Reflectorites
On Fri, 7 Apr 2000 23:59:21 -0400, David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu wrote:
[continued]
[...]
>SJ> One could argue that
>>Newton's Laws were "subtly false" but that does not mean they were
>>"bogus". They are true under most conditions, but start to break down
>>under special conditions. Indeed, since no scientific theory is absolutely
>>true, one could argue that *all* science is "bogus" in the sense of "subtly
>>false"!
DB>I don't think Newton's laws *are* bogus/subtly false. They are quite
>clearly correct in the the proper limiting domain of their asymptotic
>validity, and are quite obviously incorrect outside that asymptotic
>domain. (Although what is obvious to me might not necessarily be so to
>someone else, and vice versa.)
My point was that it might be a fact that the YEC (and even my) arguments
on the SLoT are "subtly false" but that does not necessarily make them
"bogus". It is David's personal *value judgment* that they are also "bogus".
>SJ>But David only says that of *creationist* arguments, so I suspect that there
>>is a not-so-hidden agenda behind David's choice of terminology.
DB>What "not-so-hidden agenda" is behind my terminology? It seems to be
>hidden from me. Please help me out here?
I said "I suspect" David may in fact not have any such "hidden agenda"
but he has given me grounds to suspect that he has.
>SJ>I would
>>not mind so much if David said that my arguments regarding the SLoT
>>were "subtly false" and carefully explained where they were incorrect.
DB>I thought I *did* carefully explain why the arguments mentioned in the
>Ratzsch quote were subtly false.
See previously. I said "*my* arguments regarding the SLoT". The YEC
arguments in Ratzsch's quote were no more my arguments than they were
Ratzsch's.
My arguments are similar to some of the YEC arguments, but they are
not identical.
>SJ>But
>>his claim that my arguments on the SLoT are "bogus" is emotional and
>>counterproductive.
DB>Where is this hypersensitivity coming from? I'm not even sure what your
>arguments *are* any more.
I'm not even sure that David has *ever* known what my arguments were!
DB>If you think my explanations did not refute
>your arguments and that I misperceived them then why have you taken my
>characterization so personally of what you say is only of a "strawman"
>argument that doesn't represent or apply to your position. I
>characterized what I understood as the cosmic and earth-based arguments
>described in the Ratzsch quote as "bogus". If those arguments don't
>represent your position then why are you upset? Sheesh, I'm sorry I
>picked the term.
See previously. The "cosmic and earth-based arguments described in the
Ratzsch quote" don't represent my position. They represent the *YECs*
position. My position has similarities with the YECs position, but it
is not identical.
[...]
>SJ> I wonder
>>what David would think if the first post he ever got from me charged that
>>something he said was "bogus"?
DB>I don't think I would care how many times someone had or had not
>corresponded with me first. If (and when) I ever say something that is
>bogus, I sure want to know about it so I can correct my thinking and any
>misinformation I may have spread. I do not like to pass on
>misinformation. I want to be stopped if I do so. I would only ask that
>the reason(s) why what I said was bogus be carefully explained to me so
>I could see how it was actually bogus.
Well, let's hope that David does "correct" his "thinking and any
misinformation" that he "may have spread"!
[...]
>SJ>And if the physics is "incorrect", then David can always try explain why,
>>*in terms that a layman like me can understand*, and not dismiss out of
>>hand counter-arguments from authorities who may not agree with him.
DB>I thought I *did* explain them, both in my original posts pointing it all
>out to you and subsequently in this recent thread. How many more times
>do you want it explained? I'll try again.
