Would you mind reading the section I quote right above?
First: You discuss principles of Entropy.
Second: Then you have the utter chutzpah to apply Entropy to something like living organisms.
Third: To paraphrase your words, your test hypothesis is will a living “kind” become a different “kind”?
Fourth: And if the Evolutionary model doesn’t live up to your expectations, it is non-science.
Hooooo… it must be wild when you and someone else have to share the last piece of cake!
Here are my statements:
The principles of Entropy apply where in Real Time, there is a finite supply of energy.
The Earth basks in the seemingly unending supply of light from the Sun. Technically, we all know the Sun has a finite lifespan … but for even something as long to work as Evolution, the Sun’s life is de facto Perpetual! 5 Billion years, and another 5 billion years more (and even more after that), is enough to cover a lot of bases in the realm of Evolution.
Ipso Facto: Entropy is completely irrelevant to the case study of Evolution on the planet Earth.
And for the grand finale… let’s talk about Entropy even as applied to the Sun. And it’s a doozy:
a vast cloud of hydrogen, the least complex of all the elements, can ultimately and inevitably aggregate into a hot ball of gas that becomes so intensely hot and concentrated that it Ignites (!!!) into a ball of nuclear fusion! Through this process, this former blob of hydrogen now makes oxygen, carbon and a lot of other things, and even in its dying explosive gasp, it can make even more exotic metals …
… all of which can repeat the process over again … eventually producing Gold and Uranium …
And you are worried about how Entropy applies to human evolution? Save your worries, brother Prode, because it doesn’t apply. And your inability to comprehend this point (up to now) suggests that you are more convincingly moved by non-science rhetoric than about the underlying principles of God’s cosmos.
I’m afraid that merely searching Google for a dictionary definition of entropy won’t give you the full picture of what it is, how it works, or how it relates to information. It’s a complex statistical concept with a lot of maths involved, and the simplified, non-mathematical descriptions that you read about in dictionaries and popular science rags are approximations and partial explanations at best. For that reason, you can’t rely on them to determine what is and isn’t possible.
For starters, the statistical definition of entropy is given by this equation:
Do you understand how this equation is derived and exactly what the different terms mean?
No, according to information theorists. Prode, you aren’t doing yourself any favours by using the word “evolutionist” as a derogatory umbrella term for everything in science that you don’t like or don’t understand. This is something that I see far too many YECs doing, and it just sounds passive-aggressive, ignorant, and obnoxious. Stop it. Just stop.
Similarly, so too does your use of the expression “so-called information.” I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but yes, more disorder does mean more information. This is because a disordered system needs to be described in much more detail than an ordered system in order to create an exact replica of it.
This is why I used passwords as an example. Take this string, for instance:
which is not an exact duplicate by any stretch of the imagination.
The whole point here is that information and entropy are red herrings as far as evolution is concerned. The claim that mutations can not produce new information is simply not true, unless you are using some new meaning of the word “information” of which I was not previously aware — in which case, please provide us with a rigorous mathematical definition of what exactly you do mean.
Again, this is a misunderstanding of how evolution actually works. Evolution is not entirely random; it is a combination of a random process (mutation) together with a non-random filter (natural selection). It is the non-random filter that allows beneficial mutations to propagate, while at the same time eliminating harmful ones.
I don’t know if you realise this, but this principle is widely and effectively used in computer science, software engineering and artificial intelligence research. Evolutionary algorithms are effective search algorithms for solutions to problems that are extremely complex and that may be incompletely defined or gradually changing.
Prode, I appreciate your passion and zeal for seeing the authority of the Bible upheld. It’s a desire that I share myself. However, you won’t uphold the authority of the Bible by making arguments that only demonstrate that you don’t understand what you’re talking about. Please do not inadvertently end up portraying Christianity as an exercise in wilful ignorance if not outright dishonesty.
