Evidence against abiogenesis/evolution

[Wiccan_Child]

Let's look at this point for a second. Are you aware that the magnetic field of the Sun flips every ~11 years?

Well, I've learned something today .

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Ok, I'll connect the dots in the form of a logical syllogism:

1. The earth's magnetic is and must be decaying exponentially for the reasons stated earlier. I'm so completely sure about this that I will judge the credibility of any geophysicist, regardless of his credentials and education, based on his agreement with exponential decay.

It is more sinusoidal than exponential: the Earth's magnetic field decreases, reverses, strengthens, peaks, decreases, reverses, strengthens, peaks, etc. The Earth's magnetic field has been alternating it's polarity for millenia (it's period is on average 250,000 years).

2. While the half-life of the earth's magnetic field has not been definitively determined (Institute of Creation Research says 1400 years, which I accept unless presented with an alternative number), that number could be revised upward to 100,000,000 years or more and still definitively rule out conventional evolutionary timescales. With 10 doublings, the magnetic field would be 1024 times its current strength, far out of proportion to physical reality.Since it is not an exponential with a half-life, your point is moot.
3. Because the magnetic field exists, and decays exponentially at some rate between 1400 year and 100,000,000 years, the earth is young.
4. Because the earth is young, Young Earth Creationism is a better explanation than evolution over billions of years.

See above.

The only way forward for evolutionists is to make the assertion that the magnetic field doesn't decay at all, or else strengthens over time. Not a wise idea.

Not at all. It is you who have made the assumption that the magnetic field decays in an exponential fashion. You appear to have no considered an oscillating field. Now, guess what the evidence suggests?

You'll never see an atheist scientist put an actual number on the decay of the magnetic field. To do so, he'd have to show actual data rather than arcane hypotheses, and then the number itself would destroy evolution (unless the number happened to be greater than 100M years or so).

Wait, is that a lie I smell? Or self-deception? I can't tell, they're so alike.

 

[Quantic]

Ok, I'll connect the dots in the form of a logical syllogism:

1. The earth's magnetic is and must be decaying exponentially for the reasons stated earlier. I'm so completely sure about this that I will judge the credibility of any geophysicist, regardless of his credentials and education, based on his agreement with exponential decay.

Your argument falls down right here and dies due to a deadly blow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

 

[Danyc]

Your argument falls down right here and dies due to a deadly blow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

TRUE BLUE's ARGUMENT is unable to battle!

OLD EARTH gains 246 exp.!

 

[IzzyPop]

TRUE BLUE's ARGUMENT is unable to battle!

OLD EARTH gains 246 exp.!

I think you gave the argument too many hit dice...

 

[True_Blue]

I will start a new thread solely devoted to the magnetic field, since this current thread on the energy efficiency of microbes seems to have run its course.

You guys are confusing the "strength" of the magnetic field with its polarity. Imagine that you drop a rock into an enclosed pool. A wave travels outward in all directions until it reaches the edge, and then the wave travels back to the center, then hits the other end of the pool, and so on and so forth. The mere fact that the water wave reverses direction does NOT mean that the amplitude of the wave is not decreasing over time. In the case of magnetic field reversals, some data is suggesting that the interval between flips in polarity is getting longer over time. I would expect this. But regardless, I measure "strength" by the only measure that really matters--the capacity of the field to defect and redirect nasty solar radiation toward the poles as well as away from the earth into space.

I will post more on this later, perhaps with my view on why the "dynamo" theory is facially invalid as interpreted by certain scientists.

 

[True_Blue]

The reaction may be exponential, but the ability to correlate the RATE is unchanged. The reaction, once started, procedes at a given rate, regardless of when it was started.

This is part and parcel of Uniformitarianism. This is the point I think you are missing here.

K, perhaps we're conflating "exponential," a mathematical term of art, with "non-linear." To restate, I'm saying that a constant, "uniform" (if you will) decay rate of 5% per year is "non-linear." I'm also saying that every natural engine or system decays at a non-linear rate. That rate itself may or may not be constant, depending on whether the system is modeled as open or closed.

Tornadoes and other weather phenomena decay on a slope that becomes more gradual with time. Things subject to constant force, like a soccer ball kicked on a grassy field, or a riverbed with a constant flow of water running across it, decay at a diminishing non-linear rate. Human beings, life forms, computers, car engines, civilizations, and other complex systems usually decay according to a slope that steepens over time, like dropping off a cliff. This should be intuitively obvious. So not only do complex things like life forms decay over time, but the rate of decay actually accelerates with time. This is very, very bad for the theory of evolution.

 

[Chalnoth]

I will start a new thread solely devoted to the magnetic field, since this current thread on the energy efficiency of microbes seems to have run its course.

