we go from life to non-life, and the energy is released to go somewhere else.

There, I gottit all figgered out!

 

[Parsimony]

You said Then I said: Absolute Zero (0° K) is –273.15°C or –459.67°F.

We are talking temperature, right? Are they relevant now?

Just in that one example. Reducing temperature is not the only way to reduce entropy locally. Crystallization can reduce it as can desalinization.

Exactly! IOW, you can’t reverse life and that is the main principle of the 2nd LoT.

No it isn't. The main principle of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is that the total entropy in a closed system always increases over time. It can still reduce locally under the right circumstances.

Try to understand this: Only life can give life and sustain life till it dies and not the other way around.

What does this have to do with evolution again?

Let us then observe if we place this piece of bread in any environment will turn into trillions of living cell a million years from now.

No one ever said that it would.

Prior to 1841, i.e., before the word dinosaur was created, what was the word they use to describe them? Dragon? Leviathan? Sea Monster? Behemoth? YES! Do a research and you’ll find out.

It is possible that a person may have found the bones of a dinosaur in the distant past and thought they belonged to the behemoth as described in the Bible. However, people also used to think that dinosaur bones belonged to giant humans as described in the Bible. That doesn't mean that dinosaurs are behemoths or giant humans.

Heat energy escapes TO a cooler place, [NOT FROM A COOLER TO HOTTER], to heat up this cool place to bring it to an even temperature and when the temperature evens up this what you call a heat death.

That's usually true, but energy can be used to work against that. Freezers do exist and they do work. It's just a local decrease in entropy. The system as a whole still increases in entropy.

 

[Revoltingest]

Does not this life that gives life also the cause of increase in entropy in an open system.

No....in an open system, the addition of energy can prevent an increase in entropy.

 

[dust1n]

No....in an open system, the addition of energy can prevent an increase in entropy.

What else can an addition of energy prevent?

 

[Revoltingest]

What else can an addition of energy prevent?

Cold feet.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Every single lifeform is a transitional form. There are no forms that are "non-transitional". We do see change and we have a strong DNA and Fossil record to provide evidence of human evolution. Are you simply not aware of the evidence or are you simply denying the evidence? If you deny the evidence please provide the reasoning as to why. Don't quote the bible.

' transitional form ' as mutations - starting with elementary molecules in primeval free-form soup or slime are degenerative in nature.
Schools teach that water dilutes things rather than binds things together.

How had life been preceding before the complete formation of both male and female?
Where is the hint connection of an evolutionary sequence among all the diverse cells on earth ?
Isn't evolution about pre-existing life?
Since life does Not come from non-life, then scientists are only human in educated guesses.