[Bob Enyart]

In his thread: End of 2nd Law Cannard [sic] (emphasis added):

Originally Posted by laughsoutloud

An interesting paper that calculates the trade-off between entropy and evolution...

Along comes a very good article by Dan Styer, published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Physics. Titled "Entropy and Evolution"[1], he tackled very much the same issue.

Abstract: Quantitative estimates of the entropy involved in biological evolution demonstrate that there is no conflict between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics. …

And another comment [BE: by PZ Myers (see him in Ben Stein's Expelled)]:

there's about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth's entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.

The difficulty with creationism arguments is that they employ specious reasoning, supported by distortions of fact.

Evolution happened - deal with it!

Okay, LsOL, deal the cards (or should I say: the canards).

Originally Posted by Johnny

I'm willing to bet a large sum of made up numbers that you [Stripe] haven't even read the paper.

Johnny & LsOL, Stipe can read that paper for 19 bucks; it's at the American Journal of Physics: [Daniel] Styer DF (2008) Entropy and evolution, 76(11):1031-1033 here.

But the paper repeats an error that Henry Morris made fifty years ago, and yes that error rippled through the Creation movement, but after all these years, evolutionists, physicists and creationists should stop making the error.

Entropy is NOT a manifestation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

It is not.

The reverse is true.

The 2nd law is a manifestation of entropy.

Heat transfer entropy and information entropy are two very different phenomenas.

From Timothy R. Stout, B.S. in physics from UCLA, patent holder with 30 years of design engineering experience:

So, how do evolutionists… get around the problem of information entropy? … They treat entropy as an independent entity which can be transferred between its different forms. Thus a decrease in entropy associated with a fuel source is equated to the organization present in an information-driven system such as a [living] cell. In other words, thermodynamic entropy is assumed to be convertible into information entropy. … Entropy related to heat engines has nothing to do with entropy related to a Mozart symphony or to an information sequence.

A friend of mine, Dr. Ed Holroyd of Arvada Colorado, B.S in astrophysics and Ph.D. in atmospheric science who has specialized in remote sensing research for the U.S. government for 30 years, wrote a chapter in a 2001 book, in six days, stating (p. 279), "we know about how often there are supernovae, such as about every 25 years in a galaxy like our own. … We can calculate that we should be able to detect those nebulae for millions of years before they diffuse… [However] there are only enough for about 7,000, not millions of, years of explosions. Here is an important discrepancy that has been known for decades."

What do millions of years of missing supernovae have to do with this information entropy and thermodynamic entropy differentiation? Nothing. But I included it as a rib (as in Adam's) to naturalists and as a transition to a quote from that book that is relevant. Dr. Jeremy L. Walter, head of Engineering Analysis and Design at Penn State's Applied Research Lab in their Energy Science and Power Systems Division has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. all in mechanical engineering, received an NSF grant to be used at an institution of his choice, and has led undersea propulsion development projects for the U.S. Navy researching thermal power systems.

Walter wrote (p. 15-16), "…without a heat engine, no efficient useful work is produced by the flow of heat. … many evolutionists believe the solution to the threat of the second law is to be found in statistical thermodynamics." This is the argument in the paper LsOL referred to, that evolution on earth can appear to violate the 2nd Law locally because a decrease in [information] entropy as a squid evolves in the sea is offset by a fluctuation of [heat] entropy in a galaxy far, far away. Okaay.

Sorry. Actually, the paper didn't even make the distinction between information entropy and heat entropy that I just did. So, to realize what Styer's paper actually claimed, just delete the two bracketed words above:

that evolution on earth can appear to violate the 2nd Law locally because a decrease in entropy as a squid evolves in the sea is offset by a fluctuation of entropy in a galaxy far, far away.