That’s why I keep saying that if you’re going to try tackling creation and evolution, it’s essential to make sure that you have correctly understood the subject and that your facts are straight. You’re dealing with complex, technical subjects that can be quite counterintuitive and hard to understand at times. You may not understand how to relate the results of scientific research to the Bible, but that doesn’t mean that the Bible itself is untrue — it just means that you’ve misunderstood it.
Hi jammycakes. You are missing Prodes point. He clearly articulated a valid argument to your statements and you followed prodes plain sensible logic with a bunch of smart sounding but i dare say unwise replies seeming in defense of an irrational belief system rather than a truly scientific outlook. Yes prode follows the Bible narrative better than evolution. He also follows scientific logic better as well. Read his post again… In real time we see animals lose genetic information that thus make them less capable of survival. Yet evolutionists want to ignore this glaring fact highlighted in bright orange before their noses and instead insist that chance mutation and selection over millions of years before the present have created complexity. That is intellectual suicide at the highest degree. If we combine deep timeframes and what science views in real time genetics, one must conclude mass extinction not complex life. evolutionary thinking scientists are glossing over the most obvious facts and instead choose to tie themselves into knots in declaring the most unreasonable proposition that mutation creates design. Hands down prode is 100% more in line in scientific reason than you in this point. The fact that prode just so happens to be more in line with the Biblical plain rendering is icing on the cake and additional testimony that his thinking is correct and evolutionists not
I did see Prode’s claims about animals losing genetic information. I’m not familiar with what the evidence does and does not say in this respect; accordingly, I didn’t comment on that.
However, the point that I was making is that he has some serious misunderstandings about what information actually is, and how it relates to disorder and entropy. My whole point here is that even if there are scientific reasons why evolution can not account for human origins, an appeal to information theory and entropy is not one of them.
He also misunderstands what the theory of evolution actually claims; he believes it to be totally random when it is not. Even if you reject evolution as an explanation of human origins, you must still describe it correctly, otherwise you will be debunking a straw man, and that’s at best ignorant and at worst dishonest.
He also describes certain scientific findings as “evolutionist” even though they are not findings that are based on the theory of evolution, either directly or indirectly. As I said, please do not use expressions such as “evolutionist” or “evolutionary thinking” as a derogatory blanket term for scientific findings that you don’t like or don’t understand.
He does not provide any evidence, nor does he cite any sources, to back up his claims.
He introduces the term “genetic entropy” without providing a clear explanation as to what it is or how it is calculated.
He makes no attempt to provide any mathematical justification for his position on a subject that is very mathematical in nature.
Greg, this isn’t about being “smart sounding” nor is it about “defending an irrational belief system rather than a truly scientific outlook.” This is about making sure that your facts are straight. Nothing more, nothing less. There are good arguments in support of the Bible’s message out there — discussions such as the fine tuning of the universe, or the extent of the early manuscripts of the New Testament, for example. But bad arguments detract from the good ones, because they undermine your credibility and cast a shadow over your sincerity.
Acts 17:22-26. Most proponents in the theistic evolutionary camp must completely scrap what Paul says at the areopagus as it was recorded by Luke the physician who was known to be careful in recording historical accounts in the gospel of Luke and in the book of Acts… Venema does this very thing in his most recent book. By doing so, he essentially is identifying himself as a higher authority than the apostle Paul.
The belief called common decent evolution does not carry a lot of truly scientific weight and for this can be classified as more of a faith than a scientific theory. And since this faith differs sigificantly from the priciples set forth in Genesis thru the old testament and clearly into the nt as seen in this passage, to me this is paving the way towards a new faith that circumvents the teachings by ot prophets and nt apostles which define the Christian faith. This is what paul would call “false teaching.”
"Evolution"we observe in science is pre made organisms adapting, not chance,mutation and selection creating. When these organisms adapt, they lose genetic information. This means that there is more actual testable evidence that suggests credibility for the idea that God did create kinds with many genetic capabilities including one man from whom all other humans came from as recorded by Luke in thay Acts passage. And these kinds are actually losing genetic information as adaptation occurs over time where they also lose the potential to survive long term which equates to what i would call devolution. Adaptation of a genetically rich organism for the short term equates to survivability by God’s grace. But this adaptation and genetic loss over long ages with climate change etc will suggest more liklihood of extinction.
