sandy_mcd wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=259r-iDckjQJust before the tornado video {*}, reference is made to "Basic Physics" on entropy. Presumably Dr Sewell believes the passage he read. I pulled "Basic Physics" 1968 edition by Kenneth Ford from the library. The image below from the video (with ellipses included - just more examples) is on page 454. [My screen capture won't show up so I will pull the text from
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/ev ... 52671.html ]Kenneth Ford, in Basic Physics (Blaisdell Publishing Co., 1968), writes:
Imagine a motion picture of any scene of ordinary life run backward. You might watch...a pair of mangled automobiles undergoing instantaneous repair as they back apart. Or a dead rabbit rising to scamper backward into the woods as a crushed bullet re-forms and flies backward into a rifle.... Or something as simple as a cup of coffee on a table gradually becoming warmer as it draws heat from its cooler surroundings. All of these backward-in-time views and a myriad more that you can quickly think of are ludicrous and impossible for one reason only: they violate the second law of thermodynamics. In the actual scene of events, entropy is increasing. In the time reversed view, entropy is decreasing.
Dr Sewell uses this quote to support his 2nd law paper. But what does the author he quotes say a few pages earlier on page 442 ? [This section was reprinted at
http://www.archive.org/stream/reader3tr ... m_djvu.txt
Whenever we make a gain against the second law by increasing the order or the available energy in one part of a total system, we can be sure we have lost even more in another part of the system. Thanks to the constant input of energy from the sun, the earth remains a lively place and we have nothing to fear from the homogenizing effect of the second law.
This statement contradicts Dr Sewell's assertion in the paper that "Of course the whole idea of compensation, whether by distant or nearby events, makes no sense logically". Dr Sewell does not address why this commonly taught principle is wrong. So even if his argument were correct, the paper should be rejected for an obvious lapse. But maybe I am misinterpreting the physics textbook.
No you misunderstand his argument and undermine his position through a quote-mine. The actual sentence unfolds like so:
Of course the whole idea of compensation, whether by distant or nearby events, makes no sense logically: an extremely improbable event is not rendered less improbable simply by the occurrence of ‘‘compensating’’ events elsewhere. According to this reasoning, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal—and the door is open. (Or the thermal entropy in the next room is increasing, though I am not sure how fast it has to increase to compensate computer construction!)
Provides a whole new perspective in context.
So in essence Sewell is not suggesting the principle is wrong, rather he is saying the principle has been incorrectly applied to evolution. He sums it up as such:
If an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable. The fact that order is disappearing in the next room does not make it any easier for computers (or DNA) to appear in our room— unless this order is disappearing into our room, and then only if it is a type of order that makes the appearance of computers not extremely improbable, for example, computers.
(Here he clarifies the point) Importing thermal order into an open system may make the temperature distribution less random, and importing carbon order may make the carbon distribution less random, but neither makes the formation of computers (or DNA) more probable.
What does its author think about entropy and evolution? That life will naturally pop up all over the place. So how does Dr Sewell come to the opposite conclusion?
From
http://edge.org/q2005/q05_4.html ""What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?""
KENNETH FORD
Physicist; Retired director, American Institute of Physics; Author, The Quantum World
I believe that microbial life exists elsewhere in our galaxy.
I am not even saying "elsewhere in the universe." If the proposition I believe to be true is to be proved true within a generation or two, I had better limit it to our own galaxy. I will bet on its truth there.
I believe in the existence of life elsewhere because chemistry seems to be so life-striving and because life, once created, propagates itself in every possible direction. Earth's history suggests that chemicals get busy and create life given any old mix of substances that includes a bit of water, and given practically any old source of energy; further, that life, once created, spreads into every nook and cranny over a wide range of temperature, acidity, pressure, light level, and so on.
Believing in the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy is another matter. Good luck to the SETI people and applause for their efforts, but consider that microbes have inhabited Earth for at least 75 percent of its history, whereas intelligent life has been around for but the blink of an eye, perhaps 0.02 percent of Earth's history (and for nearly all of that time without the ability to communicate into space). Perhaps intelligent life will have staying power. We don't know. But we do know that microbial life has staying power.