You guys are confusing the "strength" of the magnetic field with its polarity. Imagine that you drop a rock into an enclosed pool. A wave travels outward in all directions until it reaches the edge, and then the wave travels back to the center, then hits the other end of the pool, and so on and so forth. The mere fact that the water wave reverses direction does NOT mean that the amplitude of the wave is not decreasing over time. In the case of magnetic field reversals, some data is suggesting that the interval between flips in polarity is getting longer over time. I would expect this. But regardless, I measure "strength" by the only measure that really matters--the capacity of the field to defect and redirect nasty solar radiation toward the poles as well as away from the earth into space.

I will post more on this later, perhaps with my view on why the "dynamo" theory is facially invalid as interpreted by certain scientists.

The magnetic field of the Earth weakens before every time it flips and strengthens afterwards. You seem to have missed the plot posted by Split Rock back in post #109. The variability in magnitude of the magnetic field is much, much more pronounced than any overall decay.

 

[Chalnoth]

Things subject to constant force, like a soccer ball kicked on a grassy field, or a riverbed with a constant flow of water running across it, decay at a diminishing non-linear rate. Human beings, life forms, computers, car engines, civilizations, and other complex systems usually decay according to a slope that steepens over time, like dropping off a cliff. This should be intuitively obvious. So not only do complex things like life forms decay over time, but the rate of decay actually accelerates with time. This is very, very bad for the theory of evolution.

There's a big, big piece you're missing here: things die. Because some organisms die leaving no descendants, the genome of the population doesn't decay over time. It's as simple as that: any significantly detrimental mutations are just filtered out (provided the population is large enough...). Because the mutations that are detrimental to survival are filtered out rather quickly, the much more rare beneficial mutations are allowed to propagate.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

K, perhaps we're conflating "exponential," a mathematical term of art, with "non-linear." To restate, I'm saying that a constant, "uniform" (if you will) decay rate of 5% per year is "non-linear." I'm also saying that every natural engine or system decays at a non-linear rate. That rate itself may or may not be constant, depending on whether the system is modeled as open or closed.

Tornadoes and other weather phenomena decay on a slope that becomes more gradual with time. Things subject to constant force, like a soccer ball kicked on a grassy field, or a riverbed with a constant flow of water running across it, decay at a diminishing non-linear rate. Human beings, life forms, computers, car engines, civilizations, and other complex systems usually decay according to a slope that steepens over time, like dropping off a cliff. This should be intuitively obvious. So not only do complex things like life forms decay over time, but the rate of decay actually accelerates with time. This is very, very bad for the theory of evolution.

This is just another rehash of ye olde 'Second Law' argument. The football loses momentum because it runs out of energy; it does not have a constant force applied to it. Life does not follow such a trend because it does not run out of energy. And when it does? It dies! But we have a great big plasma ball radiating massive amounts of energy upon us. It is this energy (and, to a certain extent, energy from the Earth's mantle) that allows living systems to 'decrease' their entropy; indeed, some people define life as systems that 'feed' off this 'negentropy'.

In short, you analogies are flawed: if the football was being given continuous kicks (i.e., constant energy), it would continue to flythrough the air.

 

[Quantic]

In the case of magnetic field reversals, some data is suggesting that the interval between flips in polarity is getting longer over time. I would expect this.

Your expectation is wrong since the data does not back this up. See the link I posted earlier.

But regardless, I measure "strength" by the only measure that really matters--the capacity of the field to defect and redirect nasty solar radiation toward the poles as well as away from the earth into space.

If you do start a new thread then please use the unit of measure adopted by all physicists: Tesla. Your own measure of strength is much too subjective.

 

[Chalnoth]

If you do start a new thread then please use the unit of measure adopted by all physicists: Tesla. Your own measure of strength is much too subjective.

Well, or Gauss. Usually the Earth's magnetic field is measured in Gauss, because it is pretty weak.

 

[Naraoia]

I wish I had that kind of passion. I often consider the studies very dull, because of the seemingly endless info one has to absorb.

Playing is the best way to absorb endless info When it comes in the shape of 12 pages long descriptive papers then even I can't make myself swallow it (someone should outlaw boring scientific papers )

(BTW, the intertidal expedition was wholly for my own pleasure.)

I saw an actual lamprey today though, and I must admit that I was completely fascinated by it.

I hope it wasn't in the fish market

 

[Naraoia]

I have a different take on the oxygen catastrophe. I've read studies indicating oxygen concentration was 30% at some point in the past versus 21% today, a 50% increase over today's levels.

That has to be the Carboniferous, around 2 billion years after the big event.

This might explain at least some of the reason for the incredible longevity of people in Genesis (up to 1000 years). With a high oxygen content, people would heal much quicker and perform physical activity at much higher performance levels.

