Saturday, December 23, 2006

Fixed Laws and Evolution

Here is a list of scientific laws which go against the Evolutionary way of seeing things.

Quantum Mechanics: The "primordial singularity" containing all the matter and energy in the universe could not have turned into a Big Bang because it was a singularity and thus any hyper-dimensional expansion would have to have been "ticked off" by an alterior force

Second Law of Thermodynamics: This law points to a low-entropy beginning for the universe, but the Big Bang would have been an extremely high-entropy event

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Stars cannot form from clouds of dust and gas, let alone from outward-moving clouds of dust and gas

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Globular clusters of stars cannot organize themselves from clouds of arbitrarily-arranged stars, let alone clouds of outward-moving stars

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Galaxies cannot come forth from clouds of arbitrarily-arranged stars, let alone clouds of outward-moving stars

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Planets cannot come about from arbitrary arrangements of matter, let alone from a plane of colliding rock and gas

Laws of Chemistry: If oxygen had existed in the early atmosphere, life would be eradicated by poisoning, but if oxygen had not existed originally, life would be eradicated by U-V rays

Laws of Chemistry: Virtually all the important chemicals in a living cell are long chain polymers, which means that if they originally had contact with water as Evolution says, they would have essentially melted back into simple amino acids and thus never formed into what they are today

Laws of Probability: Proteins in cells require the use of solely left-handed molecules in their assembly, so when the first Evolutionary proteins were formed, they would have had to have been created out of a solution of 100% left-handed amino acids, which is impossible

Laws of Probability: Mutations are estimated to be harmful or neutral 99% of the time, and at least half the time a large mutation will kill the organism in which it occurs

Laws of Probability: The strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and many other systems and constants in the universe are so fine-tuned that any variation in their nature and the universe would be practically one giant plasma ball

Information Theory: DNA is an irreducibly complex system of encrypting, transcribing, deciphering, and re-encoding, which means it had to have been fully developed before it was used by lifeforms, and this is impossible

Natural Selection: Complex systems are kept from forming on their own because if one part of the system formed without the rest, the organism in which it formed would have been killed off by Natural Selection


-R. Josiah Magnuson

7 comments:

blipey said...

The "primordial singularity" containing all the matter and energy in the universe could not have turned into a Big Bang because it was a singularity and thus any hyper-dimensional expansion would have to have been "ticked off" by an alterior force

I think you have a very basic misconception of what is meant by The Big Bang. It was not an infinitely small point that existed in an otherwise empty universe. The point WAS the uiverse, there was nothing outside of it. To speak of something outside the singularity is meaningless. Think of being inside a balloon that is deflated. If you were to push on the balloon and make it bigger, you would not be exerting an outside force it. Obviously a very imperfect analogy, but it works as a mental picture.

Second Law of Thermodynamics: This law points to a low-entropy beginning for the universe, but the Big Bang would have been an extremely high-entropy event

This is untrue. Near the time of the Big Bang, the universe was extremely smooth and uniform on both temperature and density...thhis is a very ordered state of being...very uniform = low entropy, chaotic = hih entropy.

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Stars cannot form from clouds of dust and gas, let alone from outward-moving clouds of dust and gas

As with all the items on this list, do you have any references for this claim?

Stars most certainly DO form from giant clouds of hydrogen gas. This is a basic primer on star formation. The "outward-motion" that you mention is a red herring. Certainly, evidence suggests that the universe is expanding, but that does not counteract the force of gravity over local conditions.

Think of a rocket being launched. If it is not moving at sufficient velocity (the escape velocity), it will eventually fall to earth despite its "outward movement".

Newton's Laws of Motion and Gravitation: Planets cannot come about from arbitrary arrangements of matter, let alone from a plane of colliding rock and gas

They do not form from "arbitrary" arangements of matter. They form from specific accretion disks orbitting stars. Matter that is not in this arrangement will not form planets.

Laws of Probability: The strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and many other systems and constants in the universe are so fine-tuned that any variation in their nature and the universe would be practically one giant plasma ball

This argument is trivial. It involves nothing other than saying "wow, lucky we're here." While it may seem incredible, it is not an argument from outside of nature. We're here, so that's the way it is.