Why does mainstream science today ignore this? I believe it is because many in scientific fields are in the same camp as all mankind…sinners who tend torward uplifting self and self righteous intelligence and putting God and His wisdom as recorded in His Word on the back shelf. And Christians can be enticed to follow the crowds.
Even if those of us who stand upon the Word of God that declares that our God is the Creator of kinds and who is utimate …and we become only a remnant, history has shown that God reveals His great strength in such remnants of His people. I see evidence in some of the most vibrant churches across the nations however where more and more folks are hanging their hats upon the precept of God Creator of kinds and Sustainer of the universe. God send more of this revival.
Greg, I’m not trying to argue against the Bible. What I am arguing against are well intentioned but misguided and ultimately counter-productive attempts to defend the Bible with claims that aren’t true, or that don’t make sense, or that just advertise ignorance. That’s why I keep banging on about the need to make sure your facts are straight.
It’s also important to cite your sources, and that is something that neither you nor Prode have done here. You’ve claimed that everything is losing genetic information, but you haven’t provided any links to research that demonstrates this. You’re claiming that mainstream science is ignoring physical evidence, but you haven’t shown us what evidence mainstream science is ignoring.
I did a quick Google search for “genetic entropy.” It appears that it’s a term that was coined by John Sanford, a plant geneticist and young earth creationist. He seems to have a good grasp of genetics, though I’m not sure what his credentials are in the areas of information theory or thermodynamics. Certainly, he seems to be using the term “entropy” in a colloquial sense, as a synonym for disorder or decay, rather than as a precise statistical formulation.
There’s a critique of Sanford’s position on the Letters to Creationists blog. It points out that the deteriorations in the human genome apply only to modern, post-industrial societies where selection pressures have been removed, and that there is no evidence that it is a universal rule. If this is incorrect, and there is evidence that genetic decay is universal rather than specific, where is it?
It seems that a large part of Sanford’s argument revolves round the question of how rare beneficial mutations are. On this, I’m not qualified to judge. It may be the case, as he asserts, that beneficial mutations are indeed too rare to allow evolution to proceed naturally, but that would only show that it must have been guided and influenced by God, possibly with some progressive creation (as proposed, for example, by Reasons to Believe) thrown into the mix. It would not call into question the fact that the fossil record shows a clear, unambiguous and indisputable progression of increasingly complex life forms with time, nor would it call into question the fact that the earth contains clear, unambiguous and indisputable evidence for 4.5 billion years of detailed history.
We’ve talked about this before. It’s a violation of our forum guidelines to tell other people what they must think or believe or why they think or believe something. You can talk about what you think or believe. You can ask what others think or believe. You may not project thoughts, beliefs, motivations, or attitudes on other people or groups. It doesn’t lead to helpful dialogue. Your posts are going to be deleted if you continue along these lines.
If one says that mankind evolved from a group of 10,000 plus group of pre-human species, and then it is suggested that it would be impossible for the genetic makeups of all humankind to exist from a single couple, then these are words right out of the person’s head that circumvent what Paul says in Acts 17. I am not judging anyone. I am reminding what was written by the person.
a month or so ago, I got an earful about rabbit populations and how rabbit species will change to a point that they no longer are able to mate with the mother species. But the daughter rabbit lost genetic capability…it did not gain it. When a wolf dog is bred towards a maltese (breeding is a fabricated form of what nature could have done in the case the wolf dog needed to adapt to survive, it lost genetic information, not gained it. All the species today are a result of this process and science can see this in real time…yet it chooses to focus on the unknowable deep past that, via naturalism, circumvents the idea of God creating for the more appealing view that nature made us. As Christians, we have to ask ourselves why this is and why we fee compelled to follow this mass called mainstream science.
