Evolution - please explain

I'll just step right in here....
trolling is not searching for knowledge. It is asking questions or making statements with a view to getting big arguments going, riling people up, and generally craeting havoc.
I have read almost nothing valich has written, butI have read enough of James R's to know that he doesnt go in for trolling.
 
Trolling means to move around from place-to-place, like in "trolling for fish." I've never heard of a "negative" connotation of the word, but in any case then, I don't know what he's referring to? Trolls are kind've cute little people, don't ya think? Always running around and such.

Animals increase the dissipation of the sun's energy by using it in their metabolic processes. All metabolism, such as on Earth, or on other planets where there might be extraterrestrial life, use energy that would not otherwised be used. No reaction is 100% efficient and some of that energy is lost to a form that increases disorder in the universe. Sure, without life, the sun would still dissipate energy and eventually burn out. But animals, as metabolic reaction systems, use that energy in a way that is not 100% efficient like the direct dissipation of the sun's energy is. We can't re-dissipate "ALL" of it freely back out into the solar system. We use it up in a way where some of it ultimately increases the entropy in the universe, especially through death and decay. Only in a hypothetical closed system does the law of conservation of energy apply, and it is in that sense of the use of this law that we refer to it as being applicable to reactions on Earth.
 
For the 121st time. Where did I ever say that we produce energy. Come on. Find it.

I said that organism have a metabolism and all metabolisms involve reactions and all reactions require an input of energy. We get that energy from the sun!!! But because we as organisms live in an open systen, our metabolic reactions - as all reactions in any open system - are never 100% efficient, some of that energy is lost and gone forevere - poof! It is associated with and contributes to the ultimate random disorder and equilibrium in the closed system: in this case, our universe. The total input of energy that animals use is not 100% totally outputted back into the solar system like the sun's enery is when it is dissipated straight out. Organisms act as dissipative structures to convert some of that energy into disorder. The perfect example of that disorder is life leading to death: order leading to disorder. Death leading to decay leading to the random distribution of that once orderly structure. Spread out forever contributing to an increase in entropy and ultimately to equilibrium - a long long time from now.
 
I dare say the following, but I think I've got it pretty much straight, although a physicist could help me fill in the finer details that I have yet to even contemplate.

The origin of life is due to the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics that states that within a closed system - our universe - energy is used to transform disordered structures into ordered structures. Another words, that energy has to be used to transfer random molecules into organized forms of life. That life then gives off energy to ultimately create an equilibrium in the universe, and there are other structures in the universe that do the same. This is the explanation using physic's terminology, which is necessary in the beginning.

Once life is formed, the "diversity of life" is determined by Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest. The basic process of life has now already started but the diversity now continues according to these evolutionary forces.

One glitch in this is that in the course of evolution, in evolutionary terms, humans have reached an apex in this scenario where Survival of the Fittest no longer applies to humans, because we, as humane intelligent beings, now care so much for the infirm, disabled, and inferior that we interbreed with them.

Nevertheless, this does not detract from the second law of thermodynamics, where ultimately in the end we all die and decay, leading to more disorder, an increase in entropy, and using up energy in the process. The final ultimate state will be an equilibrium in the universe where disorder is spread out randomly and no more order can be possible. By that time - what, five billion years from now? - the universe will have spread out to its entirity and then recollapse and then the cycle will begin again.
 
If thermodynamics were the driving force of life and evolution then life would be everywhere and a general phenomena.

I think you are undergoing the classic mistake of thinking that because life fits within laws of physics, physical laws must be the cause of life and evolution. Obviously life must adhere to physical laws, but that doesn't mean that these laws are a force to reckon with within evolution. Diversity is all about creation of specific form and no law of thermodynamics can be explain that. No matter how many times you repeat it that it does.


One could just as well state that the law of gravity is a driving force behind evolution. It too had a huge impact on the diversity of life. Because it restricts and dictates form. But it is all a pointless postulation, since nobody ever has asserted that life doesn't have to adhere to the laws of physics or chemistry. It clearly does.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
If thermodynamics were the driving force of life and evolution then life would be everywhere and a general phenomena.
Diversity is all about creation of specific form and no law of thermodynamics can be explain that.
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Not true. The right conditions of that already existing matter do pervade "everywhere," nor do the the appropriate environmental conditions.

In any case, thermodynamics is a "driving force" that applies to astrodynamics too and is not only restricted to evolution and life.

I agree, thermodynamics cannot explain creation of "specific form." That it why I said in my last post that this is where the theory of Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest must be applied.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that thermodynamics is not still at work. That diversity contributes to disorganization and less order. All life is a short oneway street that ends in death and decay: the ultimate in disorganization, disorder, increase in entropy, and gradual thermodynamic equilibrium. We're talking about five billion years from now, no? I think this is the predicted extent of the Earth's existence?
 
let me sum up in one sentence then:

The 'laws' (aren't laws) of nature have to abide physical laws.