Now to a supposition: that Mars will be found to have harbored life and harbors life no more. If this proves to be the case, it will be an extraordinarily sobering discovery for humankind, even more so than the view of our fragile blue ball from the Moon, even more so than our removal from the center of the universe by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton—perhaps even more so than the discovery of life elsewhere in the galaxy.
I'm not sure I understand your reason for including this?
It's a guess made on his personal philosophy that life is the product of nothing but chance. I could repeat the exact same text and replace "life" with "no life".
It's what he hopes is out there in accordance with his world-view. We have no idea whatsoever of how a self-replicating first-life began -- his assumptions that life is out are just that, guesswork.
{*}[and I guess a collapsed house would represent an increase in entropy because of the potential energy transferred to the environment as kinetic energy during the collapse.
Let's take a closer look at the house.
According to your reasoning, having a tornado assemble a house as it did (2:00 in the vid) is an event well within the boundaries of reason -- because what in fact occurs is a decrease in entropy, as the tornado receives it's energy from the sun, and the increase in entropy on the sun is far more than the decrease unfolding during the assembly of the house.
So effectively, tornado's "under just the right conditions" can construct a house (keeping mind a self-replicating organism is far more complex than a house).
OK, where are the calculations to show how much the "X-order" can change for the earth system? "F=ma" is a formula but without putting numbers in you can't say anything about whether the force is sufficient to do anything.
How do these equations not support the compensation? Where are some numbers showing that evolution requires a greater change than is possible? Dr Sewell is just making assertions. He hasn't demonstrated anything.
You're missing his point, it's the nature and content of the exchange in entropy and how it applies to evolution.
Importing thermal order into an open system may make the temperature distribution less random, and importing carbon order may make the distrinution less random, but neither makes the formation of computers more probable.
Why not? Another assertion. What is the probability of computers anyhow?
Are you serious?
Could you clarify.
If we found evidence that DNA entered through the earths atmosphere at some time in the past, then perhaps the appearance of humans on a previously barren planet could be explained without postulating a violation of the second law here. But if all we see entering is radiation and meteorite fragments it seems clear that what is entering through the boundary cannot explain the increase in order observed here.
It maybe "clear" but it certainly isn't supported by anything in the paper. There is no content to this paper.
So what you're saying is that despite the fact we have to suspend all logic when applying the second law to evolution (and the tornado/house), Sewell's assertions should be ignored as a point of discussion.
For me the problem here is that you are
willing to suspend all logic.
Remember; the law of gravity itself has
recently come into question (our current understanding might be correct on smaller scales but on larger scales it seems the law could need a second look). Laws have continually been readjusted (and even discarded) throughout the history of science.
There's a reason he named it "a second look" and not "a discarding of the second law".
What is more likely -- that the second law apparantly permits for entirely improbable events requiring the suspension of logic and reason, such as a tornado's ability to assemble a house; or the law has been applied incorrectly.
Remember,
life on earth is the
exception rather than the rule; we're an
anomaly relating to the second law.
Or perhaps we're not an anomaly after all; and the coalescing of atoms into nucleotides and amino acids, into RNA, DNA and proteins, along with the library of information required to fucntion, is indeed a violation of the second law.
Don't you think a "second look" is warranted given the fact that if we do apply the law as you suggest, some highly implausible events are likely to occur. If applying the law without question manifests scenario's that defy logic and common sense, like tornado's assembling a house, then perhaps it is time for a second look.
Here's Dr Sewell's conclusion.
Of course, one can still argue that the spectacular increase in order seen on Earth does not violate the second law because what has happened here is not really extremely improbable. Not many people are willing to make this argument, however; in fact, the claim that the second law does not apply to open systems was invented in an attempt to avoid having to make this argument. And perhaps it only seems extremely improbable, but really is not, that, under the right conditions, the influx of stellar energy into a planet could cause atoms to rearrange themselves into nuclear power plants and spaceships and digital computers. But one would think that at least this would be considered an open question, and those who argue that it really is extremely improbable, and thus contrary to the basic principle underlying the second law of thermodynamics, would be given a measure of respect, and taken seriously by their colleagues, but we are not.
