Math prof attacks the "open" explanation for 2TD

[billwald]

"No, energy per se is not what I am discussing: it is entropy, a statistical concept that was originally formulated to cover heat transfer, but as the professor has pointed out, has more recently been expanded to cover a broader class of phenomena.."


That's exactly the problem! The concept was demonstrated to handle all problems of heat transfer and later discovered that the equasions were useful for other stuff but not proven for other stuff. Only pragmatically adapted and extended.

 

[Quasar1011]

Bob, OEJ do you believe as Hilston does, that God is directly responsible for bringing and keeping atoms together?

Colossians 1:17
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

 

[Mr Jack]

You are forgetting that the cell is essentially a "machine" and like human designed machines like refrigerators can use external energy to reduce entropy because these machines are built (designed?) to do so.

You don't need a machine at all. A patch of dark-coloured rock next to a patch of light coloured rock will do just fine. As the sunlight strikes it will warm the dark rock more than the light rock and thus decrease the entropy of the system. A bucket of water will also suffice, the surface waters will be warmed more than the lower waters causing convection currents and a decrease of entropy in the system.

Once again you're bringing in the confused notion that entropy decrease is equivalent to order at the macroscopic and subjective level. It isn't.

 

[Mr Jack]

You are confused. The seed is as ordered as the plant will ever be.

Your ignorance of entropy is showing, bob. Everytime a plant performs photosynthesis it is performing an entropy decrease. Everytime it builds a new cell, it does the same. Without entropic decrease a plant could not grow.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

How exactly do you expect me to 'look up' what you think?

I don't. I expect you to read what I write. If you come across a word that's beyond your vocabulary, then I expect you to look it up.

Laws and theories are the same thing.

No, they're not.

The only difference is what the fashion for naming them was at the time.

Anybody with a clue wanna set Mr. Jack straight on this?

 

[Mr Jack]

I don't. I expect you to read what I write. If you come across a word that's beyond your vocabulary, then I expect you to look it up.

The word 'fundamental' does not have one single, clear definition. I want to know what you mean by it; apparently, you would rather spend time typing out insults than explain yourself.

Anybody with a clue wanna set Mr. Jack straight on this?

May we assume from the fact that you're choosing not to do so that you do not consider yourself to have a clue?

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Here, Mr. Jack -- for your reading pleasure.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

The word 'fundamental' does not have one single, clear definition.

Figure it out by the context then. I'm not your schoolteacher -- you should have learned how to do this when you were a kid.

May we assume from the fact that you're choosing not to do so that you do not consider yourself to have a clue?

See above.

 

[Mr Jack]

Here, Mr. Jack -- for your reading pleasure.

Yes, I've seen such statements before. They're simply not true. Specifically:

Theories are more certain than hypotheses, but less certain than laws.

Newton's Laws of Motion were superceded by Einstein's more accurate, and more certain, Theory of General Relativity. Similar examples can be plucked from other areas of science. My statement that laws and theories are the same thing is a slight overstatement in that a law tends to be a single statement rather than a working body, but the notion that the terms Theory and Law indicate differing levels in the scientific certainity is simply false.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

Yes, I've seen such statements before. They're simply not true.

According to whom -- you? Give me one good reason why I should take your word over that of a university's science department.

 

[Mr Jack]

According to whom -- you? Give me one good reason why I should take your word over that of a university's science department.

I already did. Read the post I made above.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

I already did.

No, you didn't.

Read the post I made above.

I read it, and I see no reason (much less a good one) why I should take your word over that of a university's science department. I think the people in the science department have a better idea of what constitutes science than you do.

 

[Mr Jack]

I read it, and I see no reason (much less a good one) why I should take your word over that of a university's science department. I think the people in the science department have a better idea of what constitutes science than you do.

I think that you should read the arguments and make up your own mind. The position your siding with is empirically false. It may describe a desired idealisation of how science should work but it is factually not a description of how real science works.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

I think that you should read the arguments and make up your own mind.

Well, let's see. They're a science department, and you're just some guy on the internet who probably got his definitions from talkorigins. This is a no brainer. I'll go with their definitions of scientific law and scientific theory over yours any day.

The position your siding with is empirically false.

I'm siding with the university. If you think their position is empirically false, then you need to demonstrate that. You might also want to send them an email letting them know that their science curriculum doesn't meet with your approval.

It may describe a desired idealisation of how science should work but it is factually not a description of how real science works.

I'm not arguing about how science works. I'm arguing that scientific laws and scientific theories are different things. Have you forgotten the argument, or are you just looking for more nits to pick?

 

[Mr Jack]

Ah, the irony of a Creationist telling me I should just listen to the real scientists.

 

[billwald]

The point of seed and plant should be that the seed is evidence that the plant reducibly complex - the proper meaning of the words, "reducibly complex." The complexity of the seed can be reduced to its DNA & etc referring to the amount of information needed to describe it. "Irriducibly complex" refers to descreiption, not hardware.

 

[Yorzhik]

Roughly, yes. I agree with the general idea you're presenting. I disagree with the word "until". It implies both a goal and a finishing point, of which there is not. It's also worth noting that the mutations must be heritable. I'm sure you understand both of these points, just wanted to note them.

The word 'until' is only used to represent succession.

That being said, would you then agree "Roughly, yes. I agree with the general idea you're presenting." without a qualifier on the word "until"?

And, yes, it is noted and agreed that the mutations must be heritable.

 

[Yorzhik]

I think it much more likely that there wasn't a single protocell but a community of leaky protocells and leaky cells. Leaky referring to RNA/DNA being exchanged between organisms, a phenomenon we see in today's bacteria (and between bacteria and eukaryotes). So you have lineages evolving and exchanging functional genes.

We can include this method to the general understanding of "mutations must be heritable", correct?

 

[billwald]

Sewell's error is accepting Behe's math instead of Claude Shannon's math. Strange for a math prof.

 

[Yorzhik]

Sewell's error is accepting Behe's math instead of Claude Shannon's math. Strange for a math prof.

I, no doubt, would follow Shannon before Behe when it comes to math. I'm only familiar with Shannon's work on a lay level, and on that level I don't see where Behe contradicted Shannon. Could you demonstrate?