>DNAunion: Basically, I have been using the term overcome in situations
where
>an object or process has two tendencies/forces operating in what amount to
>opposite directions, with one of the tendencies/forces exerting itself
>enough
>to, well, overcome the other.
OK, I can accept that (with the proviso that there may be more than two
tendencies/forces involved).
Given what I said in my last post, we can make sense of the the concept of
overcoming a tendency, providing we understand that that really means
causing a second tendency which counteracts the first one. So, if the
athlete pushes up hard enough to raise the barbell, we can say say that the
athlete is overcoming the tendency of gravity to lower the barbell. *But* we
could with equal justification say, if the athlete is not pushing hard
enough to stop the barbell falling, that the force of gravity is overcoming
the tendency of the athlete to raise the barbell.
But it makes no sense to talk about overcoming a *law*, as in overcoming the
SLOT. A law is a law. It just is. You cannot overcome it. You may be able to
find an exception to it, but there are no known exceptions to the SLOT.
If the law describes a force or tendency, then you can talk about overcoming
that force or tendency. This causes some confusion in the case of gravity
because there is both a law of gravity and a force of gravity. When you talk
about overcoming gravity, you mean overcoming the force, not the law.
I suppose you could talk about overcoming the tendency described by the
SLOT. But the SLOT does not describe any tendency for non-isolated systems.
In the case of non-isolated systems, the SLOT describes a tendency for the
surrounding environment. The surrounding environment has a tendency to gain
at least as much entropy as the system loses. The SLOT certainly does not
describe any tendency for the entropy in a non-isolated system to increase,
as you seem to suggest.
But why insist on using these loose and confusing terms? I can understand
why you might start by stating your argument in loose terms, as a first
approximation. I do that too. But, when challenged, or if people are having
difficulty understanding me, I respond by making my arguments more precise.
You, on the other hand, respond by continuing to use the same imprecise
terms on the grounds that other people sometimes use these terms too. This
has always been one of my complaints about ID proponents. They resist
stating their arguments in precise terms. If they did state their arguments
in precise terms, they would more easily see the flaws in those arguments.
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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