And perhaps last shorter? Oxygen is a dangerous thing to utilise. Free radicals, anyone?

Marathons would no problem at all. From fossil discoveries, it's apparent that creatures of almost every kind grew to larger maximal sizes than they do now.

From which fossil discoveries, and what creatures?

It's entirely reasonable to speculate that they grew to such large sizes because their lifespans were so much longer. Lizards don't stop growing. If the lizards live 500 years or more, they're gonna be enormous.

Yeah, but long lifespans are more likely to be coupled with low metabolic rate and O2 consumption, aren't they? *not sure*

So I say that the oxygen catastrophe is what we're experiencing today, not as it was in the past. Thermodynamically, things go from order to disorder, and the sad and degraded state of the ecosystem today compared to how it looked in the past is consistent with this truism.

(1) Thermodynamically, closed systems go to thermal equilibrium. Or something like that, anyway. The earth gets bombarded by all these massless energy bundles from the sun, though. For another few billion years "order" on this planet will have plenty of energy to draw on.

(2) To my best knowledge, the diversity of life on earth has been increasing throughout its history, only interrupted by mass extinctions. That humans may be causing one is a very real possibility, but so far life has recovered quite well after every extinction event.

Oxygen levels, if that's what you are referring to, have been much higher in the past, but they have also been much lower, even after the Carboniferous peak. IIRC atmospheric oxygen levels roughly halved (that's less than the modern level) after the Carboniferous, just to rise again later. (I've even read somewhere that birds have this oxygen drop to thank for their incredible lungs.)

In any case, if you consider ever increasing diversity degradation then you must have the strangest idea of degradation I've ever encountered.

 

[thaumaturgy]

K, perhaps we're conflating "exponential," a mathematical term of art, with "non-linear." To restate, I'm saying that a constant, "uniform" (if you will) decay rate of 5% per year is "non-linear." I'm also saying that every natural engine or system decays at a non-linear rate. That rate itself may or may not be constant, depending on whether the system is modeled as open or closed.

And this says absolutely nothing about the validity or invalidity of Uniformitarianism as it relates to geology.

Tornadoes and other weather phenomena decay on a slope that becomes more gradual with time. Things subject to constant force, like a soccer ball kicked on a grassy field, or a riverbed with a constant flow of water running across it, decay at a diminishing non-linear rate.

As I have said repeatedly, there is no argument over the existence of exponential decay or non-linear decay or rates. None whatsoever.

But how do you extrapolate this concept to meaning that Uniformitarianism is somehow invalid?

If you are making that claim, the only way to interpret that is if you think processes were faster in the past than they are today.

Not just a single reaction, but all processes.

I don't think you have thought through your full argument here, but I'll reiterate with a simple example, the decomposition of N2O5:

2N2O5 --> 4NO2 + O2

This is a first order reaction overall with a rate constant at 313K of 5.14X10[sup]-4[/sup] s[sup]-1[/sup]. Since the rate is only dependant upon the concentration of the N2O5 and we know the rate constant, the half-life is 1400sec, or about 23 minutes.

Which means that if I start with a reaction that has 0.1mole N2O5 and I watch it decompose it will take 23 minutes for it to break down to 0.05moles N2O5 (assuming I conduct it at 313K)

If I start watching a fresh batch with a concentration of 0.1mole/L N2O5 on May 3, 2001 at 1:00PM at 1:23PM I'll have 0.05mole/L N2O5. At 1:46PM I'll have 0.025mole/L N2O5. (again, at 313K temperature)

If I were to go back in time to April 3, 2000BC at 5:00PM and start with a fresh batch of 0.1mol/L N2O5 at 5:23 I'd have 0.05mol/L N2O5. (again, at 313K temperature).

If I were to go to the year 2525AD at Noon on June 3 and start with a fresh batch of 0.1mol/L N2O5, then at 12:23PM I'd have 0.05mol/L.

You see, it doesn't matter WHEN IN HISTORY I start the reaction, it will procede at a given rate which, itself, is an exponential decay dependent (at this temperature) only on the starting concentration of N2O5.

The rate expression, the governing rate is unchanged. Only related to the starting composition, not WHEN IN HISTORY I started the reaction.

NOTE: The RATE is exponential, it's a FIRST ORDER REACTION, but the half-life is still the same. In order for your view of Uniformitarianism to be valid, then you'd have to contend that somehow today the half-life of SO2Cl2 decomposition would have to be FASTER.

Otherwise you are stuck with uniformitarianism.

Do you see that yet?

(A more thorough treatment of the reaction rate calculations can be found HERE and HERE and HERE.)