After summarizing the attempt by James Clerk Maxwell in 1891 to find a way around the thermodynamic entropy issue, and the offsetting 1929 paper by Szilard demonstrating the ruthlessness of the 2nd law, Dr. Walter then stated (p. 17):

In naturalistic evolution, life is believed to have originated as high fluxes of energy passed through a chemical soup of fortuitous composition. The problem here is much more difficult than that faced by the Maxwell demon, because life requires structures of incredible complexity, not just high energy levels. … The presumed high-energy fluxes do not provide structure or intelligence…

But as a creationist indebted to Henry Morris, the Copernicus of the Young Earth Creation movement, let me first level two criticisms at Morris:

Morris Error 1: Henry Morris wrongly stated that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics resulted from the Fall (Morris, Biblical Basis for Modern Science 1984, pp. 195-197; copied by countless others), as though a cup of hot cocoa would not have cooled down if left to sit in the Garden; and as though an oven could have continue to burn its fuel forever; etc. (For Bible students: "the Tree of Life" had the same purpose in the initial creation as it does in the New Creation; God put it in Eden, and later transferred the Tree of Life to heaven, to deal with the effects of entropy on the human body, so that "the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev. 22:2; Gen. 2:9, 16; 3:22).

Morris Error 2: Henry Morris (even though he began his work in the early decades after Bell Laboratories' discovery of information entropy, and it's parallel to thermodynamic entropy, still) should not have used the term Entropy as a synonym for the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

The equation for Entropy is engraved on the tombstone of the 19th century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann who famously quantified entropy in heat engines. Wikipedia quotes physicist Max Plank, "The logarithmic connection between entropy and probability was first stated by L. Boltzmann in his kinetic theory of gases." LsOL and Johnny, this should interest you because decades later, at Bell Laboratories, as described by Stout (CM, Sept/Oct 2008, Vol 13, Num. 5, p. 1):

During the late 1940's Claude E. Shannon, considered the father of "information theory," was a scientist working for Bell Labs. He had the responsibility to determine the maximum data rate at which digital information could be sent reliably across telephone lines… In performing statistical analyses on the corruption of digital information, he ended up with certain formulas that were very similar to Boltzmann's.

(Elsewhere I'll tell of my interacting with Bell engineers as a teenager in NJ.) Yikes! What's going on with Shannon's information degradation formulas being similar to Boltzmann's thermodynamic formulas? Heat entropy was NOT the significant factor in that degradation of transferred information. This was ANOTHER manifestation of entropy, other than thermodynamic entropy, this was "information entropy."

Stout continues (p. 2):

"Shannon also called this trait entropy… More technically, though, it is information entropy and not thermodynamic entropy.

Aesthetic entropy

Works of art are organized…. Thus, a random blast on a trumpet during… a Mozart symphony will… detract from the performance."

Entropy has to do with the move from order to disorder in any organized system, whether it is organized by energy states, ergonomics (arrangement of utensils in your kitchen, etc), aesthetic values, information content, etc.

Stout also wrote:

the more organized a system is, the harder or more unlikely it is for a random change [mutation] to increase its order. … Evolutionists claim that [biological] organization is the result of cumulative progress made through… random changes… However… mutations to the DNA of a cell, should destroy order, not increase it.

So I'll conclude this criticism of the American Journal of Physics 2008 article titled Entropy and Evolution repeating Stout's observation that evolutionists thing information entropy can be converted to thermodynamic entropy; and far more significant, his reminder that Entropy is NOT a manifestation of thermodynamics, but vice versa.

So, how do evolutionists… get around the problem of information entropy? … They treat entropy as an independent entity which can be transferred between its different forms. Thus a decrease in entropy associated with a fuel source is equated to the organization present in an information-driven system such as a [living] cell. In other words, thermodynamic entropy is assumed to be convertible into information entropy. … Entropy related to heat engines has nothing to do with entropy related to… an information sequence.

And so laughsoutloud and Johnny, please remember: Entropy is NOT a manifestation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

It is not.

The reverse is true.

The 2nd law is a manifestation of entropy.

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

[Yorzhik]

Great post Bob, we should put this one in the archives.

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

In his thread: End of 2nd Law Cannard [sic] (emphasis added): ...

...

The reverse is true.

The 2nd law is a manifestation of entropy.

