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Originally posted by scottishinnzWith regards to abiogenesis, do you think that a simple addition of energy is all that is needed to accomplish the great feat?
What a prize idiot you are.
The universe IS a closed system. However, evolution only happens in localised regions, such as our planet, and the localised decrease in entropy is powered by a huge increase in entropy generated as the sun slowly burns itself out. Kind of like the way a fridge keeps your beer cool, yet relies on a power plant generating ...[text shortened]... the 2nd law, because the net entropy of the entire system (us, our food, and the wall) goes up.
Compare a living plant to a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a dead plant live?
A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to produce stems, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.
If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of the earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like?)
What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.
I'm also coming in a bit late here but can someone explain to me why the 2nd law should apply to evolution or the abiogenesis hypothesis?
Surely it has to do with the transfer of energy (as in thermo-) in a closed system. It is often used to show that it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine. But surely it only describes physics at a certain level? Notably, molecular. I don't understand how it is supposed to apply to biology.
The only closed system I'm aware of is the universe which is expanding. Will the universe keep expanding forever? Probably not and will eventually contract to a singularity (I think). What has this to do with the emergence of life other than that it will result in the end of life as we know it? There are a lot of things we don't know such as how life came to be. But then we also don't really know much about the composition of the interior of the earth other than it's magnetic and hot. What we do know is that evolution is observable fact and that it doesn't have anything to do with the origins of life (I fail to see how this could be difficult to understand).
As for the origins of the universe, the Big Bang is currently the most accepted hypothesis. As a physics major, BJ should be well aware that most laws of physics do not apply at the sub-atomic level which is a very strange place indeed. I still can't really get it that a hammer is mostly composed of empty space. As for spacetime ... Yet physicists using string theory are trying to describe 15 dimensions in which they think certain particles exist in. It is at this level that the origin (and end) of the universe needs to be understood - not with molecular physics.
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Originally posted by buffalobillBut surely it only describes physics at a certain level? Notably, molecular. I don't understand how it is supposed to apply to biology.
I'm also coming in a bit late here but can someone explain to me why the 2nd law should apply to evolution or the abiogenesis hypothesis?
Surely it has to do with the transfer of energy (as in thermo-) in a closed system. It is often used to show that it is impossible to create a perpetual motion machine. But surely it only describes physics at a certai ...[text shortened]... he origin (and end) of the universe needs to be understood - not with molecular physics.
Ever heard of molecular biology?
What we do know is that evolution is observable fact and that it doesn't have anything to do with the origins of life (I fail to see how this could be difficult to understand).
Please name one example of observed macroevolution.
Originally posted by dj2beckerDJ, get your hand off it once in a while.
[b]But surely it only describes physics at a certain level? Notably, molecular. I don't understand how it is supposed to apply to biology.
Ever heard of molecular biology?
What we do know is that evolution is observable fact and that it doesn't have anything to do with the origins of life (I fail to see how this could be difficult to understand).
Please name one example of observed macroevolution.[/b]
Ooh dazzle us all with big words like microevolution and macroevolution!
They mean exactly the same thing. Evolution has been observed. If you want to deny this plain fact, fine. But stop wasting our time with your drivel.
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Originally posted by dj2beckerI am aware that this is a huge cut 'n' paste but hell, the same question keeps being posted so why not just quote the same answer...
[b]But surely it only describes physics at a certain level? Notably, molecular. I don't understand how it is supposed to apply to biology.
Ever heard of molecular biology?
What we do know is that evolution is observable fact and that it doesn't have anything to do with the origins of life (I fail to see how this could be difficult to understand).
Please name one example of observed macroevolution.[/b]
The appearance of bacteria with enzymes that can digest nylon oligomers, a completely artificial polymer that did not exist on Earth until a few decades ago, is a clear example of evolution in action.
As biologists use the term, macroevolution means evolution at or above the species level. Speciation has been observed and documented:
# New species have arisen in historical times. For example:
* A new species of mosquito, the molestus form isolated in London's Underground, has speciated from Culex pipiens (Byrne and Nichols 1999; Nuttall 1998).
* Helacyton gartleri is the HeLa cell culture, which evolved from a human cervical carcinoma in 1951. The culture grows indefinitely and has become widespread (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).
A similar event appears to have happened with dogs relatively recently. Sticker's sarcoma, or canine transmissible venerial tumor, is caused by an organism genetically independent from its hosts but derived from a wolf or dog tumor (Zimmer 2006; Murgia et al. 2006).
* Several new species of plants have arisen via polyploidy (when the chromosome count multiplies by two or more) (de Wet 1971). One example is Primula kewensis (Newton and Pellew 1929).
# Incipient speciation, where two subspecies interbreed rarely or with only little success, is common. Here are just a few examples:
* Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly, is undergoing sympatric speciation. Its native host in North America is Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), but in the mid-1800s, a new population formed on introduced domestic apples (Malus pumila). The two races are kept partially isolated by natural selection (Filchak et al. 2000).