Human beings, life forms, computers, car engines, civilizations, and other complex systems usually decay according to a slope that steepens over time, like dropping off a cliff. This should be intuitively obvious. So not only do complex things like life forms decay over time, but the rate of decay actually accelerates with time. This is very, very bad for the theory of evolution.

No, no it's not. Your misapplication of what exponential decay rates mean for uniformitarianism is probably "very bad" for your understanding of evolution, but it has no bearing on evolution or uniformitarianism.

 

[Naraoia]

The oxygen catastrophe is thought to have cased the Permian extinction. This occurred millions of years ago. There are no human fossils from this time period, or even primate fossils for that matter.

Oops, I don't know about True_blue but I most definitely didn't mean the Permian drop, I meant the great oxidation event.

 

[Naraoia]

Actually, this part of his post is fairly accurate. It is hypothesized that the reason insects were larger during the Permian and Carboniferous Periods was becasue the oxygen content in the atmosphere was greater than today. However, this has to do with insect anatomy, rather than how old they could get. Insects do not have a closed circulatory system, and use openings in their exoskeleton (trachea) to take in oygen and remove caron dioxide. This limits the size they can effectively grow to. The idea is that with a higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, they were capable of grower larger.

Hmm, I meant to ask someone for ages about this. I took a comparative physiology module this semester and one of the lecturers is an avid entomologist. She seemed quite outraged at the idea that oxygen level is a limiting factor for insects. I didn't challenge her, but as far as I understand insects are more limited by the speed of diffusion because they distribute oxygen via a trachaeal system rather than pumping it around in the blood. On a second thought she may be right, considering that at least some insects do pump the air in and out, so now I really don't know what to think

 

[Split Rock]

Hmm, I meant to ask someone for ages about this. I took a comparative physiology module this semester and one of the lecturers is an avid entomologist. She seemed quite outraged at the idea that oxygen level is a limiting factor for insects. I didn't challenge her, but as far as I understand insects are more limited by the speed of diffusion because they distribute oxygen via a trachaeal system rather than pumping it around in the blood. On a second thought she may be right, considering that at least some insects do pump the air in and out, so now I really don't know what to think

The tracheal system in insects is not as simple as often portrayed, but I think the limiting factor is do to their open circulatory system, rather than a lack of lungs. Ask your lecturer why she thinks there are no insects today with 2.5 ft wingspans like Meganeura. Maybe she has a more convincing explanation than atmospheric oxygen content.

 

[Split Rock]

Tornadoes and other weather phenomena decay on a slope that becomes more gradual with time.

This is really wrong. Tornadoes can appear and disappear very fast. This is why they are so hard to predict. Weather systems can decay in strength over time, or they can strengthen. A hurricane, for example, may decrease in strength traveling over cooler water or land, and then increase in strength traveling over warmer water.

Things subject to constant force, like a soccer ball kicked on a grassy field, or a riverbed with a constant flow of water running across it, decay at a diminishing non-linear rate.

A soccer ball kicked on a grassy field does not experience a constant force.

Human beings, life forms, computers, car engines, civilizations, and other complex systems usually decay according to a slope that steepens over time, like dropping off a cliff.

Not necessarily true. A car engine may suffer a catistrophic failure and just die, or it may simply get worn out slowly over time. Human beings experience programmed obsolescence. Our cells are programmed to divide a certain number of times, then stop.

This should be intuitively obvious.

I think your problem is that you are relying on your intuition, rather than observation and experimentation. Our intuition is not always correct.

So not only do complex things like life forms decay over time, but the rate of decay actually accelerates with time.

Again, not necessarily so.

This is very, very bad for the theory of evolution.

Not really.

 

[Naraoia]

The tracheal system in insects is not as simple as often portrayed, but I think the limiting factor is do to their open circulatory system, rather than a lack of lungs. Ask your lecturer why she thinks there are no insects today with 2.5 ft wingspans like Meganeura. Maybe she has a more convincing explanation than atmospheric oxygen content.

Hehe, I should've done that, too. And you are probably right, it's just that the open system is not efficient enough. I looked it up and they do seem to have respiratory pigments in the haemolymph.

I wasn't talking about lack of lungs; my original line of thought was that we can get oxygen to any distance from the point where the air comes in at much faster rates than diffusion would because we pump it around in the blood. But then I realised that insects also pump air in and out of the tracheal system, so that point doesn't really stand. Actually, with good enough ventilation I'm not sure if the trachaeal system should be at all inferior to lungs plus closed circulation (A few weeks ago I saw a bee on a lamp post, and I could swear it was panting )

Hmm... O2 levels have been fluctuating quite a lot even during insect history, I wonder if there's a correlation (eg. Late Permian/early Mesozoic insects should be even smaller than today if oxygen, rather than predation or something, is really the main limiting factor on their size).