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com

Just in case Johnny wants to refer to Bob's post here as a more complete statement on the problem I cite that evolution has with the 2nd law, I'd like to say that the problem I mention that evolution has with the 2nd law is purely energy based, not informational. Bob is giving you another problem.

I'll discuss evolution's problem with information, too. Just not in LOL's thread unless you want to bring it up there.

[Stripe]

Thanks for the pointers, Bob.

[Jugulum]

Three comments, Bob:

1.) You quoted Stout saying that evolutionists assume entropy can be transferred between its different forms. We should definitely question that assumption--but do we have solid reason to deny it?

2.) I see a problem with this quote from Stout:

Evolutionists claim that [biological] organization is the result of cumulative progress made through… random changes… However… mutations to the DNA of a cell, should destroy order, not increase it.

Most mutations do mess things up, sure. But how does any principle of entropy tell us that there are no beneficial mutations? Or that there are so few that evolution is infeasible?

The possibility of Common-Descent-through-Macroevolution depends on whether "mutational pathways" exist. In other words, to evolve from A to B, there has to be at least one sequence of mutations between the two. The more "narrow" the pathway is--if it has to be an exact sequence with no flexibility--then the less reasonable evolution is. Though if there's multiple pathways, it becomes more reasonable. Another factor is how easy it is to travel down the pathway--if a step is only slightly beneficial, or neutral, or even harmful, then the population will be less likely to travel that path. (That is, even if the mutation happens, it'll be less likely to spread through the population.)

As far as I can see, the feasibility of macroevolution depends on which genetic pathways exist. And I don't see how invoking entropy tells us anything about that.


That doesn't mean we should give evolutionists a free pass--they have to demonstrate that macroevolution is feasible, not just assume it. But I'm not seeing how your post salvages the creationist argument from entropy.

3.) "The 2nd law is a manifestation of entropy" is a weird comment. It doesn't quite have a meaning. I think you intended to say, "thermodynamic entropy is a manifestation of general entropy". (In other words, the 2nd Law says something about entropy. It doesn't make sense to talk about it being a manifestation of entropy.)

That raises¹ the questions: What can we say about entropy in general? Is there a "2nd Law" that applies to general entropy? Is there any law that tells us what is necessary for informational entropy to increase? Is there any law anywhere that says anything about "mechanisms"?


¹ It raises the questions. It does not beg them.

[Stripe]

If I might...?

Originally Posted by Jugulum

1.) You quoted Stout saying that evolutionists assume entropy can be transferred between its different forms. We should definitely question that assumption--but do we have solid reason to deny it?

I would say so! Claiming that sunlight can increase information is a ludicrous claim!

2.) I see a problem with this quote from Stout:
Most mutations do mess things up, sure. But how does any principle of entropy tell us that there are no beneficial mutations? Or that there are so few that evolution is infeasible?

The same way the second law for thermodynamics dictates that energy must dissipate. To infer more heat requires an energy source. To infer more information requires an informer.

Is there any law anywhere that says anything about "mechanisms"?

In the other thread I regarded the claim that the law did not say anything about mechanisms as the most inane of dodges. Imagine if a creationist claimed that a process was perfectly reasonable yet refused to acknowledge the need for an understanding of the inner workings of that process.

[Jugulum]

Originally Posted by Stripe

If I might...?

I would say so! Claiming that sunlight can increase information is a ludicrous claim!

The same way the second law for thermodynamics dictates that energy must dissipate. To infer more heat requires an energy source. To infer more information requires an informer.

Hmm... There's something odd going on here... I need to give it some more thought. For the moment, let me observe:

1.) The first sentence is about entropy--energy dissipation. The second sentence is not. It's about conservation of energy. "More energy requires a source of energy".
2.) Does Shannon information theory say anything about conservation of information?
3.) You're comparing information and energy as though they're the two corresponding quantities. As though we have information and informational entropy, and energy and thermodynamic entropy.
4.) If information corresponds to energy, then informational entropy is about the dissipation/distribution of information. Not the amount of information.
5.) In that case, Informational entropy would mean that information gets spread out, not that it disappears. And the laws of entropy would allow for a local concentration of information, as long as the information in the surroundings got more spread out. Evolution wouldn't be about "new" information, but about concentration of information.

