From twallace@trueorigin.org Sat Aug 28 11:35 EDT 1999 Received: from mail.ncifcrf.gov (mail.ncifcrf.gov [129.43.100.100]) by ncisun1-nf0.ncifcrf.gov (8.8.7/8.7.3) with ESMTP id LAA01107 for ; Sat, 28 Aug 1999 11:35:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from floyd.qis.net (floyd.qis.net [209.150.96.22]) by mail.ncifcrf.gov (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA25868 for ; Sat, 28 Aug 1999 11:35:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: from trueorigin.org (pm3-balt-151.qis.net [209.150.97.151]) by floyd.qis.net (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id LAA29864 for ; Sat, 28 Aug 1999 11:34:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <37C80128.1C70F7E0@trueorigin.org> Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 11:32:56 -0400 From: Timothy Wallace Organization: TrueOrigin Archive X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tom Schneider Subject: Re: TrueOrigin Feedback Response References: <199908250502.BAA14043@kaylor.ncifcrf.gov> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Length: 15555 Status: O Tom Schneider wrote: > > > The Clausius form is dS>= dq/T, which you object to when > > > written as -ds <= -dq/T! > > > > On exactly what specific basis do you claim that I "object" > > to the form written above? > > It was the paragraph correction. Besides, you have been > remarkably careful to ask questions rather than make solid > statements. So then do you retract your assertion that I "object" to dS>= dq/T when written as -ds <= -dq/T? Do you now retract your assertion (repeated multiple times) that I do not understand that the entropy of an unisolated system can decrease, at the expense of its surroundings? Or are you blithely skipping along to other topics, as if bearing false witness is a perfectly acceptable practice, requiring no retractions or apologies on the part of the perpetrator? I have no choice but to ask questions if I want you to substantiate your statements. I suppose I could respond in the form of an accusation, but I suspect that would be counterproductive. > Ok, we've beaten "G2L" into the ground. Looks to me like it's > just another form or various specializations of the Second Law. Thank you for finally acknowledging the simple fact. > ...there is no precise distinction between micro and macro > evolution. That's not true. There is a very significant distinction. "Micro-evolution", by definition, is the same thing as genetic variation (the shuffling of existing genetic information). It is both observable and observed, measurable and measured, repeatable and repeated -- in short, it has been scientifically verified as a natural phenomenon. However, in every single case, the organism that has undergone the variation is the same kind of organism. "Macro-evolution", on the other hand has NOT been verified as a natural phenomenon. It has not been observed, measured, or repeated. No natural mechanism has successfully been put forth as the means by which new and more complex genetic information is generated so as to result in unequivocally new traits, organs, and organisms. "Macro-evolution" is an entirely contrived notion, extrapolated, with no empirical basis, from "micro-evolution". The distinction is both precise and significant. To blur the distinction is to show contempt for empirical science and mix fact with fancy. > What prevents micro evolution from being macro evolution over > the course of 3 million years? A better question is: What ALLOWS micro-evolution to become macro-evolution over the course of 3 million years? The answer is: Nothing. "Micro-evolution" starts and ends with the same organism, no unequivocally new traits or organs -- just the manifestation or suppression of an inherent genetic trait. There's no scientific basis for extrapolating "macro-evolution" from that. And as I said, no natural mechanism has successfully been put forth as the means by which new and more complex genetic information is generated so as to result in unequivocally new traits, organs, and organisms, and that's what "macro-evolution" happens to require. So again: What is there about empirical science that allows micro evolution to become macro evolution over the course of 3 million years? Absolutely nothing. > > > However, selection does the trick... > > > No, it does not. Selection is only able to select from > > what is already present in the genetic potential of the > > subject population. Selection has not been shown > > empirically to generate unequivocally new or more complex > > genetic information or unequivocally new physiological > > traits or organs. It merely selects from the genetic > > potential for variation already inherent in the > > population's combined genetic potential (the 'gene pool'). > > No, selection also plays on the mutations, which keep > increasing the variation. Frankly, you are engaging in semantic subterfuge. The only "playing" selection does is SELECTING. And it only SELECTS from WHAT IS THERE. Selection, by definition, does not create anything -- it is merely a natural process by which existing information is selected, not created. Mutation has not been shown to be a satisfactory "mechanism" for generating new and more complex genetic information, so as to result in