Greg, once again, you need to cite your sources. Without a link that I can click to follow up on your claims, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Greg, I have no idea how you come to this conclusion. It would probably help your own writing if you actually included the text when you analyze it … to make sure you are looking at the right texts and the right words.
Here is Paul’s speech to the Greeks:
"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. "
[Paul says God made the world - - and He did.]
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,…”
[God gave life to all creatures… and He did!]
“… seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;”
[God gave common descent to all Humans, and He did!]
“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation…”
[End of Quotes]
How you think this really changes anything, I can’t imagine.
But just in case you persist, I have stated this in many posts before:
Do you think Paul (or Jesus), confined to the flawed nature of their fleshy bodies, are really guarantors of what is true about the natural world? Do you think Paul could drive a stick shift mazda if you put him in one?
Do you think Jesus knew anything about Germ Theory … just because his soul and substance was divine? Do you think Jesus taught his father how to be a carpenter?
The average American Christian would probably not let Jesus do repair work on a Nuclear Power plant…
But you ascribe all sorts of fabulous things about the word of God … so I shouldn’t be surprised that you would bring this particular item out of your briefcase. But you should stick to the more ordinary examples; there’s nothing in Paul’s speech that Theistic Evolutionists would disagree about -
God did create the Rain & Snow … and the animals of the Earth. And he used the water cycle for the rain, and Evolution for humans and the rest of the animals!
Yes, @grog, you got that earful from me. And what exactly do you conclude from the Sunday School teacher’s discussion of these rabbit populations?
I think you are missing the point when you focus on “lost information”. This is a bogus concept. If a fish develops stronger fins that look like legs… did he lose Fin information? Or did he gain “feet” information?
When a population of water-going hippos start to move their hostrils higher on their head (on the way to the population becoming whales) … have they lost information? Or have they gained information for a more precisely located nostril?
Let’s suppose All of Evolution is about losing information … with the **ultimate loss of information when a species or kind goes extinct!!!" I think we should just conclude that Evolution is about how species become more successful in changing ecological settings when they do lose the old information … otherwise, they will go extinct, right?
From now on, I’m going to argue that this is the hidden secret of Evolution - - the fortuitous rescue of a population by “losing increasingly useless information”. So … I bet you are feeling a lot more positive about Evolution, right?
Take a moment to watch this video… it’s pretty good… it was brought to the discussion boards by Socratic!
The video is towards the bottom of this post:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Post # 84, from the thread: “The mathematical probability of Evolution?”
. . . watch the video below, about Alaska and Florida Rabbits you will learn about one of the examples of common descent that even many Evangelicals accept.
"As introduced by Socratic Fanatic: "Youtube’s Potholer54 . . . [‘Potholer54’ is the name of the YouTube user/channel who has a strong interest in debating with YEC’s] . . . has a great video were he explains how even Kent Hovind had come to agree with the idea of evolution—as long the word is avoided . . . . I sometimes use that video as an example of directly observing macroevolution today, because a North American rabbit species has diversified to where Florida rabbits of that species can’t/won’t breed with [Alaska] rabbits . . . . but rabbits living in the Midwest can breed with both. "
.
.
The leading cause for common descent leading to 2 populations that cannot breed with each other is through “independent mutation” of the populations (usually when separated by significant barriers or distance). In Birds, such failures to breed can be triggered by “innovations in song”, making mates from the other population treat the candidate like a completely different animal.
But I don’t think too many people have heard rabbits sing…"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[End of Excerpt from a second thread]
So, are you saying as humans we lost the information to grow tails? There are occasional birth defects where vestigial tails occur, so perhaps the information is not lost, only suppressed.
I know. My comment was just a gentle poke in the ribs. I must agree with you Greg that it is pretty amazing that as much information is contained in those unused or poorly understood areas of our genome as there is, and how that got there to be used in novel ways.
I know some see the forum as a battleground to hash out ideas, but for the most part I am eating peanuts at the bar, watching the game on the wide screen, talking to my friends.
