[net.origins] SOR #2, an obvious point everybody seems to have missed.

dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) (12/03/84)

There's something fairly obvious about Ray Miller's "2nd law" argument
that other people seem to have missed:

>      The second law of thermodynamics can be stated in  several  ways.
> One  definition  is: ``An isolated system, free of external influence,
> will, if it is initially in a state of relative order, always pass  to
> states  of  relative disorder until it eventually reaches the state of
> maximum disorder'' ...
>      Some may wonder about the implications of the second law of ther-
> modynamics.   Are  there  not  instances of disorder being transformed
> into order?...
>      In every instance when  order  increases,  several  prerequisites
> must  be  met.   First,  the  system must be open to available energy.
> Evolution meets this requirement, since it is open to energy from  the
> sun....

Miller admits that evolving life is not "an isolated system, free of
external influence".  At this point, Miller's argument CEASES TO BE
BASED ON THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS, since the second law of
thermodynamics only describes the behaviour of isolated systems free
of external influences.

This didn't stop him from going on with his argument, and *claiming* at
the end of his article that thermodynamics supports creationism.  Pfui.

	David Canzi

"...and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words." Ecclesiastes 5:3

gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg) (12/05/84)

> Miller admits that evolving life is not "an isolated system, free of
> external influence".  At this point, Miller's argument CEASES TO BE
> BASED ON THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS, since the second law of
> thermodynamics only describes the behaviour of isolated systems free
> of external influences.
> 
> This didn't stop him from going on with his argument, and *claiming* at
> the end of his article that thermodynamics supports creationism.  Pfui.
> 
> 	David Canzi
> 
> "...and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words." Ecclesiastes 5:3

The fact that a creationist argument is shown to be folly does not stop him
from using the argument at a later date, in the hope that the reader will
have forgotten that the argument was already shown to be folly.  This
particular wrong argument, and the correct reply to it, is about 60 years
old.
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"Madam, there is only one important question facing us, and that is the
question whether the white race will survive."  -Leonid Breshnev, speaking
to Margaret Thatcher.