Scientific Theories

[bellyzbad]

were not at the quontum level the quontum level is soooo small

[Juanster23]

We live in a paradoxical universe and we gotta learn to accept paradox. I don't think we are yet capable of comprehending all these paradoxes in their entirety and expressing them in a conceputal fashion using language. Funnily enough, I think in the end, there is no such thing as a paradox. What we perceive as a paradox is just the minds limited incapability of comprehending reality.

[HKNajjar]

90% of the people that commented here think they're all so smart. Well, there's one thing you all never learned; which is respectful manners in discussion. reflect7, you are going to be attacked forever until you abandon any discussion about God, they're just so bitter bro, good luck.

[MovieFinatic456]

I swear if you have a debate with Steven Hawking they should totally televise it. It will be the most epic thing EVER! I'm an Agnostic but I respect people who have strong faith in their beliefs. I think you are the definition of true believer. As I said before, I respect that. Good luck for the future.

[benthemiester]

Don't worry Niles, Darwin wasn't a scientist either.

[LetReasonPrevail1]

The fact that we can activily avoid future events is remarkable. It can be said that intelligence is measure of how good we are at reducing the inevitability of possible future events.

So to believe in the overall deterministic nature of the universe is in no way inconsistent with believing free will exists within our lives.

[LetReasonPrevail1]

Next, we must define inevitable. Simply put, inevitable means unavoidable. So to avoid certain events from happening in the future, you have to be an agent with the capability to take actions to avoid said event. And we as humans are certainly agents that can take action to avoid future events from ocurring.

[LetReasonPrevail1]

No free will is another false dilema that is presented by theists. To say that atheists are saything that the future is inevitable means nothing. The future will happen regardless, so to say the future is inevitable means nothing. To talk about the inevitablility of something in a meaningful way is to talk about the inevitability of certain events happening.

[LetReasonPrevail1]

Lesson #1: The earth is not a closed system. Energy is added to earth's closed system via the Sun.

Make sense?

Now, either you haven't taken the time to research this very easy to find information, or you are being opening dishonest in presenting this question as though it hasn't been answered definitively.

So which is it? Are you dishonest or just plain lazy?

[The99Gambo]

This is dreadful. The growth of a plant is an old old dexample which is quoted in thermodynamic classes. The increase in order in creating the plant is compensated elsewhere in the Universe. Similarly with evolution which operates in an open system.

[stiaa04]

otherwise he wouldn't make such a middle school science mistake

[stiaa04]

seems to me like this guy just have never gotten anyone qualified to debate him or he is just retorically deceptive

[stiaa04]

this happens in a rather roundabout way though in photosynthesis for example it is pretty direct. the plants use sunlight to maintain their complexity that they are constantly losing so each individual plant can also be viewed as an open system.

[stiaa04]

Is this a joke? Obviously evolution is an OPEN system not a closed one. You have a general decrese of order in the universe yet a temporary consentration of order in the closed system of 'Earth'.

Earth gets more order from solar energy until the sun is burned out but the sun loses even more order which means that in total sum there is a loss of order.

Incidentally how this works is that solar energy transforms into chemical bonds (more complexity on the earth's surface).

[stiaa04]

woops I meant open system of 'Earth'

[6sully8391]

first of all, it's zo-ology. second of all, entropy is a thermodynamic concept which describes a system's tendency towards spontaneity, unstable compounds will break down into stable ones; it applies to closed systems, not biological machines, because biological machines are not closed systems.

[influenza99]

You know what doesn't make sense to me? The legal system. It seems to be full of contradictions and inequities. And sometimes I swear that the rules were created by idiots who couldn't even see the discrepancies they were creating!!

Oh but wait! I didn't study Law.

[bettySwollox]

Hahaha, good point!

Let's try one too.

You know what doesn't make sense to me? The Chinese language. It seems to be full of contradictions and inequities, not found in the English language. And sometimes I swear that the rules were created by idiots who couldn't even see the discrepancies they were creating!!

Oh but wait! I didn't study Chinese.

[samsonlovesyou]

Evolution doesn't necessarily mean that an entity must become more complex, so your initial premise is false.

I recommend reading the Origin Of Species. If you're a Christian, don't fear it. Hear what Darwin has to say, and if he's wrong, attack that.

[jambandit1]

Free Will says that all entities in this universe are free from outside influence to act on all Possible choices.Free will and the inifinite exist, and are synonyms by nature.I can choose to end my life, I can always add one more number to any number. This is the relative relationship, I can always find another choice, even if I have to create it first. Free will only says that there is possibility for something else than currently is. Free will says you do not make my choices, I make them.