I'm not strong enough in Shannon information theory to know exactly what the problem is here... I suspect you're not correct that information corresponds to energy.

In the other thread I regarded the claim that the law did not say anything about mechanisms as the most inane of dodges. Imagine if a creationist claimed that a process was perfectly reasonable yet refused to acknowledge the need for an understanding of the inner workings of that process.

Stripe, I've already said that your demand for an understanding of the mechanism is a valid criticism. We should always demand a reasonable mechanism, for any proposed process.

I was talking about whether there are any laws about entropy saying anything about those mechanisms. Are there any fundamental or general laws restricting what a mechanism can look like? Any law saying whether a mechanism can be naturally occurring?

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Jugulum

Hmm... There's something odd going on here... I need to give it some more thought. For the moment, let me observe:

It is odd because we are trying to correlate two distinct things. Your analysis sounds well informed. But every major disassociation you point out only reinforces that a source of energy has nothing to do with an increase in information.

I'm not strong enough in Shannon information theory to know exactly what the problem is here... I suspect you're not correct that information corresponds to energy.

I suspect you're right. I'm sure the point I'm trying to make could be made using better words. I'm not trying to say they are the same thing. I'm trying to say that entropy operates on them in the same way.

Stripe, I've already said that your demand for an understanding of the mechanism is a valid criticism. We should always demand a reasonable mechanism, for any proposed process. I was talking about whether there are any laws about entropy saying anything about those mechanisms. Are there any fundamental or general laws restricting what a mechanism can look like? Any law saying whether a mechanism can be naturally occurring?

I'm sure if an evolutionist sees the need for such a law it will be invented pretty soon.

[Jugulum]

Originally Posted by Stripe

It is odd because we are trying to correlate two distinct things. Your analysis sounds well informed. But every major disassociation you point out only reinforces that a source of energy has nothing to do with an increase in information.

But Stripe, part of the point is that informational entropy says absolutely nothing about an increase of information. (Or does it? Perhaps I'm wrong there. As I said, I haven't studied Shannon information theory well enough. But that's the question.)

Any objection from entropy isn't about an increase of information.

I suspect you're right. I'm sure the point I'm trying to make could be made using better words. I'm not trying to say they are the same thing. I'm trying to say that entropy operates on them in the same way.

I know you're not trying to say that they're the same thing. I know you're trying to say that entropy operates on them in the same way. That what I meant by "corresponds".

But from everything that I can see, you absolutely no basis for that--other than vague notions that confuse different kinds of quantities and their relationships, without any precise understanding of what those quantities & relationships mean. You're not getting that idea from the actual information theory that talks about informational entropy. The relationship between energy and thermodynamic entropy is precise. If informational entropy says the same thing about information that thermodynamic entropy says about energy--and if you want to make conclusions about evolution on that basis--then you absolutely must go to actual information theory.

Let me put it this way: Equations tell us the relationship between entropy and energy. Equations tell us precisely how entropy "operates" on energy. What tells us how informational entropy acts on information?

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Jugulum

But Stripe, part of the point is that informational entropy says absolutely nothing about an increase of information. (Or does it? Perhaps I'm wrong there. As I said, I haven't studied Shannon information theory well enough. But that's the question.)

You're right. I've never read the generally accepted law that makes evolution impossible.

Let me put it this way: Equations tell us the relationship between entropy and energy. Equations tell us precisely how entropy "operates" on energy. What tells us how informational entropy acts on information?

You could take an informed data set and calculate its entropy. Then randomly alter the data set and run the calculation again. Repeat and record and tell us what happens to the entropy.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me...

[Jugulum]

Originally Posted by Stripe

You could take an informed data set and calculate its entropy. Then randomly alter the data set and run the calculation again. Repeat and record and tell us what happens to the entropy.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me...

Hmm... Good point. I'll have to think about that. There might actually be a connection between informational entropy, and information.

But keep in mind, you're leaving things out, if you want to apply this to evolution. If you keep making random changes, and you preserve all the changes, then that'll happen, yeah.