Information Theory: DNA is an irreducibly complex system of encrypting, transcribing, deciphering, and re-encoding, which means it had to have been fully developed before it was used by lifeforms, and this is impossible

The concept of IR has no scientific basis. It is basically the argument of "I can't believe that, so it must have been designed." There has been no research done of IR and, indeed, no mathematical or unambiguous definition of "irreducibly complex" has ever been given. It is a meaningless term as used by ID advocates today. Maybe someone will formulate an actual definition one day bt we are still waiting.

The concepts you mention are difficult ones. A lot of study is needed to truly understand even the basics of scientific fields of study. This isn't to say that they are impossible, boring, or not worth investigating. But science (as with any other field of study) is something that one needs to DO to understand. It is very difficult to get a grasp of the realities of anything by getting it spoonfed to us.

I hope you will continue to be interested in these issues and get your hands dirty studying them.

blipey

R. Josiah Magnuson said...

"The point WAS the universe, there was nothing outside of it. To speak of something outside the singularity is meaningless."

So there's the point. The Big Bang could not have happened because there would have had to have been something outside the universe to begin the inflation of this infinitely dnse and infinitely small point.

"very uniform = low entropy, chaotic = high entropy."

That's the, shall we say, pop creationist view of the Second Law. In truth, a very uniform state is a state of high entropy, because entropy is a measure of how useful energy is. After the Big Bang, most energy would have indeed been useless, as everything would have been homogenized. The ball of plasma produced by the alleged Big Bang could never have formed the astronomical wonders of today.

"Certainly, evidence suggests that the universe is expanding, but that does not counteract the force of gravity over local conditions."

But the universe would have been much smaller long ago. Furthermore, the big question is not whether or not gravity exists (?!), it is whether or not a *homogenized* *expanding* mass of gas can spontaneously de-homogenize itself, stop expanding, and then assemble into local stars and galaxies.

"[Planets] do not form from "arbitrary" arangements of matter. They form from specific accretion disks orbitting stars. Matter that is not in this arrangement will not form planets."

So are small planets forming in Saturn's rings? No. The asteroid belt? No. Disks of rock and gas, far from creating grand planetary systems, collide and eventually crush each other to a pulp.

"This argument is trivial. It involves nothing other than saying "wow, lucky we're here." While it may seem incredible, it is not an argument from outside of nature. We're here, so that's the way it is."

There is only one universe by definition. So why should the universe be fine-tuned?

The concept of irreducible complexity has no scientific basis. It is basically the argument of "I can't believe that, so it must have been designed."

Irreducible complexity is when every component in a system is necessary to that system. Such exists in nature.

"I hope you will continue to be interested in these issues and get your hands dirty studying them."

Thanks a lot for the dialogue, Blipey! :-)

blipey said...

WR says:

So there's the point. The Big Bang could not have happened because there would have had to have been something outside the universe to begin the inflation of this infinitely dnse and infinitely small point.

You completely ignored the expanding balloon part of my answer. There needs to be nothing "outside" in order for expansion to occur.

WR says:

In truth, a very uniform state is a state of high entropy, because entropy is a measure of how useful energy is.

Here is a definition of entropy.

The Omega term refers the number of states of a system. An uniform system has 1 state, therefore has a lower entropy than a system that is not uniform. Your assertion that order is equivlent to high entropy is naive. As stated in the definition, entropy is a measure of the DIS-order of a system: it is proportional to disorder.

If you disagree, you need to provide an alternate and accepted definition of entropy. Merely asserting that your idea of entropy is more correct than the standard definition which I linked to is inadequate.

WR says:

But the universe would have been much smaller long ago. Furthermore, the big question is not whether or not gravity exists (?!), it is whether or not a *homogenized* *expanding* mass of gas can spontaneously de-homogenize itself, stop expanding, and then assemble into local stars and galaxies.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make regarding the various obvious statement that an expanding universe would be smaller in the past.

As for the rest, did you read the link to star formation that I provided. There are many other basic primers available in any library or high school physics text.

As you say, it is obvious that "gravity exists", so why do assert that it cannot attract particles to each other? This IS what you are saying. As for the "de-homogenizing", this is a very basic expectation of quantum theory. Quantum fluctuations guarantee that there will be minute imperfections that will be magnified by an expanding universe.

Once again, most of this material can be found in any library or high scool text, at least on a basic level.

WR says:

So are small planets forming in Saturn's rings? No. The asteroid belt? No. Disks of rock and gas, far from creating grand planetary systems, collide and eventually crush each other to a pulp.