[reflect7]

Dear scientists: I understand my comparisons don't fit within the box. The concept here is to extend scientific principles into philiosophical discussion. Ex., can a true, naturalistic, materialistic scientist believe in human free will? Of course not. Everything is deterministic matter in motion. I understand that entropy is a physics concept, not biology. However, if entropy is acting on the matter underlying the biology, help me with the process that produces more order/information over time.

[Warthaug]

"an a true, naturalistic, materialistic scientist believe in human free will? Of course not."

In this you are wrong, quantum mechanics provides for a great deal of uncertainty, creating the potential for free will. Within bounds, nearly anything is possible.

[Warthaug]

"if entropy is acting on the matter underlying the biology"

You really need to learn what entropy is - even in a closed system entropy wouldn't prevent the formation of more complex molecules/life, so long as the formation of those molecules/organisms increased the entropy of the entire system.

And since the earth is an open system, its a moot point. The continual influx of energy from the sun, combined with the continual loss of entropy, allows for nearly unlimited increases in life.

[Warthaug]

"entropy..."

In fact, your concept of entropy doesn't even pass a simple test of logic. If the second law truly prevented increases in "complexity", than life in any form would be impossible. Think of a human - we go from a single fertilized egg, to an organism of tens of billions of cells.

If entropy did what you think it does, it would both prevent the conversion of an egg into a human.

Obviously, entropy doesn't work that way.

[agentorange20]

I don't think I need to go over entropy too much. You missed the whole Sol (sun) providing energy to Earth & Earth's geothermal system which provides the needed energy for higher degrees of complexity. Full scale entropy doesn't occur till energy is no longer being acquired from a local system. The earth still is, complexity ensues.

"Everything is deterministic matter in motion."

This isn't quite right, you're ignoring contingent variables. Even in QM 'determinism' isn't a truism.

[Warthaug]

Aww, he deleted my comment. Guess the truth hurts...

[reflect7]

The comments are fine -- Just re-post without cuss words and four-letter rhetoric. Thanks.

[Warthaug]

Stupid and idiotic are not cuss words, and both have more than 4 letters.

Anyhow, evolution does not violate the second law of thermodynamics (hint: entropy does not equal "randomness", and the earth isn't a closed system). The rest of your comments vis-a-vis scientific theories are equally poorly founded, and display a complete misunderstanding of science on your part, rather than problems with science itself.

[reflect7]

Help me out here... Is earth an open system because of the sun? Is it the energy of the sun that combats entropy, adds order, and increases information in the genome? If I frapped a frog in a blender and created a frothy mess of amino acids, proteins, chemicals, and genetic material... then placed this frothy mess (with all components of frog life) in the sun for a few billion years, what would I get? I have no problem with science itself and did I really say entropy equals randomness...?

[Warthaug]

"Is earth an open system because of the sun"

Partly. The sun provides a continual source of harnesable energy; the earth also radiates away energy (in the form of infrared radiation), which reduces the earths entropy.

"sun...increases information in the genome"

Of course not. Increases in genomic information come through well established paths - usually gene duplication followed by divergence, although other pathways exist.

cont.

[Warthaug]

"If I frapped a frog in a blender...a few billion years, what would I get?"

Nothing. The amount of organic material required to have a reasonable chance of abiogenesis - far more than one frog would generate.

If you took a larger system - say the earths oceans - and salted them with a low quantity of simple molecules, you would produce tens of billions of chemically active molicules every hour, which over millions of years could assemble into complex systems (i.e. life).

[crissyhowes]

wow you are closed minded , OK we started of as a simple organism , we got more complicated ,got it so far , now we have wars

bombs global warming , you could say ,whats the word CAIOS, its not complicated to see if your open minded to more than ,OH OH god made it its magic.

[reflect7]

Where did you get the simple organism? You all seem to be smart scientists with absolute knowledge of molecular biology, chemistry, physics, genetics, etc. Therefore, you understand the complexity of so-called simple life. How did we go from a rock to self-replicating, energy-processing life? How about first consciousness, first rationality...?

[Warthaug]

"How did we go from a rock to self-replicating, energy-processing life?"

It's pretty easy, but hard to explain in 500-word comments. Search for "abiogenesis" or "RNA world" for lots of details.

Long story short, most of the molecules are bodies are made of exhibit three properties:

1) Their subunits are generated by normal chemistry; simple interactions of minerals, water and 9sometimes) UV light.

cont.

[crissyhowes]

your so right it much more believable to think, a magical guy floating around in nothing, one day in boredom decided to create a planet, then makes people instantly from mud,

but has to leave absolutely no evidence of his existence because ,why , he wants us to know he's there but not see him ?????? seams pointless to me

[Ashercrazicakes]

and you expect me to to think that somehow the universe was formed by a big bang and that our planet earth had all the perfect condition for life and then a rock fell from earth and hit it then created organic material then small bacteria that then evenutally came to be us , so your saying i came from a rock that fell from space is more logical than A intellegent designer that created me his vision and that i have a purpose on earth.