>
>The fact is that the 2nd law per se has nothing necessarily to say one
>way or the other about any 'order' or 'disorder' that may or may not
>appear at the macroscopic level for a thermodynamic system. What it
>*does* have to say is that for an isolated system its entropy does not
>ever decrease. In such a system the entropy monotonically rises with
>time reaching its maximal value in thermodynamic equilibrium. What the
>entropy *is* that has so increased is the total amount of further
>information necessary to identify, with certainty, which of the system's
>possible microscopic states is the actual microscopic state the system
>happens to be in given that the collection of conceivable possible
>microscopic states is only the set of those microscopic states that fit
>(within experimental error) the observed macroscopic state. IOW, as the
>isolated system equilibrates the number of possible microscopic states
>that the system could be in and still have the same macroscopic state
>(same within the detectability of macroscopic observations) grows with
>time. It takes more information to identify which possible microscopic
>state is the actual one since there are so many more of these possible
>microscopic states to choose from as the number of them increases. To
>the extent that all the possible microscopic states are equally likely
>the entropy is (in some particular units) then just the logarithm of the
>number of these possible microscopic states. To the extent that the
>probabilities of the various possible microscopic states differ among
>each other then the entropy becomes a more complicated function (i.e.
>S = SUM{i, p_i*log(1/p_i)} where p_i is the probability of the i-th
>possible microscopic state compatible with the relevant macroscopic
>state.).
I do not necessarily disagree with the above, except the bit about
"disorder". But I don't want to debate the above until we get past
these preliminaries. I also want to work from what *I* have said,
not from what David has said.
DB>Any order or disorder that might appear at the macroscopic level is not a
>necessary concern of the 2nd law. It concerns what goes on at the
>*microscopic* level in terms of the mumber of allowed microscopic states.
>
>If the system is open then as time goes on then the sum of the entropy of
>the system and the contribution to the entropy of its surroundings due to
>their interactions with the system increases. It may happen that either
>term in this sum may increase or decrease as along as the total sum
>itself doesn't ever decrease with time.
>
>In the case of the cosmic argument there is no problem with the 2nd law
>because any order that develops in the matter of the universe does so at
>the macroscopic level rather than the microscopic level, and any local
>decreases in the entropy of that matter that *might* happen to occur
>concomitantly with the generation of that local order is more than made
>up for by the increase in entropy elsewhere. Usually the electromagnetic
>field with its 2.7 K Cosmic Microwave Background is the ultimate heat
>sink of any dissipated energy and its entropy capacity completely dwarfs
>that of the matter degrees of freedom. Over time the matter in the
>universe develops a very complicated hierarchical organization at the
>macroscopic level. This organization comes about from an instability
>related to the interplay of gravitation and the 2nd law. It does not
>violate, go against, oppose, etc. the 2nd law. It is a (partial)
>consequence of it (along with some other laws of nature, esp.
>gravitation).
I don' necessarily disagree with the above either.
But why does David keep mentioning that "It does not violate, go against,
oppose, etc. the 2nd law"? I am not claiming that it does, and as he
shall see (if we ever get to it) I was not claiming this even in 1996.
DB>Open systems (such as the Earth's near surface environment) which have a
>sufficiently strong disequilibrium maintained across their boundaries
>(such as an externally maintained imbalance in one or more of such
>intensive quantities such as temperature, pressure, chemical potential,
>etc.) may sponteneously develop quite complicated and organized behavior
>at the macroscopic level even without the help of the instability
>provided by gravitation at the cosmic level. Such organized behavior is
>a result of the spontaneous development of (what Prigogine has called) a
>dissipative structure. The development of such things does not oppose,
>go against, circumvent, or violate the 2nd law. The development of such
>things is driven *by* the 2nd law.
David says it *again*!
>SJ>BTW does David actually read all the posts looking for "incorrect physics
>>arguments"? Or does he have a filter set up so that whenever
>>"thermodynamics" is mentioned he is alerted? Either way it suggests he is
>>acting like a kind of vigilante and he might be motivated to find fault where
>>there was none.
