Re: Phil Johnson on the Second Law of Thermodynamics

From: DNAunion@aol.com
Date: Sat Nov 11 2000 - 21:31:52 EST

  • Next message: DNAunion@aol.com: "Re: Phil Johnson on the Second Law of Thermodynamics"

    >>>Paul Robson: Who are the "those" in your sentence .....
       
    "those who rely SOLELY on vague appeals to open-system thermodynamics to
    explain the ordering and organizing of simple organics into a functioning
    cell" (my emphasis)
      
    if you can't actually produce anyone who says this isn't your argument an
    irrelevant distraction ?
     
    >>>DNAunion: Sorry, I mark a whole lot of stuff when I read material, but
    not
      everything. I have not considered prior to now marking such comments: and
    I don't intend to go back and reread everything I already have read to find
    such instances. I think, though, that if you - or anyone else - follow these
    kinds of discussions on the net long enough, that you will run across such a
    vague claim frequently: I have.
     
    >>>Paul Robson: This is a fantasy.
     
    You claim that there are "frequent" claims of :-
     
    "those who rely SOLELY on vague appeals to open-system thermodynamics to
    explain the ordering and organizing of simple organics into a functioning
    cell" (my emphasis)
     
    I have not come across a single person who solely relies on OST to explain
    the ordering and organizing of organics.
     
    I have not even come across a single person who relies on it at all, EXCEPT
    as a rebuttal of the claim that Evolution violates SLOT.
     
    I have read of many creationists, though who make the argument along the
    lines of "Well, if being an open system isn't a problem for evolution, why
    don't cars evolve from junk in a junkyard open to energy" ; something
    sounding remarkably in the ball park "vague appeals to OST"
     
    If you cannot produce one person who "solely relies" on OST to do this I will
    treat your claims of "frequency" as an absurdity.

    **********************
    DNAunion: Do as you feel fit. However, I already pointed out how you
    yourself put forth a form of this argument when you said that appealing to
    open-system thermodynamics "knocked out" the Creationists' claims. You did
    not mention anything other than OST.

    Second, here is something Chris Cogan recently wrote, and my reply:

    >>>Ccogan: Since reproduction can occur either as a mere catalytic process, a
    template-using process, or as a process of creation and assembly of
    components (as in virus replication), there are plenty of ways in which the
    Sun's energy, and the energy from the core of the Earth itself, etc., can
    promote reproduction once this energy has brought about enough natural
    "mixing" of existing components to produce the first simple and suitable
    replicator.

    ***************
    DNAunion: First, you listed three "independent" methods of reproduction, as
    if any one of the three can stand by itself. But these are not independent.
    "[A]ssembly of components (as in virus replication)" does not occur without
    there first being "a template-processing process", which does not occur
    without a "catalytic process". Note also that you later state, "even the
    simplest catalytic process is "code-driven,"", which seems to further
    entangle these "independent" processes of reproduction.

    Second, you have glazed over some of the most important steps on the way to
    life: how the first self-replicators arose. You have basically done what
    Paul Robson claims no evolutionist does! You have presented a *vague appeal*
    to open-system thermodynamics ("there are plenty of ways in which the Sun's
    energy, and the energy from the core of the Earth itself, etc., can promote
    reproduction once this energy has brought about enough natural "mixing" of
    existing components to produce the first simple and suitable replicator.")
    At least you didn't rely solely on the sol (pun intended) and brought up the
    energy liberated from the Earth's core. But still, your explanation for the
    generation of the first replicators boils down to, "energy did some mixing of
    stuff in some unspecified way".
    ****************



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