So basically, you didn't say anything everybody knows already.
 
valich said:
One glitch in this is that in the course of evolution, in evolutionary terms, humans have reached an apex in this scenario where Survival of the Fittest no longer applies to humans, because we, as humane intelligent beings, now care so much for the infirm, disabled, and inferior that we interbreed with them.
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Love the idea that evolution, "responsible" for bringing humankind to an apex has a "glitch". How did it achieve this wonderful apex if it was glitchy? Anyway what makes you think we are an apex? at tops we've been going for 5m years in all forms, and modern homo sapiens say 0.5m or less (pay your anthropolgist and take your choice!). That doesn't even put us on the first rung of the ladder - dinosaurs had it going for a hell of a lot longer than that.

On the final point "we interbreed with ... infirm, disabled, and inferior " - not sure if you were talking about your parents or your wife?
 
judgesid said:
On the final point "we interbreed with ... infirm, disabled, and inferior " - not sure if you were talking about your parents or your wife?
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Pure genius. Fifteen posts and then you unleash a sentence that penetrates too the heart with a delightful precision and unassuming brevity. Brilliant.
 
judgesid said:
Love the idea that evolution, "responsible" for bringing humankind to an apex has a "glitch". How did it achieve this wonderful apex if it was glitchy? Anyway what makes you think we are an apex? at tops we've been going for 5m years in all forms, and modern homo sapiens say 0.5m or less (pay your anthropolgist and take your choice!). That doesn't even put us on the first rung of the ladder - dinosaurs had it going for a hell of a lot longer than that.

On the final point "we interbreed with ... infirm, disabled, and inferior " - not sure if you were talking about your parents or your wife?
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Our "apex right now" in historical time: we will surpass that apex and evolve into another one in the future. Either way, survival of the fittest no longer applies to humans because humans now keep the sick, disabled and infirm alive and we interbreed with them, where in previous times of history, they would have perished via natural selection and survival of the fittest. Humans have now gone beyond the application of those theories for them to be applicable to human evolution.
 
spuriousmonkey said:
let me sum up in one sentence then:

The 'laws' (aren't laws) of nature have to abide physical laws.

So basically, you didn't say anything everybody knows already.
Click to expand...

"The laws of nature have to abide by physical laws." That a circular statement! The laws of Nature are physical laws. If I haven't said anything that everybody doesn't know already, then what's all the hype, misunderstanding, contrary presuppositions, and arguments all about???
 
valich said:
"The laws of nature have to abide by physical laws." That a circular statement! The laws of Nature are physical laws. If I haven't said anything that everybody doesn't know already, then what's all the hype, misunderstanding, contrary presuppositions, and arguments all about???
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I still think you don't understand the laws of thermodynamics.

I'm just trying to be lenient (and nice).
 
I still think you don't understand the difference between a law and a theory!

Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest are "theories" of evolution. The four Laws of Thermodynamics are "laws," not theories!
 
Extracted from Judgesid's post a quote attributed to valich:
"One glitch in this is that in the course of evolution, in evolutionary terms, humans have reached an apex in this scenario where Survival of the Fittest no longer applies to humans, because we, as humane intelligent beings, now care so much for the infirm, disabled, and inferior that we interbreed with them."
Define apex.
Which scenario?
Of course survival of the fittest still applies to humans. Only someone who fails to understand the nature of evolution could make such an inaccurate statement.
Fitness to survive is not determined by physical features, it is not determined by mental characteristics, it is not determined by the environment in which these features and characteristics are expressed. It is determined by the combination of all of these.
Features which may be an advantage in one setting will be neutral or a disdvantage in another. What has changed, with the emergence of advanced human culture, is that the so-called infirm, disabled and inferior are not necessarily unfit to survive in the setting in which they find themselves. In the protective structure of society the 'weakenesses become either neutral, or at worst inconveniences that do not prevent a contribution to society that well may exceed that of the so-called firm, able, superior citizens.
A phsyically disabled inidividual, with an alert, productive mind can make a far larger contribution to society than a supposedly 'fitter' specimen.
All that has changed vallich is the nature of what constitutes fit: and that kind of change has being going on since natural selection first appeared on this planet.
 
We now keep humans alive who would not be able to stay alive in Nature. We keep humans alive by using artificial respiration chambers, by force feeding, through medication, through intensive care, via catheter insertion - these are not "natural" means. Natural selection and survival of the fittest are theories of evolution that are no longer applicable to humans.

Spurious: Over-and-over again I have tried to explain the 2nd Law by using different terminology and means to no avail. You talk as if evolution is exempt from the physical Laws of Nature like that of the 2nd Law: it is not.
 
valich said:
I still think you don't understand the difference between a law and a theory!

Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest are "theories" of evolution. The four Laws of Thermodynamics are "laws," not theories!
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Indeed. I do not understand the difference. I will return my PhD asap.
 
valich said:
We now keep humans alive who would not be able to stay alive in Nature. We keep humans alive by using artificial respiration chambers, by force feeding, through medication, through intensive care, via catheter insertion - these are not "natural" means. Natural selection and survival of the fittest are theories of evolution that are no longer applicable to humans.
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Any cultural invention by humans is per definition natural. Unless you would like to classify the human species as an unnatural one.

Wild african dogs keep invalid members of the pack alive. Not natural either apparently.

Ants make huge nests. They build airconditoning. Not natural. They should live out in the open and fry or freeze to death. Survival of the fittest you know.

A beaver builds a dam to flood land. Unnatural. That land was not supposed to be flooded.

etc.
 
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