I was glad to see Johnny's last post. Clearly he did some research and he is taking this discussion seriously. Good job Johnny. :up:
Discussion thread for Bob and Johnny's One on One
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Reading without Understanding
I have had to read (and reread) Bob’s posts in this thread several times to try to understand where the disconnect is between what Styer’s paper says and what Bob is claiming it says. Bob thinks Styer is conflating information entropy and thermodynamic entropy. Bob, to his credit, points out that the two forms of entropy are not the same, and indeed to mix them indiscriminately in an article like Styer’s would be incorrect.
Bob’s misunderstanding starts to manifest itself when, in his opening post he says:
Bob’s statement above about “this is the argument” is in reference to something from another creationist author, Jeremy Walter. Enyart seems to not understand what Walter was referring to when Enyart quoted the following from Walter: “… the threat of the second law is to be found in statistical thermodynamics." (my bold). I spoke just briefly with Enyart about this a couple years ago when we met for a casual conversation, but I did not have time to develop that idea in depth. Let me rectify that now.
Thermodynamics – Twice
Specifically – what is this “statistical” thermodynamics that Walter alludes to? Is it different in any substantive way from the more generic “Thermodynamics”? The answer is YES. Let me give the punch line at the front – Statistical Thermodynamics (also known as Statistical Physics) covers all the same ground, and gives all the same results as traditional Thermo. But in addition, it provides some insights not available from the traditional Thermodynamics. Most important among these, at least in the present discussion, is the question of order and disorder.
*** Traditional Thermo (Thermo the hard way) ***
Let me provide some historical context to help understand the relationship between traditional Thermodynamics and Statistical Thermodynamics. Initially, the laws of thermo were formalized over many years in response to very practical problems – like the problems associated with the heat that boring out a cannon barrel generated. Thermodynamics as developed this way was very much an empirical science, meaning it was the formalization of observed rules of nature. In the same way that Newton’s Law of Gravity tells us what gravity does - but not why - so also the Laws of Thermodynamics gave the “what”, but not the “why” it worked that way. For example, it was known that heat flowed from a hot body to a cold one, but what heat actually is was a mystery. Since it “flowed” in a sense like an invisible fluid from one body to another, it was vaguely thought of as a mysterious fluid that was given the name “caloric”. Our legacy word of “calories” comes from that usage.
*** Thermo from atoms (Thermo the easy way) ***
Towards the end of this first formulation of Thermodynamics, near the time of Lord Kelvin, another idea in physics was maturing – that of the atomic theory of matter. John Dalton, in the early 1800s, put science on the path of thinking that maybe all substances really were composed of discrete combinations of vast numbers of small particles called atoms. And if atoms were real, and had mass, and had motion, then each atom had kinetic energy (the energy due to motion). And if the atoms in one substance were moving (or maybe vibrating in place) with more vigor than slow moving atoms in another substance, then it stood to reason that the fast atoms would “bump” into the slow atoms where the substances touched. Like billiard balls, the fast “cue ball” atom would be slowed down after the impact, and the impacted “8-ball” atom would rebound, hitting the other balls behind it, and so on. Since this transfer of motion is between atoms, which are far too small to see, it would not be visible to the human eye. Long story short – Maybe that is what this “caloric” is, just the flow of energy at the atomic level.
So starting with that premise that heat is just a measure of the energy in individual atoms, as opposed to the energy in the motion of the “big” object that the atoms comprised, physicists were able to again derive the Laws of Thermodynamics, but this time from a more fundamental starting point. Due to the impossibility of accounting for gazillions of atoms individually, statistical methods were used, and thus this way of deriving the Laws of Thermodynamics has become known as “Statistical” Thermodynamics. This development of Statistical Thermodynamics took into the 20th century to complete, partially because there were some anomalies that eluded solution until the early 20th century understanding of Quantum Mechanics was developed. But once done, not only did we have thermodynamics from a new perspective, but starting at the atomic level actually provided insights that could not be derived from the older “classical” derivation of Thermo.
*** Pick your way to learn thermo***
On my shelf I have a physics text titled “Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics”, by Reif (McGraw-Hill, 1965, ISBN 07-051800-9). As the title implies, the text covers Thermo from both the classical viewpoint, and from the atomic viewpoint. This text allows the teacher to take the students though the classical derivation of Thermo (which involves rather abstract subtleties), or the more direct modern approach used in the atomic statistical derivation.
Entropy and Disorder
One of the major understandings of nature from the Second Law (from traditional Thermodynamics) is this idea that every interaction uses up some of the available energy. The inevitable decrease in useable energy was formalized into a mathematical relationship called entropy.