unequivocally new traits, organs, and organisms... "In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutation plus natural selection -- quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology." [Koestler, Arthur, Janus: A Summing Up (New York: Vintage Books, 1978) p. 185] "It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful and only very few result in useful variations." [Capra, Fritjof, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996) p. 228] "It should be clear that the claim for an inherent evolutionary increase in entropy and organization is based on an arbitrary model which shows signs of having been constructed simply to yield the desired result. There is nothing in evolutionary or developmental biology that justifies their assumptions that a successful mutation (which seems merely to mean a selectively neutral one in their model) is always associated with an increase in some global measure of phenotype. Nor is there anything to support the assumption that new species arise as the result of single gene mutations and are initially genetically uniform. If these assumptions are removed, the whole edifice collapses." [Charlesworth, Brian, "Entropy: The Great Illusion," review of Evolution as Entropy by Daniel R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, 335 pp.), Evolution, vol. 40, no. 4 (1986) p. 880] "The fruit fly has long been the favorite object of mutation experiments because of its fast gestation period (twelve days). X rays have been used to increase the mutation rate in the fruit fly by 15,000 percent. All in all, scientists have been able to 'catalyze the fruit fly evolutionary process such that what has been seen to occur in (fruit fly) is the equivalent of many millions of years of normal mutations and evolution.' Even with this tremendous speedup of mutations, scientists have never been able to come up with anything other than another fruit fly." [Rifkin, Jeremy, Algeny (New York: Viking Press, 1983) p. 134] "The proof of the occurrence of mutations is by no means a proof of a current evolution. The most important the inescapable question, is whether the mutations are fully vital, so that they are able to survive in natural stands. A review of known facts about their ability to survive has led to no other conclusion than that they are always constitutionally weaker than their parent form or species, and in a population with free competition they are eliminated." [Nillson, Heribert, (Lund, Sweden: Verlag CWK Gleerup, 1953), (English summary) p. 1186] > There is no such thing as "genetic potential", just as there is > no limit to the number of sentences. Indeed just as there are distinct limits to what constitutes a meaningful sentence, there are also distinct limits to viable genetic arrangements. Meaningful sentences aren't random mixtures of words, letters, and spaces, and nor has genetic code ever been shown to be a random mixture of unordered genetic material. Genetic variation is not a mix-n-match free-for-all. By "genetic potential" I simply mean the range of genetic variations inherent in the subject population. The population's gene pool contains a finite set of genetically determined features. The "genetic potential" of that population (while surely unknown, due largely to limits in the scope of man's knowledge) consists of the entire set. That limited set does indeed exist, just as the number of potential sentences also has a limit, since the number of words, meanings, and combinations, while so vast as to be unknown (if not incomprehensible) to man, is nevertheless finite. > It is also wrong to think that selection can't produce > unequivocally new functions, as that has been demonstrated > many times by things like SELELX. It isn't clear what you mean by introducing the term "functions", but I invite you to cite a basis for thinking that selection, in and of itself, can yield an increase in quantity and quality of genetic information and -- therefore -- any unequivocally new genetic traits. I also invite you to cite a basis for believing that SELEX produces an increase in quantity and quality of genetic information and -- therefore -- unequivocally new genetic traits. > The pool doesn't contain the new or "more complex" information > at first. It appears in variants. This seems like more semantic subterfuge. Let's keep our terminology clear: Variation is limited to the manifestation of variables inherent in the genetic code. Mutation is limited to (degenerative) changes to the genetic information itself. While it is a popular practice to treat these two as synonymous, they are not: one is an empirically established natural phenomenon in healthy populations, the other is an empirically established source of disease and defect, the effects of which are largely weeded out by selection (a process for which we should be thankful!). > The DNA polymerase makes mistakes when it copies and > there are lots of rearrangements by transposons... This has a corruptive, degenerative effect on the genetic code. Errors do not create new information; they damage existing information. There is no empirical basis for postulating new or more complex information from a process that degenerates existing information. > > These, again, are examples of genetic variation (animal > > and plant breeding is selection for specific, already > > existing traits or combinations of already existing > > traits, and laboratory selection of biological systems > > likewise selects that which already exists). > > No, when people do chemostat experiments on bacteria (to pick > an example) the first thing that one should do is streak out > the bacteria twice to get a pure genetic strain. Then this > is frozen down as a record of the start point. All further > variation comes from that one strain. So in any decent > experiment (ie, publishable) there is NO variation initially. Any subsequent changes in such a strain of bacteria will still result only from either inherent genetic variables or mutations. If a specific trait has been effectively bred out of the strain by artificial selection, it will not re-appear unless re-introduced through exogenic contamination of the strain or through mutation. In either case, no increase in the quantity or quality of available genetic information has been effected. > > So "evolution" does not have a problem with the Second Law. > > It has not been empirically and unequivocally demonstrated > > that known natural processes can account for the generation > > of new and more complex genetic data, new and more complex > > organs and traits, and new and more complex energy conversion, > > transport, and storage mechanisms. Specific natural processes > > to which can be attributed the entropy decreases necessarily > > associated with the generation of these things have similarly > > not been empirically and unequivocally demonstrated. > > That's very different from having a problem with the Second Law!! On the contrary, that IS the problem evolution has with the Second Law... "One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should decay through time, giving less, not more, order..." [Lewin, Roger, "A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity," Science, vol. 217 (September 24, 1982) p. 1239] "The greatest puzzle is where all the order in the universe came from originally. How did the cosmos get wound up, if the second law of thermodynamics predicts asymmetric unwinding towards disorder?" [Davies, Paul C., "Universe in Reverse: Can Time Run Backwards?" Second Look (London: King’s College, September 1979) p. 27] "We are faced with the idea that genesis was a statistically unlikely event. We are also faced with the certainty that it occurred. Was there a temporary repeal of the second law that permitted a 'fortuitous concourse of atoms'? If so, study of the Repealer and genesis is a subject properly left to theologians. Or we may hold with the more traditional scientific attitude that the origin of life is beclouded merely because we don't know enough about the composition of the atmosphere and other conditions on the earth many eons ago." [Angrist, Stanley W., and Loren G. Hepler, Order and Chaos (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1967) p. 205] > You vaguely imply that SELEX doesn't work! You vaguely imply that SELEX generates previously non-existent genetic information. > > You...seem to have a problem differentiating between > > (micro-)evolution (i.e., natural selection in combination > > with genetic variation -- an empirically observed and > > understood phenomenon) and (macro)evolution (i.e., an > > empirically unsubstantiated extrapolation of > > (micro-)evolution). > > Yes, it is not at all clear to me where one ends and the other > begins. I believe I have explained this above. > Many tiny changes over millions of years could mold the > organism enormously. This is often, granted, an > extrapolation. "Could"? On what empirical basis? It is ONLY an extrapolation, and it has NO empirical support. > ...There isn't a better explanation around. That's strictly a matter of opinion. And even in the absence of a "better explanation", a scientifically unsubstantiated explanation should be neither touted as fact, nor assumed to be true. > I see what you are asking for. The question is: what kind > of data would satisfy you, besides time travel? The same kind of data that should be required by any self-respecting scientist: nothing less than that which would satisfy the requirements of empirical science. That is, data that demonstrate unequivocally that natural processes alone can increase the quantity and quality of available genetic information. > If I measure the two short legs of a right triangle, can I > figure out the length of the long side without measuring it? Yes. Why? Not because of mere extrapolation, but because you know the unchanging laws of mathematics (not unlike the laws of thermodynamics) yield consistent results. The unknown data is calculated from the known data and is determined precisely and absolutely through a precise and absolute process. This is a far cry from assuming the existence of an unknown natural process for which there is no empirical evidence -- based solely on an empirically known natural process, the similarity of which begins and ends with the fact that their names share the same root word! Kind Regards, -- Timothy Wallace twallace@trueorigin.org http://www.trueorigin.org “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away.” — Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:35)