Your version:
1.) Take a data set: 12346587
2.) Make a change to one number.
3.) Measure the order. Write it down.
4.) Go back to step 2.

If you come back five minutes later, it'll be totally mixed up. At any one step, the order might increase. The first change might be "12345687". (Entropy doesn't tell us that won't happen.) But over time, it'll get mixed up.

A different version:
1.) Take a data set: 12346587
2.) Make a change to one number.
3.) Measure the order.
4.) If the order has decreased, erase this round--go back to what it was on the previous step. If the order has increased, preserve it.
5.) Go back to step 2.

Five minutes later, you'll almost certainly have "12345678".

If a "more ordered" change is possible, and there's a selection mechanism that preserves those changes, then an increase of order is possible. The laws of statistical mechanics--the laws that describe entropy--assume that step 4 isn't happening.

Now, the way I wrote it, the increase of order is almost certain. Evolution definitely isn't like that. To make things a bit more like evolution, you could change #4. Before you delete the bad changes, you have to roll a die--and you only get to delete the bad changes if you roll a 4, 5, or 6. If we make that change... Then you might not end up with "12345678", even after an hour. The order might still degrade over time. (In other words, the selection mechanism has to be good.)

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by Jugulum

But keep in mind, you're leaving things out, if you want to apply this to evolution. If you keep making random changes, and you preserve all the changes, then that'll happen, yeah.

A different version:
1.) Take a data set: 12346587
2.) Make a change to one number.
3.) Measure the order.
4.) If the order has decreased, erase this round--go back to what it was on the previous step. If the order has increased, preserve it.
5.) Go back to step 2.
Five minutes later, you'll almost certainly have "12345678".

Now all you need is a means by which the sun can drive this process in biological entities.

Now, the way I wrote it, the increase of order is almost certain. Evolution definitely isn't like that. To make things a bit more like evolution, you could change #4. Before you delete the bad changes, you have to roll a die--and you only get to delete the bad changes if you roll a 4, 5, or 6. If we make that change... Then you might not end up with "12345678", even after an hour. The order might still degrade over time. (In other words, the selection mechanism has to be good.)

I think evolution has been granted all the leeway possible in certain models and it's still shown that in order for it to work the universe has to be tipped on its ear .. .mathematically speaking.

[Jugulum]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Now all you need is a means by which the sun can drive this process in biological entities.

Eh? Are you seriously asking me to identify the means by which the sun is going to drive biological reproduction?

[Nick M]

Originally Posted by Stripe

You're right. I've never read the generally accepted law that makes evolution impossible.

Yep. Like the law of biogenesis, which states life only comes from other life. No other way has ever been observed.

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

But the paper repeats an error that Henry Morris made fifty years ago, and yes that error rippled through the Creation movement, but after all these years, evolutionists, physicists and creationists should stop making the error.

Entropy is NOT a manifestation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

It is not.

The reverse is true.

The 2nd law is a manifestation of entropy.

I don't think many people would disagree (though I'm struggling to understand just what you mean here). No physical phenomena is a manifestation of the human constructs we use to understand them -- our theories and laws are simply formalized ways of describing how the universe behaves.

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

Heat transfer entropy and information entropy are two very different phenomenas.

Certainly. Confusion on this point is exactly why creationists such as our dear Stripe and the esteemed Dr. Henry Morris, B.S. in civil engineering from Rice, Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering from University of Minnesota erroneously claim that the 2nd law prohibits evolution from occurring. The shared use of the word entropy in both information theory and in thermodynamics is likely partially responsible for this confusion, but even a cursory understanding of the thermodynamic concept of entropy should be sufficient to make a distinction. Either Dr. Henry Morris, B.S., Ph.D. didn't possess this basic understanding, or he deliberately exploited the education level of his target audience.As you understand, the second law of thermodynamics does not actually govern information content of a system; but instead describes how the energy transformations behave (more precisely it describes the number of available energy states in a system). Nonetheless, it's clear that you, at least, rightly divide the concepts. I am glad to see you join in criticism of Dr. Morris in his misapplication of the 2nd law to the theory of evolution. I must confess though, it would have been much sweeter had you had the intestinal fortitude to also include those creationists here who have and continue to misapply the 2nd law.

