I agree with Cynical-C, this has to be one of the best creationist quotes ever. (From Fundies say the darndest things.)
One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn’t possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.
I guess they haven’t heard that scientists recently detected just such a source of energy, using our sophisticated neutrino telescopes.
Now if only we could figure out how to use this mysterious cosmic fusion reactor to generate a flow of entropy here on Earth. Someday, I’m sure, we’ll get there.
An oldie but a classic. The first time I ran across that one, a few years back, I laughed so hard that I cried.
It’s also always worth explicitly mentioning to these numbskulls that the development and maintenance of complex systems can often be entropically favored, precisely because they tend to increase entropy faster than simpler systems do. For example: farming, construction, and manufacturing expend far more energy than foraging does, and subsequently allow the human race to increase in population by several orders of magnitude in a feedback loop. The mistake the Fundies make is to assume that complexity involves a decrease of entropy, rather than an increase (which probably also partially accounts for their hubris in completely disregarding the well-being of the natural world). I wish I could find a simple-for-the-layman way to demonstrate the math of this… suffice to say, a predilection for the spontaneous emergence of order is a well-studied and well-documented chemical process. I don’t think the Divine’s name appears anywhere on the patent for Nylon, for example…
Sure, silly about the Earth – but what about Thermo 2 applied to the whole universe? There’s perhaps some interesting issues about how that works out w.r.t. the evolution of the universe, the increasing complexity, etc. (I’m not saying the law is broken, just some interesting points in there….)
Yeah, my high school physics teacher brought this one up and the solution was obvious even to people of that age. Ok, maybe not all of them, especially the ones who wanted it to be true.
Although booomslang brings up a very good point that I hadn’t considered. I would think that the easiest example of what he’s talking about would be depletion in a binary mixture of colloidal spheres. As long as people understand that the little spheres can be more disorganized than the big spheres in the space that’s freed up, they should get the basic idea.
fstdt seems to be down but I remember reading a wonderfull comment there along the lines:
“I sat awake all night thinking what that source of energy could be. Then it finally dawned on me.”
What about nuke power plants? (not from our sun…)
This is hilarious!
Neil B. brings up another good point: what is the relation of “Dark Energy” to the Second Law, or for that matter, Thermodynamics in general? I have seen very little published material on this, and yet, when Dark Energy was first trumpeted over a decade ago [!], concern about its relationship to the Laws of Thermodynamics was the first thought that crossed my mind…
As a solar physicist, I find that one particularly amusing.
Nice! The drawing looked familiar, and after I clicked on it sure, it’s from Penrose’s book.
Boomslang, you may want to read these threads:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/04/27/how-did-the-universe-start/
:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/05/04/a-glimpse-into-boltzmanns-actual-brain/
these recent papers have seemed to have cracked a number of promlems
Linde has a new insight:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1160
(linde actually re-normalized inflation to correspond with a slow-roll-out..)
Whilst Giddings and Marolf:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1178
have turned the “Boltzman Brains”..insight out..or ,maybe they see from the outside looking in? 😉
I love that one. I have a creationism debunking talk I give, and I use it… with the slide titled “The Sun of God”.
🙂
Cosmology has lost its way
What I particularly like about this quote is that it takes a certain about of rational thinking to come up with the argument in the first place … and then a special lack of common knowledge to not see the flaw in the argument. It’s a unique situation to be sure.
They may not of heard of Saturn backlit by the S*n ?
http://www.edge.org/
I do not believe that science can either prove or refute the existence of a God. Science does, however, controvert the account of creation found in Genesis, but rebuttal of the Biblical account was never a goal of science. The debunking occurs “en passant,” a sort of collateral damage inflicted unintentionally in the pursuit of other objectives – like a beautiful woman wounding a man’s ego simply by not even noticing him.
Science attempts to understand physical reality. I feel, sometimes, that by aggressively advocating atheism, some scientists arouse animosity towards their discipline, animosity born of the misconception that all scientists are atheists or that science is incompatible with a belief in God (which it certainly is not).
