dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (06/29/84)
<> <> >Subject: RE: Scientific Creationism > > Will somebody please either post or mail me the proofs of SC. I'm an >ingnorant pagan and would like to be enlightened as to the proofs of SC, if >there really are any. I would be happy to discuss proofs of creation"ism". At the same time, you can enlighten me with the proofs of evolutionism"ism", should they exist (no :-) here, either). First, I suppose it is worth mentioning that we are not going to "prove" anything, either creation or evolution, right? Can answers to questions such as this be "proved"? (Notwithstanding Gould-Sagan types who make statements about evolution being a proven fact, etc.) Perhaps we, and anyone else who would like to contribute to this discussion, ought to address the question of groundrules first, however. For one thing, are we going to bring religion into it or not? It does not matter to me either way. I will say at the outset that I am a Christian, and I believe the Bible when it states that God created. That is enough for me. On the other hand, it is obviously not enough for non Judeo-Christian types. So we shall discuss the evidence. The reason I ask about religion is that I find it quite common for the person on the evolution side of the question to make some sort of assertion about religious matters, when I have not brought religion into the debate at all, and then to contend that I am making the whole thing a religious question! I find this, as you will no doubt understand, a quite disagreeable practice. How would you like to proceed? Paul DuBois And he is before all things, Univ. of Wis.-Madison any by him all things consist... UW Regional Primate Center Colossians 1:17
dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (07/21/84)
This article deals rather generally with the acceptability of the *ideas* of creation and evolution. The thesis is that a created universe is more logical. This of course does not rule out the possibility of theistic evolution, a subject to be addressed in later articles, perhaps. The laws of thermodynamics (I assume no one will question the applicability of these to a discussion of this nature): (i) Conservation of energy. Energy may be transformed in a variety of ways, but can neither be created nor destroyed. So where did energy come from in the first place? Answer: it was created. (ii) Entropy. Every transformation of energy from one form to another involves loss of some of that energy as non-recoverable head energy. This leads ultimately to the so-called "heat death" of the universe. The second law rules out the possibility that the universe is now as it always has been. It also implies a finite age for the universe. Suppose the universe is of infinite age. Then since there is a finite amount of energy in the universe (assuming the universe is a closed system - which must be assumed it was not created), it would all have been converted entropically to non-usable heat and we are therefore living during the heat death: contradiction. Conclusion: the age of the universe is finite. Hence at one time it did not exist. How is it that the universe is? It was created. An implication of this is that since no energy is being created, and since order decreases continually, the universe is, inexorably, winding down. It must at some point have been wound up. How did it get wound up? Answer: it was created that way. A common objection to the use of the second law as support for a created universe and as evidence against evolution is that it only applies to a closed system, i.e., increases in order or complexity of localized open systems are perfectly possible, by a process of energy transfer into the open system (e.g., the earth as an open system receives energy from the sun). This would be perhaps a valid idea if it were maintained that evolution occurs only on the earth, or in some finite number of open systems within the universe. The difficulty with this is of course the question of why evolution should restrict itself to localized areas, and of course this restriction has not been accepted by proponents of evolution, as exemplefied by the quotes below. "The concept of evolution was soon extended into other than biological fields. In organic subjects such as the life-histories of stars and the formation of the chemical elements on the one hand, and on the other hand subjects like linguistics, social anthropology, and comparative law and religion, began to be studied from an evolutionary angle, until today we are enabled to see evolution as a universal and all-pervading process." Julian Huxley. Evolution and Genetics. Ch. 8 in "What is Science?" (J R Newman, ed), New York, Simon and Schuster, 1955, p. 272. "Furthermore, with the adoption of the evolutionary approach in non-biological fields, from cosmology to human affairs, we are beginning to realize that biological evolution is only one aspect of evolution in general. Evolution in the extended sense can be defined as a directional and essentially irreversible process occurring in time, which in its course gives rise to an increase of variety and an increasingly high level of organization in its products. Our present knowledge indeed forces us to the view that the whole of reality *is* evolution - a single process of self-transformation." ibid, p. 278. "Most enlightened persons now accept as a fact that everything in the cosmos - from heavenly bodies to human beings - developed and continues to devolop through evolutionary processes. The great religions of the West have come to accept a historical view of creation. Evolutionary concepts are applied also to social instututions and to the arts. Indeed, most political parties, as well as schools of theology, sociology, history, or arts, teach these concepts and make them the basis of their doctrine. Thus, theoretical biology now pervades all of Western culture indirectly through the concept of progressive historical change." Rene Dubos. "Humanistic Biology," American Scientist, v. 53, March 1965, p. 6. P.S. After writing the above, I have just read an article which makes a couple of references to miscrepresentation of the 2nd law by creationists. If I am guilty of that error, I trust that someone will point out why. -- Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois And he is before all things, and by him all things consist... Colossians 1:17
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (07/28/84)
A couple of comments on what I think are Paul's two main points: >(i) Conservation of energy. Energy may be transformed >in a variety of ways, but can neither be created nor destroyed. >So where did energy come from in the first place? Answer: >it was created. In a classical (classical physics) sense, matter is also conserved. Toss in relativistic phenomena and neither is conserved separately - fine, but the sum (appropriately normalized, c?) is conserved. But the essence of Paul's statement is NOT conservation of matter or energy (or spin, charm, strangeness, color, or a bunch of others), but rather the issue of "where did x come from in the first place." At best, this is a poorly phrased question, for the simple reason that we don't know how to phrase what we really mean. It's difficult to deal with time as anything other than a continuous, smooth flow. We feel the flow of time to be so completely continuous that we can't think about "what happened before" without assuming that either (a) everything started off at one point or (b) everything has always been. A singularity in time is just not something that you can get your mind around - even a little - without a lot of real study and thought (or a lot of drugs, I suppose:-) In some sense, the "where did x come from?" begs the question; it presupposes that x had to come from somewhere. >(ii) Entropy. Every transformation of energy from one form to >another involves loss of some of that energy as non-recoverable >head energy... >... [Paul goes on to argue that the universe is not of infinite age. Let's pass on that for now...] >...the age >of the universe is finite. Hence at one time it did not >exist. How is it that the universe is? It was created. Again, this gets caught up in the "at one time" problem. What if there were an "initial time" - a time for which the word "before" had no meaning? (It's much the same mess as talking about the edge of the universe and asking what's beyond the edge. The questions are analogous if you swap "time" and "space". And in each case, we have trouble grasping the question, let alone the answer, from our perspective of a universe which seems to have smoothly flowing time and Euclidean space.) Paul goes on to discuss some implications of increasing entropy. A closing statement is of interest: >P.S. After writing the above, I have just read an article which >makes a couple of references to miscrepresentation of the 2nd >law by creationists. If I am guilty of that error, I trust that >someone will point out why. The "misrepresentation" (or maybe "misinterpretation" is fairer; I dunno) is that "entropy" is somehow equated with "order" or "complexity". Although entropy does relate in a way to some things we label as "order", it's wrong to turn this into an equation and think that "order" and "entropy" mean the same thing, particularly using a lay definition of "order". The idea that a very hot lump of rock (early Earth) has evolved into the planet we know today by increasing entropy is thermodynamically quite possible. The problem comes in trying to label Earth today as being quite highly ordered and then concluding that this must imply low entropy. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.