DB>The answer to both questions is no. I normally lurk on this list in
>order to learn from others about origins-related things that I do not
>know about as much they do. Such things tend to be related to biology,
>geology, paleontology, anthropology, etc. I would hope that when someone
>spouts some misinformation about one or more of these fields that someone
>else who knows better would step in and correct it--seeing that I would
>not be in much of a position to be able to detect it. I happen to know
>some things about physics, and when I notice someone misusing physics I
>might step in and correct it if I happen to have the time, and I deem it
>important enough to bother correcting. It is more likely when I see the
>same serious errors repeated without correction by others. My field
>happens to be in statistical mechanics so I'm more sensitive to errors
>in that area than maybe in some others. Also, most of the physics-
>related stuff that goes by on this list tends to be related to such
>things as thermodynamics, cosmology and general relativity, quantum and
>particle theory. Of these areas, I'm probably most sensitive to problems
>with thermodynamics beause of my background and the frequency with which
>the subject comes up here. I have certainly been known to have
>discussions with others and post corrections when the topic involves
>these other areas of theoretical physics as well.
I thank David for this. But I do assume that from his confusion about
the Ratzsch quote and his continual mentioning violating the 2nd law,
that he is like the man who has a hammer and everything looks like
a nail.
DB><snip more stuff>
Why not just "<snip>" or "[...]"?
>SJ>I appreciate David's apology. I look forward to him being "more
>>circumspect and polite in the future".
DB>I'll try.
>SJ>But I don't know though what David
>>means by "just who has been abusive...in this matter". I have not abused
>>David but have simply tried to defend myself against his attacks.
DB>Of course you have.
I would appreciate David posting where I have "abused David" that was not
where I was trying "to defend myself against his attacks"?
>SJ>BTW I don't even know what David's qualifications are. I gather from the
>>following website that he is probably an astrophysicist:
[...]
DB>No. It just happens that one of the hats I wear here is being in charge
>of the campus planetarium. Astrophysics is definitely not my field,
>although I do teach undergraduate introductory astronomy and some general
>relativity at the upper division level.
OK.
>SJ>I would appreciate David's clarification of this, so I can give due weight
>>(or otherwise) to his claims to "speak with authority and not as the
>>scribes" on the SLoT.
DB>Why do you care about my background?
Because David just makes assertions without references. I need to know
how much weight I should give to those assertions.
DB>What I said about entropy can
>easily be checked out by consulting nearly any modern stat mech book.
If David has the "modern stat mech book" he can quote from it. Otherwise
it is just his unsubstantiated assertions as far as I am concerned.
DB>I
>prefer to let each of us demonstrate what we know and what we are
>ignorant of by what we actually post. If someone says something that is
>incorrect, then someone else ought to correct it. We ought not make
>our points by saying "I'm the authoritative expert and you are to
>believe me because I said so".
Yet this is *exactly* what David is doing!
DB>Neither ought we quote someone else and
>expect that to settle the issue because the person quoted "said so". I
>do not like appeals to authority.
We have had this argument before. It is a scientific myth about science
not being based on "appeals to authority". Science is so specialised
these days that all scientists rely on the authority of other scientists.
How is a layman (or indeed a scientist from another field-which is the
same thing) to evaluate a technical physics argument from a physics
professor, which is apparenty beyond the ability of introductory physics
textbook authors to state accurately?
If we did not post quotes with references, these debates would just
degenerate into everyone's unsubstantiated assertions.
DB>I want to actually understand *why*
>certain things are the way they are, and would hope others do too. I
>would like us to have what we say be judged by its actual content--not by
>appeals to authority. My preference would be to have us all relatively
>anonymous except for our posts, and have our posts speak for us. To
>'speak with authority and not as the scribes' is to let our own actual
>words do the convincing, rather than continually quoting and hiding
>behind the opinions of some other 'scribes' or 'rabbis' on some
>particular matter.
David is welcome to his preferences, but he should not try to force
them on others. I personally *like* to see statements backed up with
references.
DB>Regarding more of Stephen's inquisition:
Again, this is unnecessarily provocative.
>SJ>Is David a Professor of Physics at Georgetown (or any)
>>University?
DB>If you simply must know, I'm an associate professor of physics at
>Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA.
Thanks to David for this. I did not *have* to know it, but it is
useful in evaluating how seriously to take David's assertions.
>SJ>Has David written physics textbooks?