Well, no, planets are not forming in the rings of Saturn--for a giant multitude of reasons. First, a ring of Saturn does not have enough matter in it to form a planet. Second, a ring's proximity to Saturn's gravitational field would tend to work against the very small gravitational attraction of individual particles in the ring. There are many other factors at work in that scenario. See here>.

WR says:

There is only one universe by definition. So why should the universe be fine-tuned?

This statement assumes an outside factor, without proof of one. The concept of fine-tuning would require a something to fine tune it. For reasons that this assumption is logically dubious, see Anthropic Principle (especially the strong version) and Occam's Razor.

WR says:

Irreducible complexity is when every component in a system is necessary to that system. Such exists in nature.

I am aware of what IC is. It is a statement of disbelief. There have been no IC systems described by anyone. I know Dr. Behe's assertion that several things are IC--most of these have been proven to be incorrect. The flagellum, the TTSC, blood coagulation, etc--these are all described to varying degrees (some quite well) in the scientific literature: see Kitzmiller vs. Dover transcripts for Dr. Behe's response to being presented with this literature.

Once again, IC is an assertion that the scientific literature cannot explain things that it has explained. If you have references to system that you think science has described incorrectly, please let me know. Please reference the study, data, and proof of IC in such systems. To my knowledge no system has been shown to be IC.

I continue to hope that you will read, not just my few links but go out and read the relevant scientific literature. It is one thing to say that something is wrong and quite another to go out and show that it is.

If you truly want to overturn the establishment you must provide better evidence and not just rhetoric. People generally believe what they are doing and what they see--those who see the most are in the best position to judge truth.

blipey

R. Josiah Magnuson said...

"If you truly want to overturn the establishment you must provide better evidence and not just rhetoric. People generally believe what they are doing and what they see--those who see the most are in the best position to judge truth."

I'm sorry if by posting these laws which Evolution seemingly violates I gave the impression that the origins debate is based on who has the "best" evidence. In reality, all evidence is interpreted according to one's pre-existing ideas of the way things are. By posting these laws, I am merely trying to demonstrate that Evolution is a bad interpretation of the evidence.

blipey said...

Right. Which is rhetoric. As I said above, it is important to show and do, not talk. This is certainly true for science, but is equally valid for any endeavor--for example, actors must not talk, they must show.

Your last comment comes down to this: I think that evidence means this.

Is it not your esponsibility to SHOW why the evidence means this. It is not to anyone's benefit--yours, being young and perhaps less studied than you will become, especially--to show WHY the evidence should be interpretted your way?

So, to avoid the he said / she said argument that you want to rely on, one must SUPPORT their interpretation. You have been shown where your arguments break down. Your response to this has been to say, "well I don't see it that way."

This is insufficient. You seem to think that evidence is just some word that can take on any meaning necessary to fit any circumstance. This is not true. Evidence that is taken seriously is corraborated by many line of investigation and is broadly supported by many disciplines, people, and conditions.

So it falls upon YOU to SHOW that your interpretation is better, more accurate, and has better explanatory power than the current model.

This cannot not be done by talking about it. It can be done by doing actual research and producing actual data. Where is it?

R. Josiah Magnuson said...

I'll tell you, but you won't like it.

Try here: http://answersingenesis.org/

Or here: http://icr.org/

These people are real scientists.

blipey said...

Yes, I suppose some of them are. Why are the 8 or so actual scientists at AIG more right than the 100,000+ who say they are wrong.

For example, those who argue for biblical literalism should be able to answer this question:

Flood: circa 2300 BC
Pyramid at Giza: circa 2150 BC

If there were 8 people in 2300 BC, how did there manage to be 200,000 workers building the pyramid 150 years later?

The point is not that people are scientists, but rather that they SHOW their work and reproduce it and get results.

Dr. Behe has obviously gone to school and become a Dr. of Science. However, this alone does not mean that his work is any good.

In fact, his paper with Dr. Snoke (which the Discovery Institute touts as a death knell for evolution) actually does nothing of the sort. In fact, any findings from it actually support an evolutionary path for his IC system.

I notice the lead article on AIG about ice cores is only a dicussion of some other people's work. To be taken seriously, a scientist needs to do his own work and get results by testing them. This is something that IDCers continually fail to do.

blipey