The Light Time Problem

Ringo,Nothing moves towards the more orderly,
regardless of whether it is in a so-called
open or closed system.You know this!

quote:

---

Nothing moves towards the more orderly,
regardless of whether it is in a so-called
open or closed system.

​

You know this!

---

We know that refrigerators can’t exist ? (At least if you are talking about thermodynamic order - which you should be!)Really, the whole Second Law argument is profoundly ignorant as you’d see if you could manage to think it through. Start with the question of what this “order” you are talking about actually is.

Are you aware that diamonds can also be created deep in the Earth with lots of heat and pressure over millions of years?Are you aware that there are approximately 2,000,000 described and named insects, and that estimates by entomologists are that there may be 10-20 million more species of insects to describe? Are you aware that it would take billions of algae cells to make a single quart of oil?Are you aware that it is now estimated that 50% of all insects species are microscopic parasitic wasps that just a few years ago we didn't even know existed? Are you aware that there are no letters whatsoever in the human genome? There are however approximately 3 billion nucleotides in the human genome and we just use letters to designate them. And it is nowhere near 10 billion miles long.Are you aware that if those millions of species of parasitic wasps hadn't evolved we would be neck deep in insect pests? And are you aware that we can actually map out the evolutionary relationships between all those millions of species of insects by mapping their genomes? This is incorrect, there is no expectation that evolutionary systems are expected to increase in order or complexity. And the 2nd law of thermodynamics is perfectly fine with energy being added to the biological system by the Sun.Are you aware of what the laws of thermodynamics say and mean? There is no such separate process of evolution called macroevolution. Macroevolution is just lots of generation to generation microevolution.No one who has ever lived has witnessed any act of divine creation.Are you aware that over the past 400 million years insects have been the major selective force directing the evolution of land plants and that as a consequence of that they have been a major selective force in the evolution of land vertebrates, including humans?You should be worshipping insects as the god that created humans.

Did you not read my post at all? Hydrogen and oxygen move toward a more orderly system - water.The second law is NOT about order of things. It's about order of energy. A more orderly system of things - e.g. water - certainly CAN come from a less orderly system.You can see that. Why do you deny it?

To put it simply, they're been "trained" with stupid lies that professional creationists have created out of sheer ignorance.In the foreword to his book on dating methods, The Age of the Earth, G. Brent Dalrymple, research geologist at the United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA, tells the story of when leading ICR creationists Drs. Henry Morris (PhD Hydraulic Engineering) and Duane Gish (PhD Biochemistry) came to USGS Menlo Park in 1975 to give an evening seminar on their case for creationism to several hundred USGS scientists.Their presentation sparked a lot of discussion, most of which consisted of scientists who did understand the science trying to explain to Morris & Gish what thermodynamics really is and to help correct Morris & Gish's gross misunderstanding of the subject. Morris & Gish did learn from that encounter, but it was the wrong lesson: after that ICR creationists knew better than to ever discuss anything with actual scientists. Obviously, since actual scientists understand the science then they can see through creationist bullshit lies immediately.wickless_candle presents himself as a mindless creationist drone, little more than a bot. Or a troll. All he "knows" about thermodynamics is the gross misunderstanding and misrepresentation that he has been spoon fed by his creationist masters who themselves have been exposed as not understanding thermodynamics. 
Interestingly, if wickless wants to try to "disprove" evolution with the standard BS creationist claim that evolution somehow violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then life itself would also violate that same law and hence be impossible. And yet, as George Takei/Sulu told Howard Wolowitz: "And yet, here I am!" Everything that evolution does derives directly from life doing what life does, so if evolution were to violate thermodynamics then so would life itself and hence life could not exist. And yet it does. Hmm.Similarly, if the creationist misunderstanding of thermodynamics were true, then nothing work, including any physical, chemical, or mechanical process. Nothing. And yet all those things do work in spite of creationist mandates.What can we conclude from that state of affairs? Only that creationism is a huge crock of rancid BS.

It seems like more than a decade ago that one of our regular members (still extant, I believe) described the problems that had been created for fundamentalist Christianity by its sudden massive growth with the Jesus Freak Movement (circa 1970), hippies burned out from drugs suddenly getting "hooked on Jesus" (an iconic bumper sticker of that time was of an ΙΧΘΥΣ fish with a fish hook on a fish line in its mouth).As our member described it, fundamentalists tended to form their own enclosed communities, keep to their own and having as little as possible to do with normals. Their own churches, their own small towns (when they could), their own neighborhoods (when they could), their own schools and colleges, etc. And, as I understand it, very little proselytizing (since that would require them to deal with outsiders). But the main thing was their approach to the Bible. They studied it all their lives, as thoroughly as they could.Now suddenly all these burned out hippies and others started streaming into their churches, none of whom had received the level of Bible education as the established members had. That presented a huge problem for those churches, especially since they required belief in what the Bible said. How can you hold people to that who didn't know what the Bible said?So they had to resort to stop-gap measures, basically giving these newcomers a crash course in the Bible. Pick a few key Bible passages and tell them how they must interpret those passages. In doing so, those churches took the entire Bible and condensed it down, boiling it down to a barely recognizable sludge to be choked down like Marmite. Most of the newcomers received that initial indoctrination, decided that they had learned it all, and continued on fat, dumb, and happy. Those who did go on regular Bible study did so under the close supervision of the church restricting them to only certain passages and requiring only certain interpretations.So then cluelessness of the Bible and of Christianity (outside of their own very narrow sect) is baked into the religion.At least that's how I remember it.