[crissyhowes]

I'm not saying who anything happened but the idea of believing in a book written with no true historical evidence to any of the event it clames might make me think a madgical being that wont show him/what ever self but want you to prase him magicaly made this all apear. ? wait the mormans do that. do you believe in there book ???? or even scientoligy.

look up to bible and its claim compared to the history of its times was any of it real

or just invented to rule people?

[jaalul]

did you say a bokk with no historical evidence?

do you only study what is comfortable for you?

or are you another blind horse riding in the same direction with everyone else?

im not saying the first book is absolute truth, but to say it has no historical evidence is being very blind to geological facts my friend.

geology is science you know....

[crissyhowes]

I think its safe to say . the book was written about earth and even a part of earth we know today , ie geology. but as you know that's not what I was talking about , lets take world wide floods, parting sea's , walking on water, turning in to salt, musical destruction, fire in the sky. feeding 5000 thousand, law's like rapists must marry there victims, stoning some one for just picking up sticks on the wrong day . human sacrifice. i could go on and on.

[crissyhowes]

wait did you say i was blind, because I'm not claiming to see things that are not there?

i wonder what you would say to some one who used "god made me do it " as a defence . they have the same evidence as you apparently do. so they must but absolved because how do you prove god didn't?

[jaalul]

do you have any idea what it would take to feed 600,000 men (thats not including children nor elders) for 40 years in the desert while contantly moving around not staying for long enough so other empires dont come along and fight you>?

can you even try and fathem what it would take to do that>? and this is geologically proven.

im not even gona get into all the "magic"

you seem to laugh at so easily.

and how exactly did the jews leave the slavery? j

[Riste1986]

Bible is to rule people? LOL. What for is politics, what for is science and their 2012, MONEY rule people, gold, and nice cars, and cribs rule people, fame rule people. NOT THE BIBLE.

[crissyhowes]

well list what you do believe and its evidence? and we will see how that sounds

[Warthaug]

Pt II.

2) They self assemble, meaning the simple molecules produced in #1 spontaneously form into larger, more complex molecules.

3) The polymers produced in #2 take on more complex chemical functions than the sum of their parts.

Once you are producing polymers, the rest takes care of itself. conservative estimates of the organic load of earths oceans predict that about 24 billion-billion self-replicating molecules would have formed every day in the early earths oceans.

cont.

[Warthaug]

Pt III.

Those self-replicating molecules can "evolve", and "join forces" with other molecules to increase their functionality, producing what is called a chemical metacycle (basically a series of chemical reactions which work together and are dependent on each other).

Cont.

[Warthaug]

Pt IV.

Exactly where chemistry ends and life begins is a matter of debate. At some point these metacycles became contained in an envelope, becoming what we call protobionts - which some scientists consider the simplest form of life. Protobionts can combine, evolve and become more complex.

In terms of what we can reproduce in-lab, everything upto and including metacycles has been shown in lab. After that the time scales are to big, and computer models are used instead.

[rilo154]

@crissyhowes

...why would a simple organism feel any need to become more complex?..

A simple organism miraculously appearing would be a miracle in and of itself - what more could such a simplistic organism hope for?...

[whitefox998]

This man has NO understanding of evolutionary biology or anyother accpect of science.

He begins with scientific laws and then tries to combine it with theories and parts of different philosophy.

These are the sort of people who prey on the ignorance of the scienific illiterate to sell their snake oil.

Truly sad.

[TheOriginProject]

sigh, he makes some REALLY bad comparisons, you can't compare these things, it's stupid. Comparing the free-will of human being to the free-will of sub-atomic particles in quantum mechanics? Seriously?

[java7686]

2nd law of thermo-dynamics states "in a closed system", the Earth is NOT a closed system, it is affected by outside forces and energies... is it not? Slavery used to be an accepted practice in the US, yet through "free will" we decided to change what's right and what isn't and we still do make those decision and change out codes of ethics. A lawyer? I would rather argue my own case after "thinking" about it...thanks

[biggbaddjohn]

Charles Lyell was a lawyer. Evolutionists shouldn't have a problem with a lawyer :-)

[bil1yjoe]

Denominations in the scientific community are well respected and tolerated. Denominations in the religious community are in almost constant conflict. Atheists cooperate with each other while Christians seem incapable of such wholesale cooperation. But then again scientists do not depend upon tithing to fund their projects; our tax payer dollars will do that. Advantage Atheists! This is a sad commentary on the times that we live in.

[biggbaddjohn]

Yes !!! Atheists are lock step in their ignorance. And YES !!! Atheists collect their funds by strong arming the American public.

What's honorable about any one of those ??

