Top 10 Myths About Evolution

[HitchSlap]

False claim. Sunlight does not decrease entropy.

Prove it.

 

[xianghua]

You're surprised a flawed design can still be optimized by evolution? Then you haven't been paying attention.

so now evolution is so creative that it can do anything? what can i say, evolution is just brilliant...

 

[HitchSlap]

so now evolution is so creative that it can do anything? what can i say, evolution is just brilliant...

Sometimes. Unfortunately, some of our species have evolved to think trucks and tunas are both "intelligently designed."

 

[xianghua]

Intermediates between what?

between these objects:

(image from Commercial Auto Insurance: What's the Difference? - CarInsurance.org)

 

[HitchSlap]

between these objects:

(image from Commercial Auto Insurance: What's the Difference? - CarInsurance.org)

Please don't spam my thread.

 

[HitchSlap]

Intermediates between what?
They are still mammals.

Right, we would never expect a croccowhale.

 

[SkyWriting]

Tiktaalik is an extinct lobe-finned fish intermediate to amphibians

Jaw Dropping Artwork!

 

[SkyWriting]

Right, we would never expect a croccowhale.

 

[SkyWriting]

You're surprised a flawed design can still be optimized by evolution? Then you haven't been paying attention.

No researcher claims poor natural design. Not even dumb ones.
The concept of flawed design in nature is chatroom weblog based,
not published science.

 

[SkyWriting]

Prove it.

For the earth, though, we have to take into account the change of entropy involved with both the absorption of energy from the sun and the radiation of energy into space. Think of the sun as a heat reservoir that maintains a constant temperature T1 = 6000 K. (I am using the absolute, or Kelvin, temperature scale.) That's the temperature of the radiating surface of the sun, and so it's the effective temperature of the energy we receive from the sun. When the earth absorbs some amount of heat, Q, from this reservoir, the reservoir loses entropy. On average, the earth's temperature is neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore, in the same time that it absorbs heat energy Q from the sun's radiation, it must radiate the same amount of heat into space. This energy is radiated at a much lower temperature that is approximately equal to the average surface temperature of the earth, T2 = 280 K. We can think of space as a second heat reservoir that absorbs the heat Q and consequently undergoes an entropy increase
Since T1 is much larger than T2, it is clear that the net entropy of the two reservoirs increases:
Even if it is true that the processes of life on earth result in an entropy decrease of the earth, the second law of thermodynamics will not be violated unless that decrease is larger than the entropy increase of the two heat reservoirs. Any astronomy textbook will tell you that the earth absorbs 1.1 x 1017 Joules per second of power from the sun, so in one year we get (1.1 x 1017 J/sec)x(365 days/year)x(24 hours/day)x(60 min/hr)x(60 sec/min) = 3.5 x 1024 Joules of energy from the sun.
Just how big is this increase? For comparison, let's calculate the entropy change needed to freeze the earth's oceans solid. The heat energy involved is Q = (latent heat of fusion)x(mass of ocean water) =
Water freezes at 273 K on the absolute scale. Comparing with the entropy increase of the two heat reservoirs, we see that this is a factor of (1.6x1024 J/K)/(1.2x1022 J/K) = 140 larger. Remember, though, that the number for the heat reservoirs was for one year. Each year, more entropy is generated. The second law will only be violated if all the oceans freeze over in about 140 years or less. Now, the mass of all the living organisms on earth, known as the biomass, is considerably less than the mass of the oceans (by a very generous estimate, about 1016 kilograms. If we perform a similar calculation using the earth's biomass, instead of the mass of the oceans, we find that the second law of thermodynamics will only be violated if the entire biomass is somehow converted from a highly disorganized state (say, a gas at 10,000 K) to a highly organized state (say, absolute zero) in about a month or less.

Just kidding.

 

[SkyWriting]

Science claims that evolution happens by random chance.
Natural selection is not “random” nor does it operate by “chance.” Natural selection preserves the gains and eradicates the mistakes. To illustrate this, imagine a monkey at a typewriter. In order for the monkey to type the first 13 letters of Hamlet’s soliloquy by chance, it would take 2613 number of trials for success. This is 16 times as great as the total number of seconds that have elapsed in the lifetime of the solar system. But if each correct letter is preserved and each incorrect letter eradicated, the phrase “tobeornottobe” can be “selected for” in only 335 trials, or just seconds in a computer program. Richard Dawkins defines evolution as “random mutation plus nonrandom cumulative selection.” It is the cumulative selection that drives evolution. The eye evolved from a single, light sensitive spot in a cell into the complex eye of today not by chance, but through thousands of intermediate steps, each preserved because they made a better eye. Many of these steps still exist in nature in simpler organisms.

The mistake here is comparing a partially completed manuscript with
a highly developed eye but using far different standards.

The partially written prose must go through millions of changes
and must make sense at each step.

Example failure. This writer needs some sleep. It must be all
those typewriters and monkeys keeping them awake for weeks.

Lets keep in mind that monkeys die and typewriters wear out.
Does what they type include repair instructions as well as the tools
to fix the typewriters, that change and adapt? And feed and repair
the monkeys?

 

[Speedwell]

The mistake here is comparing a partially completed manuscript with
a highly developed eye but using different standards.