From the atomic approach, it turns out that the statistical laws governing the disorder observed in the mixing of massive numbers of particles, when looked at from the energy involved, gives the entropy relationship. The significant difference is that the atomic approach to Thermo (the Statistical approach) includes the rules of how individual particles mix (disorder). The traditional Thermodynamics is limited to looking at the energy involved, and gives no insight into individual particles. Even though the derivation of “entropy” from the atomic approach is actually a more general formulation that the one from classical thermodynamics, the fundamental equations are largely unchanged, and involve a “temperature”. It is beyond the level of this discussion to explain what “temperature” is when discussing the mixing of particles (and contrary to our daily experience, the temperature of “heat” is also a surprisingly abstract concept to formalize).
In the atomic viewpoint, one possibility is when the particles are restricted to being in discrete configurations (A classical problem along this line is to consider, in a bottle of ordinary air, how often you might find all the oxygen atoms at one end, and all the nitrogen at the other end.) These possible patterns are referred to as “states” (or within Styer’s article they are called “microstates”).
Walter’s “Statistical” is not Enyart’s “Information”
So when when Enyart prepended the word “information” in front of entropy, in fact he was not echoing what Walter was referring to when he speaks of “statistical thermodynamics.” Enyart was running the “information” rabbit trail without his buddy Walter anywhere near.
Keeping Information Entropy and Thermodynamic Entropy Stoutly Separated
As Bob says in his opening post:
Bob quotes Timothy Stout, an experienced engineer (and creationist author), as saying (sans reference) that evolutionists are guilty of mixing up the two forms of entropy. I have no doubt that has happened, but not in Styer’s paper. In fact, in section III of Styer’s paper (“ENTROPY REQUIRED FOR EVOLUTION”), he quickly defines the system he is discussing in terms of the microstates. Once again, this is referring to the various configurations the particles can be in, and this has NO reference to any information that may be encoded in the patterns.
So, in summary, Johnny is correct. Styer repeatedly clarifies that he is discussing Thermodynamic Entropy. “Information” entropy has been introduced, and argued, and demolished, straw-man style, solely by Enyart.
Spare Ribs
In his OP, Bob transparently takes the opportunity to inject a dig against astrophysics (in what he call’s a “rib”). Brave, for someone who has a recorded history of astrophysical misunderstandings. Like flip-flopping on whether Orion’s Belt is gravitationally bound or being loosed (with both contrary conclusions proving Biblical inspiration), and on how the presence of volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io was completely unexpected (except for the paper predicting Io’s volcanoes that came out in Science before the volcano was ever seen), and how NASA blew it with the Hubble Deep Field (except the way Bob deduced that showed he had no idea how to know what was in the HDF picture), and planets that can’t have retrograde spin (ignoring the numerous collisions expected in the nascent solar system), and his ridicule of the direction of Moslem prayer rugs (and finding that Moslems for hundreds of years have known more about the shape of the earth than Bob does), and …
Spare ribs of roasted pastor are delicious.
GDI! :thumb:
The Ugly Christian
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Explanation #1. Because I’m ugly (duh)
. In fact, that’s why I had to leave Alaska, they passed an “Ugly Law.” Here in Colorado they’re more liberal and therefore much kinder that the red-necks in Alaska so I only have to wear a bag over my head when I go out. Explanation # 2. OK, really, it’s from the book “The Ugly American” that came out in the 60‘s. Like most liberal books, it’s 99.999999999% lies. The book says that Americans traveling all over the world are ugly to the native peoples, that they think they’re better that everybody else, have rude habits, don’t respect the customs in native lands, and expect that these “lesser” peoples will do anything for the almighty American dollar. Of course, the opposite is true as Americans are by far the most generous in both giving donations to world causes as well as going overseas and giving their time and, in many cases, their lives to bring freedom, prosperity and Christ to poor, enslaved peoples.
More and more, liberals and atheist, with the assistance of the media and the “entertainment” conglomerations are feeling better and bolder in labeling Christians as “ugly” in much the same way. They, the liberals, have gone completely off the deep end with this and no other fact can prove it more than when they accuse anybody whom didn’t vote for Barrack Satin Obama as being a raciest (did I get his middle name right?).
As to how I found you, I’ve been a Bob Enyart Live fan for 15 years and have posted in the past with a different moniker but don’t
Nice information, Phy, but you've missed the point.
The challenge to evolution from entropy involves information. In order to answer the challenge evolutionists need to account for the conversion between heat and information. If Styer does not account for the distinction he has not responded to the challenge.
I think the point is that Pastor Enyart thinks Styer should describe both types of entropy, not that he has.
If there is an “information entropy” challenge to evolution, Styer was not speaking to it. As Johnny pointed out, Styer was focused on thermodynamics.
Good luck. As Enyart shows in one of his posts, there are fundamental differences between the two types of entropy. If you can show that there is a fundamental conversion between them, then the world of science will bow to you.
What challenge? Styer was addressing the oft-proposed argument that thermodynamic entropy disallows the natural development of life.
