On Creationism

The Institute for Creation Research has an article by Duane Gish with some abuse of thermodynamics : http://www.icr.org/article/177/ The article says: The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy always tend to change from complex and ordered states to disordered states. No. Overall entropy increases, but in one place it may well decrease. A simple example would be a hot cup of coffee. As it cools its entropy decreases. The second law is not being broken; as the cup cools heat is lost to its surroundings and overall entropy increases. Further, the Second Law has nothing about complexity - it is only about entropy, which is disorder of energy. This is a common addition that creationists like to slip in. They make it clear that this guy has a Ph.D., so he should know what he is talking about. He has a degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in biochemistry, both from decent universities, so it is seems a good bet he knows and understands thermodynamics. When he is pedd...

A great example of abusing thermodynamics can be seen in the book The Mystery of Life's Origin, by Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen. Chapter 8 is available on-line here . This chapter was written by Thaxton, who has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry, so really should know better. He considers the entropy when polypeptides form. A polypeptide is a sequence of amino acids, and he compares a random sequence with five each of the twenty biologically active amino acids to a specific sequence: For a random polypeptide of 100 amino acids, the configurational entropy, Scr, may be calculated using eq. 8-2c and eq. 8-7 as follows: Scr = k lncr since cr = N! / n1!n2!...n20! = 100! / 5!5!....5! = 100! / (5!)20 = 1.28 x 10 115 (8-8) The calculation of equation 8-8 assumes that an equal number of each type of amino acid, namely 5, are contained in the polypeptide. Since k, or Boltzmann's constant, equals 1.38 x 10 -16 erg/deg, and ln [1.28 x 10 115 ] = 265,...

For some reason the laws of thermodynamics get particularly abused by creationists. Undoubtedly this is because most of them do not understand them, but a few do, and they should know better. For them, it looks like deliberate deceit. This post introduces the laws, and subsequent pages on this topic will look at the claims of creationists (and one IDist) who hold at least a doctorate and should understand the subject. There are four laws and, like a C-style array, they are numbered from zero. The important two are the first and second. The First Law The first law says that energy (of which matter is one form) is conserved. That is, for any change, the energy at the end of the process is equal to the energy at the start. That energy may have moved around or been converted into a different form, but the total overall energy is the same. Mathematically: E(i) = E(f) ... where E(i) is the initial energy, E(f) is the final energy. The Second Law The second law says that entrop...

To be clear, I am considering anyone who denies universal common descent, and believes instead that each "kind" of animal was created separately is a creationist. There are plenty of people who are creationists and proud of it. The people at " Answers in Genesis " and " Institute for Creation Research " are fine examples. What is of more interest to me are the intelligent design advocates who are also creationists. There is nothing inconsistent about being both an IDist and a creationist, however this does give us some insight into why they might want to promote ID, and why they reject modern evolutionary theory. Dembski claims that many intelligent design advocates are ex-Darwinists, rather than fundamentalists wanting to promote creationism. However, I have yet to see anything resembling decent argument against common descent, other than reference to a holy book, so I take his words with a liberal pinch of salt: In my own case, I was raised in a ...

An interesting philosophical discuss revolves around the issue of when a human becomes a real person. You could argue that it is not until 18 in a legal sense, as this is the age you can vote, but I guess most people would say an earlier age. How about 10, when you are judged capable of telling right from wrong? One thing that sets us apart from the beasts is our self-awareness. Perhaps we are only really us once we become self-aware, at 15 to 24 months . Earlier still? Back in the womb, perhaps, when the brain forms: Consciousness requires a sophisticated network of highly interconnected components, nerve cells. Its physical substrate, the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration. http://www.scientificameri...

Arguments Against When looking at creationist web sites for arguments against common descent, the first thing that becomes apparent is that creationists conflate common descent with evolution. For example, from here : Common Descent (Darwinism)–Science or Pseudoscience? REVIEW HOW COMMON DESCENT (MACROEVOLUTION) HOLDS UP WHEN USING THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF TESTING AN HYPOTHESIS As far as these people are concerned, common descent, macroevolution and Darwinism all mean the same thing! Also here : Several of the criteria said to distinguish the scientific status of naturalistic evolutionary theories (hereafter "descent") from admittedly nonnaturalistic theories of creation or design (hereafter "design") will be examined. This example was written by a philospher of science (Stephen Meyer), who really should know better. But, then again, he is a creationist... Many of the arguments presented against common descent are really arguments against something else, s...

What Does Common Descent Explain? A scientific claim needs to make testable predictions, but it also needs to be useful, to help explain the world we see. The Distribution of Eyes There are various sorts of eyes in the natural world, such as the compound eye of the insect, the camera eye of vertebrates eye and the alternative camera eye of octopodes and squids. According to common descent, the eyes that a creature gets depends on their ancestry. If you are descended from the first organism to evolve a rudimentary compound eye, you get a compound eye. Thus, while fish and squid live in the same environments, fish have retinas wired one way, squid have retina wired the other. One is, presumably, better in that environment, but who gets what is determined by their evolutionary history, not their current needs. See here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/11/the_eye_as_a_contingent_divers.php Creationists sometimes say that the designer equipped each "kind" with t...