DB>No. I have toyed with the idea of writing a thermal physics text
>though. If I ever do write one it would probably be based on my notes
>for the thermal physics course that I teach here.
OK. I thank David for this.
>SJ>Has David any special expertise on the SLoT?
DB>Well, I got my PhD from the University of Minnesota in theoretical
>physics in the area of the statistical mechanics of disordered media. My
>thesis research related to certain models of spin glasses. Since then I
>had post doctoral research appointments at the James Franck Institute at
>the University of Chicago and The Ohio State University where I did
>further work on various models of disordered media. Since then I have
>done some numerical simulations of various statistical mechanical models
>and have taught at the University of Akron, Knox College, and Georgetown
>College.
And for this. I note with interest that David uses the term "disordered". Is
this the same "disorder" as in some definitions of the SLoT?
>SJ>I also would also appreciate David stating
>>(or restating) what his position is on the creation/evolution spectrum,
DB>Stephen, I *did* state this a couple of posts ago. Please pay attention
>if you are so curious about this.
More unnecessary rudeness by David.
DB>After you claimed that the "whole
>problem with this second law of thermodynamics/evolution debate is that
>evolutionists like David don't try to understand what the other side is
>saying" I explained that I did not consider myself an evolutionist.
I did "pay attention" to this but it was too vague. It could mean anything.
Some Evolutionary Creationists say they do not consider themselves to be
theistic evolutionists. saying what one isn't is not saying what one is.
DB>Rather that I was *undecided* between a TE/EC position and a particular
>PC position very similar to your so-called mediate creation model (but
>without any of the Johnsonesque IDism). I also gave my reasons for my
>indecision. I am not an IDer in the sense that it is usually used by
>those who flaunt their IDism. I think methodological naturalism is the
>proper methodology of science.
Thanks to David for this also. It will be interesting to see what position
David eventually adopts. If he maintains his stand on "methodological
naturalism" it is hard to see how he could ever be anything other than a
type of theistic evolutionist.
>SJ>and
>>what his personal `religious' position is, i.e. is David and atheist or
>>an agnostic, or even a Christian? I must say that I don't know much about
>>David, although others seem to.
DB>I happen to be a Christian who is currently a member of a moderate
>Southern Baptist Church.
And again.
DB>Does this help you pigeon-hole me better now? What else about me do you
>want to know, marital status, race, age, politics, tax bracket maybe?
More unnecessary rudeness from David. I believed my questions were reasonable
in the circumstances.
[...]
Now that I have got to the end of this preliminary post, in view of David's
continuing gratuitous intimidatory remarks, I am prepared to continue this
SLoT discussion with David only on the following *non-negotiable* conditions:
1. David refrain from making any further remarks about the style of my posts;
2. David accept (or at least not reject) my quoted definitions of the second
law of thermodynamics, as it relates to evolution, from mainstream physics and
biology textbooks; and
3. David cease stating (or implying) that I claim that `evolution violates
the second law of thermodynamics'.
David is free to reject these 3 conditions, but in that case this whole SLoT
thread will be at an end. Moreover, if David does accept these 3 conditions,
but later on at any point in our subsequent discussions, he breaches them,
this SLoT thread will, at that point, be at an end.
I would not normally make these conditions but I believe in this particular
issue, which David himself has said is "subtle", the whole debate will
probably turn on fine points of definition. In such circumstances, David's
continual interjection of `noise' in the form of gratuitous intimidatory comments
about my style of posts, etc, and his rejection of the quotes which form the
very basis of my arguments (in view of the fact that David is an Associate
Professor of Physics and I am a layman), would make continuation of the debate
a waste of everyone's time.
The ball is now in David's court.
Steve
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"Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of the
watch, with its various machinery, accounted for, by being told that it was
one out of possible combinations of material forms; that whatever he had
found in the place where he found the watch, must have contained some
internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the
structure now exhibited, viz. of the works of a watch, as well as a different
structure." (Paley W., "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence
and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature,"
[1802], St. Thomas Press: Houston, TX, 1972, reprint, p.4)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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