%26gt; "Prentice Hall Physical Science - Concepts in Action textbook states on page 483: "Spontaneous changes will always make a system less orderly, unless work is done on the system." Okay, so how can the theory of Evolution be compatible with that statement?"
I'm afraid this is a re-statement of the "It violates the second law of thermodynamics" agrument against evolution.
The second law applies to a closed system - one which is receiving no matter or energy from an external source (input of energy being the "work" referred to).
Organisms are systems which increase in order over time as they grow - the "work" is them receiving energy in the form of food or sunlight (if plants). If you cut-off that energy, the organism dies and breaks-down (as predicted by the Law).
Life on earth similarly does increase in order through evolution - and its source of external energy is the sun (almost all life depends on it directly or inderectly). Plants capture the energy, which is then used by herbivores, then carnivores, etc.
%26gt; "Many scientists believe that the Big Bang instituted the evolutionary process."
Actually, no scientist believes this (and any source which says this is the case is either mistaken or deliberately lying).
The Big Bang is a model describing the origin of the universe from a singularity - it does not address the origin of life, nor how life changes with time.
%26gt; "But just look at its title: the Big Bang. How can a 'spontaneous change' such as this result in increasingly improving organisms, as theorized by Evolution?"
As I said - it doesn't. The Big Bang model, more correctly called the "Cosmic Inflation Model", merely says that the universe is expanding in all directions, therefore once it must have been smaller - infinitely compressed, in fact.
%26gt; "How could 'work be done on the system' when there was no definite source to cause the work to be done in the first place?"
f you are asking here "What caused the Big Bang?", then the answer is we don't know (and it is mostl likely impossible for us to know).
But - the idea that everything must have "work" done to it in order to occur (a version of the law of causality) is an aspect of the physics of our universe. since any origin or cause of the Big Bang was (obviously) "before" or "outside" our universe, there is no reason to suppose that causality holds. It could indeed have happened "just because"
Furthermore, we know that - even within our universe - causality does not always hold. Subatomic phenomena (such as radioactive decay, the emission of a photon from an electron moving to a lower energy-state, etc.) can and do happen without any cause. Since the singularity that was the "seed" of the Big Bang was just such a subatomic phenomenon (a point of zero volume and infinite density), it could still have happened with no cause.
%26gt; "(1) The Big Bang eventually, regardless of the time lapse, led to the evolutionary process of life, ultimately meaning that it started the evolutionary process."
If that is the case, you should be arguing about how the Big Bang caused gravity to appear first - since gravity caused matter to collapse and form planets and stars (without which no life is possible, so far as we know).
%26gt; "(2) How could the Big Bang not be a "spontaneous change"? It is a random %26amp; sudden explosion; that sounds like a "spontaneous change" to me."
It is not an explosion - it is an expansion, and it is still going on (the universe is still expanding).
dude, i think you have a terrible understanding of everything you just mentioned.
the first signs of life on earth did not come around for about 9-10 billion years after the big bang, so therefore the big bang is completely irrelevant to your statement. it did not "institute the evolutionary process." and it is not the kind of spontaneous change that the quote is talking about.
what the quote means by a "spontaneous change" would be something like an meteorite falling down and changing the climate. over time, that change would cause many species to die off, and the ones surviving would then be forced to adapt, as to suit the new environment.
you make it seem like evolution is when things just "magically change." thats not how it works dude. i suggest you go do some actual research, although you probably wont.
anyways, i dont expect you to understand ANY of this, and because of that, you will overlook this whole thing... you dont have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.Don't these theories conflict with this scientific principle?
Go troll the biology section with your creationist nonsense.
The "work" done on the system of evolution could be loosely described as "survival of the fittest"
It's not easy to figure out how to use your new appendages that look like a tree branch, it takes work. Once you've established some "order" to your spontaneous change, your change becomes useful. Adaptation in and of itself is useless unless the change made results in better survival, which in turn can only be shown by putting your change to the "test" or "work". This results in the passing of said changes along, but ONLY useful changes are passed along, and to identify what change is useful or not, you use it in your environment with either positive or negative results.Don't these theories conflict with this scientific principle?
Syntropy.
Also known as negentropy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negentropy
- Simply put, you need to read more than just page 483.
You are incorrect in all of your premises, and there isn't enough time or space to correct them here, assuming you actually want to correct them.
Re: your after note - All but one of these answers appear to be honest attempts to respond to your question. We don't know you, we only know the question.
I know evolution and science. You are dead on in most of what you say.
Science deals ultimately with only two things, the necessary and the contingent.
What you mentioned is contingent, by definition. Unless evolution can be shown to work by necessity, it is self-contradicting -- literally from the start, as you point out.
"Spontaneous changes will always make a system less orderly, unless work is done on the system."
Unless work is done on the system - you seem to have overlooked this bit. Life is, in part, a metabolic process. Living things perform work using enzymes and metabolic pathways that evolved with single-celled organisms. An enzyme is a protein molecule that acts as a biological catalyst - they can speed up slow chemical reactions and make reactions happen that wouldn't ordinarily occur just by being there.
These enzymatic and metabolic pathways include the Krebs cycle, the electron transport chain, glycolysis, the generation of ATP, photosynthesis, and the like. Similar but simpler biochemical' processes powered by photons from the sun were in place before life emerged. These processes, now captured and controlled by living things, have the potential to continue as long as the sun shines and the proper nutrients are available.
Driving Parts of Krebs Cycle in Reverse through Mineral Photochemistry
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/environmenta鈥?/a>
Role of Enzymes in Biochemical Reactions
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/5鈥?/a>
No comments:
Post a Comment