* The mosquito Anopheles gambiae shows incipient speciation between its populations in northwestern and southeastern Africa (Fanello et al. 2003; Lehmann et al. 2003).
* Silverside fish show incipient speciation between marine and estuarine populations (Beheregaray and Sunnucks 2001).
# Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more or less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.) Examples of ring species are
* the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the United States. They form a ring around California's central valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed (Brown n.d.; Wake 1997).
* greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but do not interbreed in that part of their range (Irwin et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2001; Irwin et al. 2005).
* the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over fifty subspecies in North America.
* many species of birds, including Parus major and P. minor, Halcyon chloris, Zosterops, Lalage, Pernis, the Larus argentatus group, and Phylloscopus trochiloides (Mayr 1942, 182-183).
* the American bee Hoplitis (Alcidamea) producta (Mayr 1963, 510).
* the subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi (Nevo 1999).
# Evidence of speciation occurs in the form of organisms that exist only in environments that did not exist a few hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example:
* In several Canadian lakes, which originated in the last 10,000 years following the last ice age, stickleback fish have diversified into separate species for shallow and deep water (Schilthuizen 2001, 146-151).
* Cichlids in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have diversified into hundreds of species. Parts of Lake Malawi which originated in the nineteenth century have species indigenous to those parts (Schilthuizen 2001, 166-176).
* A Mimulus species adapted for soils high in copper exists only on the tailings of a copper mine that did not exist before 1859 (Macnair 1989).
There is further evidence that speciation can be caused by infection with a symbiont. A Wolbachia bacterium infects and causes postmating reproductive isolation between the wasps Nasonia vitripennis and N. giraulti (Bordenstein and Werren 1997).
Is that enough to be going on with?
--- Penguin.
Originally posted by dj2beckerNot at all.
A localised decrease in enthropy still requires a complex intelligent mechanism.
Take the chloroplast for example.
The grains of sand on a beach can be sorted due to wave action. No "intelligence" there. Likewise, I do not subscribe to your notion that the genetic regulation of the chloroplast is in any way "intelligent".
Of course, feel free to continue with the chloroplast point, as a chloroplast biochemist I'm interested to hear your conjecture.
Originally posted by dj2beckerMolecular biology has nothing to do with this.
[b]But surely it only describes physics at a certain level? Notably, molecular. I don't understand how it is supposed to apply to biology.
Ever heard of molecular biology?
What we do know is that evolution is observable fact and that it doesn't have anything to do with the origins of life (I fail to see how this could be difficult to understand).
Please name one example of observed macroevolution.[/b]
heck, now you are just seguing from concept to concept because they contain common words, even when that's the only thing they do have in common.
Make your point or get out of Dodge.
We already gave you many examples of "macroevolution" (although adding the prefix "macro" is not required), specifically the plant which, due to a mutation, doubled its chromosome compliment and was no longer able to breed with other members of its parents species, but was self-fertile. This plant would be classified as a distinct species.
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Originally posted by dj2beckerPlease explain it to me so that I can understand how thermodynamics applies to biology.
[b]Ever heard of molecular biology? [B]
To be honest, reading this thread I'm finding it hard to believe that you're a 4th year. How many to go?
Or that you've got 60 assignments to hand in, in a week.
Originally posted by twhiteheadWhen do you get to the point where you address the 2nd law of thermodynamics properly with us, instead of asking a bunch of questions we've already explained and asserting things you either know to be false, or had a bout of amnesia. Just have a real debate with us, don't keep posting gibberish.
The above has been claimed before in these forums and I thought it would be nice to address it properly in a thread of its own. It will be nice to have a thread to refer back to if it comes up again.
Originally posted by dj2beckerAlthough your statement about 'inteligence' is false, lets see where it leads.
A localised decrease in enthropy still requires a complex intelligent mechanism.
Take the chloroplast for example.
Does the chloroplast violate the Second Law?
If not, why not?
Does a localized decrease in entropy violate the second law?
Now back to your claim: In what way does abiogenesis violate the second law?
Just as a matter of interest, do you actually believe the stuff you post? If not why do you do it? How do you correlate telling outright lies with being a Christian?
Originally posted by dj2beckerWith regards to abiogenesis, do you think that a simple addition of energy is all that is needed to accomplish the great feat?
With regards to abiogenesis, do you think that a simple addition of energy is all that is needed to accomplish the great feat?
Compare a living plant to a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a dead plant live?
A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to produce stems, roots, and fl ...[text shortened]... art into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.
That and time and matter. A star and a few billion years and a couple of oceans might do the trick.
Compare a living plant to a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a dead plant live?
Of course not. No one claimed that any addition of energy results in a localized decrease in entropy. The claim is that the addition of energy can result in a decrease in entropy, e.g. when sunlight falls on a live plant.
A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to produce stems, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.
So what?
If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of the earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like?)
Who claimed that there is "a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe"??
What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.
Which says nothing about what happens when a live plant receives energy from the Sun. Are you trying to say that live plants clearly don't exist because growing violates the second law? What does the dead plant demonstrate?