That being said, you didn't understand Styer's paper (did you read it?) You write,

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

This is the argument in the paper LsOL referred to, that evolution on earth can appear to violate the 2nd Law locally because a decrease in [information] entropy as a squid evolves in the sea is offset by a fluctuation of [heat] entropy in a galaxy far, far away. Okaay.

Sorry. Actually, the paper didn't even make the distinction between information entropy and heat entropy that I just did.

Styer's paper doesn't confuse the two. In fact, in the appendix he writes,

"A creationist confronted with the estimates in this article might respond by saying “an open system and an adequate outside source of energy are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the complexity, structure, and organization of a system to increase”...The second law of thermodynamics permits but does not require evolution...This article establishes that evolution is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. Whether or not biological evolution actually happens is a different question, which has been investigated thoroughly."

His paper is intended as a direct rebuttal to the misapplication of the 2nd Law by creationists such as Henry Morris. He begins by criticizing the popular creationist understanding of entropy as "disorder" (ala Morris does), and then he continues on to actually apply the Boltzmann expression of entropy (i.e. thermodynamic entropy) to evolution. He shows that there is actually no conflict between evolution and the actual real-deal 2nd law as it applies to energy states.

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

So, to realize what Styer's paper actually claimed, just delete the two bracketed words above:

that evolution on earth can appear to violate the 2nd Law locally because a decrease in entropy as a squid evolves in the sea is offset by a fluctuation of entropy in a galaxy far, far away.

Styer's paper claims no such thing. He doesn't even say that evolution appears to violate the 2nd law. In fact, he actually goes out of his way to state that the view that evolution even appears to violate the second law is based on a misunderstanding of what entropy actually is! Where are you getting that Styer says that "evolution...can appear to violate the 2nd law"? Do you have a citation? I have the paper open right in front of me. Maybe you can point me to the right paragraph.

Originally Posted by Bob Enyart

Johnny & LsOL, Stipe can read that paper for 19 bucks; it's at the American Journal of Physics: [Daniel] Styer DF (2008) Entropy and evolution, 76(11):1031-1033 here.

He could read it free by heading down to the local university library.

[Bob Enyart]

Jugulum,

Thanks so much for chatting. This stuff is fun. Your second comment seems your primary challenge, so I’d like to address it (emphasis added):

Originally Posted by Jugulum

Bob:
The possibility of Common-Descent-through-Macroevolution depends on whether "mutational pathways" exist. In other words, to evolve from A to B, there has to be at least one sequence of mutations between the two. The more "narrow" the pathway is--if it has to be an exact sequence with no flexibility--then the less reasonable evolution is. … Another factor is how easy it is to travel down the pathway--if a step is only slightly beneficial, or neutral, or even harmful, then the population will be less likely to travel that path. (That is, even if the mutation happens, it'll be less likely to spread through the population.)

As far as I can see, the feasibility of macro-evolution depends on which genetic pathways exist. And I don't see how invoking entropy tells us anything about that.

Jugulum, let’s assume evolution true, and go back to when the development of the environ of the eye had been coming along well. I'm not a biologist or anatomist but have looked at the images below and can see that to continue progressing, the system had a need to re-route a muscle that helps rotate the eyeball. There was a minor technical challenge regarding the positioning of the muscle that attaches to the top of the eye in order to rotate it downward, for instance, to see where you’re walking. Whether there were too many muscles needing access to too many structures in too small a space, or simply to improve the angle of attachment, this muscle would work best by traversing an indirect route (see attachment 1):