The partially written prose must go through millions of changes
and must make sense at each step.

Example failure. This writer needs some sleep. It must be all
those typewriters and monkeys keeping them awake for weeks.

Lets keep in mind that monkeys die and typewriters wear out.
Does what they type include repair instructions as well as tools
to do the job on typewriters, that change and adapt?

Right. The uncompleted manuscript analogy is not entirely apt. A better comparison is to the "word ladder" game, where one letter is changed at a time and each step must be a real English word, as in:

COLD → CORD → CARD → WARD → WARM

With the proviso that the last word in the chain is not specified, but must also be a real English word.

 

[expos4ever]

False claim. Sunlight does not decrease entropy.

You have been called out on a false claim in post 19.

And now you are dancing

 

[SkyWriting]

Right. The uncompleted manuscript analogy is not entirely apt. A better comparison is to the "word ladder" game, where one letter is changed at a time and each step must be a real English word, as in:

COLD → CORD → CARD → WARD → WARM

With the proviso that the last word in the chain is not specified, but must also be a real English word.

I've never seen that. That is a much better analogy than the stu-pid one.

 

[SkyWriting]

This new founder group, as long as it remains small and detached, may experience relatively rapid change (large populations are genetically stable). The speciational change happens so rapidly that few fossils are left to record it.

We can't disprove that the species change happens quickly with no evidence left behind.
You win that round! Good Science-ing!

 

[JackRT]

The sun increases the rate of entropy. Nothing becomes more
complex or increases in information due to the sun.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Everything is running down and going to pieces. ----- Well, that is a rather simple way of describing it. A better definition would be "in a closed system, entropy (a measure of disorder) will on average constantly increase" Since this is a statistical law, two terms are vitally important ---‘closed system’ and ‘on average’.

***”closed system” means that there is no net influx of energy from outside the system. So far as we know the universe as a whole seems to be a closed system with the result that it will eventually wind down and suffer a heat death. However the planet earth is not a closed system. It receives a net influx of energy from the sun and it is this that allows entropy to decrease and makes evolution possible.

***”on average” means that while entropy in a closed system may be increasing on the whole, there may be localized parts of that system where entropy is actually decreasing. Think of the universe as the system and the earth as such a localized part.

***being statistical laws also means that thermodynamics does not govern the behavior of every single bit of matter at a microscopic level but rather the behavior of collections of matter at the macroscopic level. To say that the class average in the last test was 48% does not mean that every student got that mark or even that the majority of students failed. It is in fact entirely possible that some students bucked the trend and wrote perfect papers.

When one lacks an understanding of science and/or allows oneself to be deluded by charlatans then it is easy to understand that very fundamental mistakes can be made.

 

[SkyWriting]

You have been called out on a false claim in post 19.And now you are dancing

Incongruous stratus layers are common.
Layers are identified by the fossils found in them.
Put those two ideas together to identify reality.

 

[SkyWriting]

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Everything is running down and going to pieces. ----- Well, that is a rather simple way of describing it. A better definition would be "in a closed system, entropy (a measure of disorder) will on average constantly increase" Since this is a statistical law, two terms are vitally important ---‘closed system’ and ‘on average’.

***”closed system” means that there is no net influx of energy from outside the system. So far as we know the universe as a whole seems to be a closed system with the result that it will eventually wind down and suffer a heat death. However the planet earth is not a closed system. It receives a net influx of energy from the sun and it is this that allows entropy to decrease and makes evolution possible.

***”on average” means that while entropy in a closed system may be increasing on the whole, there may be localized parts of that system where entropy is actually decreasing. Think of the universe as the system and the earth as such a localized part.

***being statistical laws also means that thermodynamics does not govern the behavior of every single bit of matter at a microscopic level but rather the behavior of collections of matter at the macroscopic level. To say that the class average in the last test was 48% does not mean that every student got that mark or even that the majority of students failed. It is in fact entirely possible that some students bucked the trend and wrote perfect papers.

When one lacks an understanding of science and/or allows oneself to be deluded by charlatans then it is easy to understand that very fundamental mistakes can be made.

You can put earth on the end of a stick over a fire
or seal it in a glass beaker.
No researcher claims that entropy decreases in closed or open systems.
Fundamental chat-room argument mistake.

 

[Ophiolite]

Incongruous stratus layers are common.

This is such a general statement that its semantic value approaches zero. What do you mean, in this context, by incongruous? What do you mean, in this context, by common?

Layers are identified by the fossils found in them.

And by their mineralogy. And by their sedimentology. And by their environment of deposition. And by their internal structures. And by their horizontal and vertical variation. And by their boundaries. And by the strata adjacent to them. So what?

Put those two ideas together to identify reality.

Given the lack of definition in your first statement and the unwarranted restriction of your second statement, this third statement carries no significant meaning. Once you have amended your fist two statements do you wish to restate this one?

 

[SkyWriting]

*being statistical laws also means that thermodynamics does not govern the behavior of every single bit of matter at a microscopic level but rather the behavior of collections of matter at the macroscopic level. To say that the class average in the last test was 48% does not mean that every student got that mark or even that the majority of students failed. It is in fact entirely possible that some students bucked the trend and wrote perfect papers.

But no researcher claims that the sun decreases entropy.