That’s not at all what I saw in Enyart’s posts. It was Enyart that stuffed the word “information” in front of “entropy” in the paraphrase of Styer, making it both wrong, and what Styer did not say.
And, as I pointed out in the thread that started all this, LoL's article missed the point of the challenge.
Again you do not understand. You've just shown that you think the challenge to evolution is unanswerable.
And as Pastor Enyart is trying to show that challenge is poorly constructed and easily dismissed. Now would you mind addressing the actual issue?
That might be an easy mistake to make if you have not been following the discussion. Most of the atheists who did follow the conversation still don't understand the challenge.
You and I apparently have different ideas on what the substance of the debate is over. I'm comfortable with what I have said. You and I are only on the sidelines. Let’s see what Johnny and Bob come up with.
The problem with the article is that it says there is enough available energy to drive evolution, correct?
I would phrase it slightly differently, since a) it is not a “problem” at all, and b) “driving” something gives the impression that it is forcing it. It just makes the point that from a thermodynamic viewpoint, limitations on evolution imposed by entropy are non-issues.
elected4ever
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Why don't you guys just think of a tree falling in the woods. The sound that is made is made regardless of the ability of the receiver to to disseminate the energy transference or if the receiver is present at all has no bearing on the energy producing the effect. Energy is never lost just transformed into another form. The absence of the receive to disseminate equals silence. All energy carries with it information. It is the ability to discern that information that makes it possible to describe the information given.
My problem with the article was that it tried to describe a qualitative aspect of entropy (that creatures evolve into more complex forms) with a quantitative measure (statistics).
Statistics cannot describe information, it can only analyse data and represent it with generalisations.
This is the challenge to evolution and something not addressed by the article LoL presented.
elected4ever
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I am with you on that. Just because a specie develop differing DNA in differing environments for survival purposes does not mean that all life came from a single cell. All life did have a single source, God! It is this fact that modern evolutionist deny.
Makes no difference. Statistical Thermo encompasses everything traditional Thermo does. If you don’t like it, then you are going to have to discredit thermo altogether.
You are correct that “information” was not addressed. As has been repeatedly pointed out, in Styer’s opening sentence he says he is addressing the relationship between Thermodynamic Entropy and Evolution. Maybe you feel that information theory or other things prohibit evolution. Fine - then make your arguments based on those things. But the claim that Thermodynamic Entropy precludes Evolution is one of the most frequent ones made by creationists. Numerous threads in these forums make that claim.
Styer has moved beyond the usual “Does too!”, “Does not!”, “Does too!” claims to specific numbers. Now either some creationist that is technically qualified to respond to the math needs to show a specific error in Styer’s paper, or else Creationists need to find a new pseudo-science argument to replace the fallacious thermodynamics one.
Quite. My post was poorly worded.
Let's see if I can explain better. The article says limitations on evolution are a non-issue because the increase in entropy came from the heat flux of the sun-earth system. Is that clearer?
No. We just have to agree that numbers, averages and regression do not say anything about a biological entity other than to reduce its quantitative parts down to a set of numbers. If thermodynamic and entropy laws are unable to guide thought on how the real world operates then what good are they?
:doh:
The idea that thermodynamic entropy is the only thing involved in the challenge to evolution is absurd. The challenge has consistently been for evolutionists to show how thermal and informational entropies convert one into the other.
The error in Styer's paper is that he misses the point of the challenge. He addresses the issue of thermodynamic entropy without addressing the issue of information entropy. I stated this clearly in my first response to the original thread and numerous times throughout.
I am not overly interested in pursuing a continuum of vague rationalizations arguing against a specific application of a fundamental law of physics to a specific problem. A goal of science is to show that the Laws can be applied to specific applications.
I didn’t say thermodynamic entropy was the only challenge. I said it turns out to be a non-issue. Any other challenges depending on different arguments are unaffected.
Interesting. Styer sees a common argument made by Creationists. He addresses that specific argument. And now some yo-yo on some obscure web site decides he knows what it is that Styer should have been addressing. Do you want to tell him what cereal to eat in the morning, too?
How does the sun generate more information in the genome?
:idunno: Styer may well have responded according to the challenge he was issued, but LoL brought Styer's paper in saying that a challenge had been answered. I immediately told LoL that he did not understand what the challenge was and reiterated that challenge. Since then I had not even mentioned Styer, read the article or even clicked on LoL's link.
I was responding to LoL.
And, yeah, I told him he should have Co-co Pops...
Who said it does?
My comments, and Styer’s paper, address Thermodynamic Entropy. It is clear that Enyart thinks that Styer was surreptitiously speaking of Information entropy in discussing the exchange of entropy from one place to another. But that was wrong, Styer was hard-lined to an analysis of the Thermodynamic issues involved. You are welcome to think that there are issues beyond Styer’s paper.
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