Today we call this muscle the Superior Oblique. Back then, before the re-routing, the skull, near the frontal bone, for no reason, began to randomly mutate (over centuries, or millennia) and a defect began to form, but it turns out that the defect was a base that permitted a further defect to form, in the shape of a loop, which we now call a Trochlea. The Superior Oblique, having no intention to re-route itself through the Trochlea (in fact, having no intention of any kind), begins by random mutation to in fact re-route itself, threading itself through the Trochlea. However, the eye muscles have a wide shape more like a belt than a cord, and a cord-shape would function better just for the portion of the muscle threaded through the trochlea, so the nerve modified itself into a cord shape just along the section adjacent to the Trochlea. In the end, the re-route provided relief to muscular overcrowding in the orbit and significantly improved one of the angles of attachment (see attachment 2):

[IMG]http://www.theologyonline.com/forums...1&d=1229145872[/IMG]

Yes, this design change required hundreds of random mutations to occur. They had to happen somewhat simultaneously (in epochal terms) and coordinated between different tissue types and systems (nerves, skull, cartilage, muscles), in order to re-route and thread this muscle through the Trochlea sling and then back to the eyeball. Of course this had to happen without the overall system possessing any goal whatsoever of accomplishing that task, and even without any awareness that there even is a task of re-routing a muscle to be accomplished. And symmetry being as useful as it is, whatever design improvements develop, they’d have to be replicated to function the same for both eyeballs, and inverted. And all of these developments must begin as random changes, yes, but NOT EVEN to the Superior Oblique itself, that would be challenging enough. But before Natural Selection can favor a re-routed tendon, these random changes must modify the correct amino acids, thousands of them, out of billions, without ANY direction, or tendency to aim at, or targeting. That is, after a 150 years of Darwinian theorizing, with billions of dollars of research monies spent and additional motivation fueled by proponents of atheism, NO MECHANISM has been identified which would target mutations. So these changes to the Superior Oblique muscle routing must mutate by pure random chance, hitting the correctly corresponding acids (attachment 3):



So the mutations must occur, not in the eye muscles, bones, cartilage (the Trochlia being the only cartilage in the skull's eyeball cavity by the way) or nerves, but they must occur on the nucleotide rungs on the DNA ladder! Even though this muscle was enduring increasingly poor working conditions, of needing more space and a better angle from which to operate, by Darwinism, those factors could have absolutely no bearing on any random changes to the amino acid rungs of the double helix. Natural Selection gets its shot at this only AFTER random mutations bring about the improved functionality from the sling (attachment 4).



Yet this muscle's routing requirement is only one of millions of sophisticated random design changes that must occur in an atheistic development of the vision system. How much more complex is the overall system? The complexity of developing vision like that shared by primates and humans is probably a million times greater than the complexity of re-routing this one muscle (well, okay, two muscles, for both orbs). For example, there is no "projector" inside the brain displaying the analog image hitting the retina, but rather, the impact of the incoming photons is converted to an electro-chemical signal that symbolizes the image, which symbolic data is then transmitted to the brain, and then interpreted. And the packing and unpacking of that visual information would have been especially difficult to evolve since Darwinism is supposed to work by way of the physical laws, yet, being "physical" laws, they have no symbolic logic functions. So chemical reactions, cell divisions, electrical pulses, enzymes doing their thing, etc., none of this has any correspondence to symbolic logic and the decoding of an effectively digitized image. So the whole system is so wildly complex, that after a century and a half of evolutionary theorizing, no viable high level algorithm has been suggested as to how such developments would begin, and proceed, randomly. (How does the system even begin the extraordinarily difficult process of moving from black and white to color?) Taking unavoidable missteps into account, the slow reproductive system would have to process quadrillions of random alternatives, just in a single protein, before giving Natural Selection something to consider (and then getting that fortuitous mutation to spread through the genome is itself improbable, even with improved organism functionality).

So now Jugulum, I think this is where your second comment comes in. I wonder if you think the statement you made was objective? Regarding: (attachment 5):



You said that you don’t see how entropy, the tendency of random changes to decrease the organization of a system, including of course the eyeball environment, tells us "anything" about:

the "feasibility" of, to use one extremely simple example, the Superior Oblique (prior to Natural Selection having the advantage of an indirectly routed muscle to promulgate) being routed through its Trochlea sling?

Huh.

-Bob Enyart
KGOV.com