He made every nation of men “out of one…”, but one what? Since he was speaking to Greek philosophers, Paul could have been using the Greek conception of the one (in contrast to the many, which is regarded as negative in Platonism). What is “the one” really referring to? The Greek concept of one essence? One population? One individual man?
If we are to obey this passage of Scripture, clearly we must regard every human being as created in God’s image and equal before Him–regardless of ethnicity, creed, or national boundaries. And act accordingly. But is Acts 17:26 supposed to dictate our scientific views of genetic origins? In my opinion, reading a scientific explanation into this passage, when the context is so unclear, is a form of eisegesis.
I suggest that all of us, Greg, should adopt the same hermeneutical approach to Acts 17:26 that we use with Job 38:22 -
Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail?
What’s good for the goose in Acts 17:26 should be good for the gander in Job 38:22, in my view.
What about Romans 5:12-14? What about Jesus being called the “last Adam” which suggests in very plain language that where the historical Adam failed to birth an honorable mankind the “last Adam” does when we are re-born in Him and are imputed HIs righteousness?
I would never engage the same interpretive approach for all of Scripture. That is foolish and is even warned against by the Bible itself. For goodness sakes, we see human slavery in America justified by interpretations of the Bible! Dearly incorrect interpretations nonetheless.
That passage in Job hardly compares to the multiple passages about a literal Adam and Eve. To ignore these that base a literal Adam and Eve for trusting in the observations of man instead is tantamount to ignoring the glaringly obvious passages about certain sexual sin based on one’s perceptions about genetics and socialization that justify certain behaviors that the Bible calls out. To take such freedom is license to take freedom in all areas of Scripture to suite one’s own desires and beliefs…
I don’t need much more in the way of your interpretation of this passage minus my understanding that you indeed absolutely, totally and completely do not believe that Adam and Eve were literally the first human beings through whom all mankind came and from whom sin was introduced to all of mankind and from which marital roles and even church structure is based upon.
I have friends who I perhaps mistakenly challenged to consider that the gospel CAN be understood without a comprehension about the historical Adam and Eve…I am beginning to wonder if the implications of such a worldview about Adam and Eve not being historical figures be the very backbone of everything wrong I am finding in many church circles in this country and around the world. Where perhaps a person can become a believer and not believe the historicity of Adam and Eve, I am beginning to wonder if this viewpoint is the ushering in of a mass deception that causes many to miss the true Jesus that the apostles were so careful to define correctly and accurately to the church just after Christ’s resurrection.
I am reading an excellent book called "When people are Big and God is small by Ed Welch. I completely and totally agree with the sentiment in this book as it fits principles out from the Bible. I am finding that such loose interpretations surrounding Adam and Eve which calls them mere symbols etc could very well indeed redefine the “Last Adam” who is Jesus of course as small, fragile and impotent that results in the minds of sinful human beings almost as non existent as the first Adam! A small fragile “Last Adam” who if the Bible calls historical but maybe is not because Adam was not equates to the grounds for miserable marriages, goats outnumbering the sheep at church, plastic smiles, and mass apostacy. It reminds me of how Jesus told the Pharisees that because of their adding their own spin on Scripture that equated to incredible apostacy, that this was cause for their influence to steer their disciples who WOULD have come into a right relationship with God to instead become twice the sons of hell as the Pharisees were! I think that is in Mt. somewhere maybe in chapter 20 something.
A wolf dog has millions of genetic possibilities that they lose in process of breeding which is man made adaptation. Are you suggesting that such a birth defect is ample evidence that all of life evolved from bacteria the exact reverse of what we see in dog adaptation? How is it that one can trust in a rare genetic mutation for bolstering evolution and ignore the obvious signs of devolution that can be tested and confirmed very easily that indeed points to life forms being created with mass genetic capability then thereby devolve and speciate to what we have today.
many brilliant scientists confirm genetic loss. fish gaining strong fins that become legs is a guess based upon the religion of naturalistic evolution. A wolf dog that goes through real time adaptation in a series of man made breeding techniques results in dogs with less and not more genetic capabilities. Am I wrong? We are devolving.