Religion engages peoples’ feelings (hope, reassurance, etc.), but pounds down on their heads with authority and judgement. Science springs from the intellect, but also involves feelings (curiosity, being right, etc.). When an atheistic scientist and a religious person debate, neither can convert the other. The arguement that takes place on the battleground of logic and reason (and sophistry) does not address the feelings – but the feelings are the real motivators, not just for the religious person but for the scientist as well. The atheism always seems to derive from some aversion or dissatisfaction, not from pure rationalism.
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This is hilarious.
Brian: The only dissatisfaction or aversion I feel as an atheist is to those who base their world view on something without evidence and then try to influence the laws under which I live my life or use that world view to justify actions that I find reprehensible. Apart from that, my life has plenty of satisfaction enhanced by wonder at the knowledge gained through the scientific method. The above applies to all the atheists I know.
Well it wasn’t so long ago that they were worshipping the Sun, so I think it is entirely appropriate. Ra ra ra!
John Phillips, I also feel dissatisfied with and averse to attempts by “those who base their world view on something without evidence…[to] try to influence the laws under which I live my life or use that world view to justify actions that I find reprehensible.” Pardon me for being, perhaps, somewhat intrusive, but are you really an atheist? If so (if you wish to elaborate), why? How did you manage to meet such a homogeneous group of people (“The above applies to all the atheists I know.”)?
Ah, dear God.
John Phillips, I was just out walking, and I realized that in my list (in post #15) of the feelings engendered and satisfied by science, I omitted perhaps the most ccmpelling one: the aesthetic appreciation of reality. Then I recalled that you had cited this feeling in your post. You are fortunate, indeed, to be aware of this aspect of science. Feelings are like seeds – those that you water develop.
My first thought when Joanne posted this image last October, was: “Hey, there’s Halley’s comet!” (Halley’s Comet in the ultraviolet as seen from Pioneer Venus, in 1986. Photo AC86-0107-5. Further analysis here.) I think that it’s funny that only the shape and the IDL color table, can make the Sun look like a comet. 🙂
The 2nd law of thermodynamics, increasing entropy, has a physical mechanism: redshift due to cosmic expansion. Note that the “heat death of the universe” was formulated at a time (prior to Hubble) when it was believed that the universe was static and eternal. In that static, closed system, eventually you will get an equilibrium where everything is at uniform temperature, so work can’t be done.
In the expanding universe, all radiation emitted is redshifted, losing energy inversely with the size of universe. That’s why the energy density of radiation in the universe falls inversely as the fourth power of time, not as the inverse cube root of time (which describes how the energy equivalent of matter falls).
The loss of energy of radiation guarantees that you always have an efficient heat sink in space while the universe expands: it’s literally impossible for a radiation equilibrium (heat death via uniform temperature) to arise while the universe expands. Sure, eventually energy may be used up, but that’s not the same as entropy (disorder) always increasing.
By the way, it’s gravitation and other attractive forces which act against the rise of entropy. Disorder occurs at high temperature as you know from heating a magnet and seeing the magnetism (ordering of domains) disappear. If you heat up anything, it eventually vaporizes and becomes a chaotic gas with high entropy. As you cool such a gas, things consense due to electromagnetic forces (surface tension, bonding of ions and electrons into stable atoms, and then atoms into molecules, etc.) and gravitation (planet formation, etc.). So low temperatures produce order. As the universe expands, it cools, so the overall entropy falls due to those forces being able to bind particles together if the particles are slow (cool) enough that their kinetic energy is less than the binding energy due to the attractive force.
The second law of thermodynamics is based on heat engines, where you always need a heat sink cooler than the engine in order to get more than 0% efficiency. In a heat engine, entropy rises because the heat sink becomes warmer due to keeping the engine cool. This implies that in a closed, static system eventually you will uniform temperature. But that doesn’t apply to the universe, which is expanding. You could argue that when the stars run out of hydrogen and nuclear power in general, the universe will then be of uniform temperature. In that case, you need to prove how the curve of falling entropy of the universe since the big bang is going to reverse its direction and rise, which will require a detailed treatment of massive black holes which radiate at an decreasing rate as they grow.
(I’ll copy this comment to my blog in case it is too off-topic or too long long and is deleted or edited.)