Quick Question on Creationist Arguments

[StarSword]

I was strolling through the Hall of Shame because I couldn't sleep and I ran across wishful. One argument he cited caught my eye, not because I believed it (despite being a Christian, I believe in evolution), but because I wanted to know why he believed it. (Apart from the fact that he's a moron, I mean.)

Specifically, why do they think evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

[Serafina]

Simple:
They do not understand the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. To them, "entropy" is equal to "order", and "order" is defined completely arbitary. A human being is supposedly more ordered than an amoeba, so that the former evolving from the latter would violate the second law of thermodynamics!

Yes, it's really stupid - did you expect anything else?

[StarSword]

Simple:
They do not understand the second law of thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. To them, "entropy" is equal to "order", and "order" is defined completely arbitary. A human being is supposedly more ordered than an amoeba, so that the former evolving from the latter would violate the second law of thermodynamics!

So somebody got his definitions mixed up (last I checked, entropy was "chaos," not "order"), in addition to the "evolution has a goal" myth.

Yes, it's really stupid - did you expect anything else?

Not really.

[Serafina]

Ah, well, my bad.
These creationists think that the second law of thermodynamics says that "you can not destroy chaos and can not create order". Of course entropy means neither and simply describes the distribution of heat in a system. But since they misunderstand it thusly, and think that a more "highly evolved" organism is less chaotic/more ordered than an "less evolved" one, evolution can not happen due to thermodynamics.

So i got their mixed-up definitions mixed up

[Jawawithagun]

Neither do they understand the difference between open and closed systems.

[mr friendly guy]

Neither do they understand the difference between open and closed systems.

They will just use giant strawmen, like some idiot I encountered on Richard Dawkin's board. You point out that the second law applies to close systems and the Earth is not a close system and explain why. Their response would be, "Oh, so you are saying the laws of physics work everywhere else but Earth."

[StarSword]

I never credited the Creationists, especially the Young-Earthers, with much in the way of brains (just off the top of my head, if all of modern humanity is descended from Noah's family*, you'd expect a lot less genetic diversity among humans), but this one takes the cake.

* Typing that randomly reminded me of the scene in Firefly where River tries to "fix" Shepherd Book's Bible. "We'll have to call that <technobabble>** phenomenon. Only way to get 16 million species of animal on the same boat!"

** I don't remember what she actually said; had something to do with "quantum".

[Ryag Han]

Creationists....god, these people make me stomach sick!

why do they think evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
because they have no grasp on it. to a cavemen who can't fly, a bird will seam like it defies nature. that's their only backing on every argument they have: ignorance. plain and simple ignorance...ok, and LIES! let's not forget that when they DO understand the crap behind their...well, crap, they can only lie.

[SpaceMarine93]

And when they are not talking about how Evolution 'violates' Second Law of Thermodynamics, they are talking about how the amount of moon dust on the Moon does not match with the age of the Earth and the Solar System.

The way I see it is, like everyone else, creationists lack any form of scientific training.

But the main problem is, most of everyone else don't really have much scientific training either. And that's a BIG problem - the creationists could still win so long as people don't know much about simple scientific concepts such as Second Law of Thermodynamics (Trust me, even I haven't manage to figure it out properly either until a few years ago). The Creationists could be insidious, devious and ruthlessly manipulative to the ignorant masses they are preaching to so long as they get their beliefs across

[Simon_Jester]

Meh. Who cares? They're hardly in a stronger position now than they were fifty years ago.

[Dave]

Meh. Who cares? They're hardly in a stronger position now than they were fifty years ago.

They're still trying to influence politics.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, that doesn't mean they're any good at it.

They're not gone. Does that mean they have to be something for us to hyperventilate over? I'm a lot more worried about bad economics than I am about creationism.

[SpaceMarine93]

Yeah, that doesn't mean they're any good at it.

They're not gone. Does that mean they have to be something for us to hyperventilate over? I'm a lot more worried about bad economics than I am about creationism.

So, why not just finish them off (metaphorically) and get rid of a nuisance to science and progress?

[Simon_Jester]

Because I don't care. I don't find it personally insulting that there are a relative handful of idiots who I can't talk out of being idiots. Not when they've been slowly but steadily declining threat for the past century.

And what would it even mean to "metaphorically finish them off, anyway?"