"Denominations in the scientific community are well respected and tolerated."

WRONG!! The "denomination" of Darwinism tolerates NO descent !!!

It is ironic however that at the founders of your theories are a laywer and a seminary student with a summer job.

[reflect7]

Help me out. Are you arguing that life on earth is an open system and not subject to the law of increasing entropy because there is an outside source of energy from the sun? Hasn't Science confirmed that although the second law is stated for isolated systems, it applies equally well to open systems, since an open system is decreasing entropy only while it is influenced by usable outside energy? When left to itself, won't it deteriorate, increasing entropy?

[ph0u503f]

Oh dear, Entropy is a first year of university concept, and you clearly don't understand it. It's not in anyway at odds with evolution.

[Uxoriouswidow]

You made sure to include 'closed system' in the 2cnd law of thermodynamics, but then completely forget that the earth is not a closed system...

[TheFallibleFiend]

The 2nd law does not state that "everything" goes from order to disorder in a closed system. If I applied your reasoning to the first law, I would conclude that I cannot possibly be fatter than I was 20 years ago, because matter cannot be created or destroyed. When you understand why that argument is wrong, you will know why the 2nd law argument is wrong.

[justchemicals]

Thanx, Randall.

"Edge" is right....you DO need to be heard.

So I'm guessing that you're a fan of

Phillip E. Johnson?

Anywho, God bless, my dude. ;)

[evidencefor101]

The 2nd law applies to any system where outside usable energy is not applied. Raw solar energy from the sun actually increases entropy unless life is able to spontaneously generate an irreducible complex mechanism to use it.

Observed specie variation, microevolution rearranges existing genetic information. Common descent evolution, increased complexity, macroevolution requires an increase in information. There is no known physical process or material phenomenon that increases information.

[TheEdge012]

As far as I can tell you don't ever seem to engage in direct video for video exchanges with anyone on YouTube. However, I would absolutely love it if you'd take the time to watch a few ProfMTH videos and respond to him directly. Like you, he has a background in law and a very sharp mind. Unlike you, he uses those skills to promote atheism and challenge Christians at every turn.

[somecomputergeek]

By the way, the 2nd law only works in a CLOSED system, anyway. The earth is NOT a closes system, as we are CONSTANTLY getting energy from the Sun.

[reflect7]

Good point, but aren't we talking about the cosmos as a closed system, not just the earth. Also, do we only need sun energy to fend off entropy? Sun energy is all we need to continue our onward and upward evolutionary creep?

[somecomputergeek]

Yes, the entire universe is a closed system, and, according to the law of entropy, it will eventually "die". That hasn't happened yet.

As far as the sun being the only thing we need fend off entropy, yes, all we need is enough energy to support life.

Even the most ardent creationist believes in "micro-evolution". This is the exact same process as "macro-evolution" on a smaller time scale. If it's enough energy to support "micro-evolution", it's enough to support "macro-evolution".

[TheEdge012]

I don't completely buy that micro equals macro given enough time but lets play that game on your turf and allow me present the following:

[TheEdge012]

1. You have no proof of how much time has actually passed OR when exactly the process began OR how many changes would have to occur within a species before a brand new species is actually declared.

2. The fossil record is a horrible display of transitional forms. Even IF I grant you some leniency there, we should literally have thousands and thousands of examples of these forms. Yet I still see the ape skeleton on the left and the human skeleton on the right with not so much in between.

[somecomputergeek]

1- yes, there is a lot of "guesswork", as this is all forensic science. However, there IS a large body of data that IS best explained by evolution. How else can you account for the "branching tree" pattern that we DO see, not only in the fossil record, but in species alive today?

2- This is just plain wrong. The evolution of hominids is especially rich. Not only do we have 1 "missing link", we have dozens. Aronra does a really good job explaining this in the following video:

watch?v=Qfoje7jVJpU

[Ethoxyethane]

The sun actually provides an incredible amount of energy to the Earth.

Passive solar radiation isn't enough to hop the activation barrier for things like abiogenesis, but lightning, which is a concentrated burst of energy which originated in the sun, is.

Anyway, I think I'm going to do a video response to this where I go into more detail. Hassle me if I don't.

[somecomputergeek]

Entropy has almost NOTHING to do with "order" or "disorder". It is the unavailability of energy to do work in a physical system.

For example, lets say you have two cubes: one of them hot, one of them cold.

You put them in a box together. The heat from one goes into heating the other. As long as one is hotter than the other, there is energy transfer going on. As they equal out, entropy increases, until they will reach an equilibrium, at which point the entropy is maximized.

[bbugmenott]

there is nothing to discuss with an creationist.

[dovad16]

Few people are able to engage in discussion without an agenda that they wish to champion. Also...few are truly open minded.