The hippies did it?!Fundamentalists were ignorant of both science and biblical scholarship long before there were hippies. And there weren't that many hippies, anyway, let alone that many who burned out.Sheesh.

Christianity has always been willing to adopt any religion and re-brand it as their own. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, any excuse to party and nothing says party like pogroms and witch hunts.

Rather, what the hippies did -- or at least contribute to greatly -- was the rapid growth of those churches and the proliferation (I think) of megachurches.And their mindset was certainly aligned to any anti-science/anti-reality sentiments that were already present in those churches.Regarding young-earth creationist claims, those come from a very long history of creationism in the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church, though I doubt that many creationists would want to admit that. For example, Henry Morris' flood geology was lifted almost completely from the early 20th century writings of SDA creationist George McCready Price. When "creation science" was created in the late 70's, almost instantaneously books appeared full of YEC claims which many of us consider "classic" claims that have always been around. I believe that most, if not almost all, of those claims were adopted from SDAist creationists. The effect hippies flooding into those fundie churches was similar to what I've heard of the effects of air conditioning on national politics.Within the past decade there was science series from an Oregon PBS station which examined common everyday things (eg, timekeepng, GPS, air conditioning). It was the episode on time keeping where the scientists at NIST and USNO in charge of the atomic clocks for UTC were referred to as "The Time Lords."In the show on A/C, the host stated that by making living in the South more tolerable and less of a "no way!" impediment to moving there for work, A/C allowed those states to increase greatly in population thus giving them more power through more representation in Congress. And as a result, the Red politics of those states got more power regardless of how blue those newcomers may be (they're all concentrated in major cities so they tend to be outvoted by the countryside).At least that's what that show said, even though it makes sense. And that seems to describe how the hippies made fundamentalism more powerful.Edited by dwise1, : ABE

As I tried to point out to candle, almost all chemical compounds defy his misunderstanding. They are, by definition, more complex than their constituents. By candle's misunderstanding, it would be impossible to make chemical compounds. Not to mention that it would be impossible to crystalize anything. And on and on....

Tanyptery, my point is that it does not take
tens or hundreds of millions of years to create
either diamonds or oil.You say that there might be 20,000,000 or
more species of insects. Well, I would say
that this favors a creationist's point of view.As I have already stated, no human has every
witnessed macro-evolution. Yet, you want us
to believe that this has (including all
intermediate steps) happened more than
100,000,000 times in the insect kingdom alone.It is much more likely that an all-knowing God
created them, each having a design purpose.Again, I have no problem with people believing
in evolution. That is their God-given right. My
issue is with them preaching that it is a proven
fact. And, I have an issue with spending tax
money to teach these fairytales to kids.Did you hear about the frog who became a prince?

And you know this how? Do you have a degree in geology and chemistry? Of course you would. Everything sings the glory of god to a creationist. Except you can’t show god. You fail. Just boggles your little creationist mind doesn’t it? Except you can’t show god while we can show evolution. Lots of it. Lots of hard evidence and proof. Lots of evolved organisms, bugs, crocoducks, even creationists. (Well, except for crocoducks. Those are a creationist's wet dream, and like your god, they don't exist and never have.)While you have nothing as evidence. Nothing to support your fantasies. Nothing except crocoduck tears. It is proven fact. Evolution happened, is happening and will continue to happen. The rest of the world know this. What is wrong with creationists minds that reality doesn’t exist? Did you ever hear about a talking snake? And in the story the snake is the only honest one of the bunch. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Under lab conditions that don't exist in nature, but under natural conditions it still takes time.So what really is your point? Uh, excuse but you creationists not only believe in "macro-evolution, but you also believe in insanely fast macro-evolution that would have resulted in those 20,000,000 or more species of insect coming into existence within a few hundred years. And that's not to mention the thousands of species of other animals and plants and how you creationists adamantly insist they had evolved almost instantaneously after your "basic created kinds" departed the Ark.Ah yes! The Bullfrog Affair! That time that Dr. Duane Gish of the ICR, one of the Founding Fathers of the "Creation Science" deliberate deception, deliberately lied on national TV and then tried to cover it up.Hmm. Creationists constantly lying out their asses. Anybody else notice a pattern there?That page also covers creationist lies about inter-species protein comparisons. That was popular around 1980, but those creationist claims very quickly proved so disastrously bad that even Kent Hovind, arguably the worst creationist ever, no longer uses it. But Walter Brown did continue to use his deliberate lie of cytochrome c comparisons showing the rattlesnake's closest relative to be humans (but not that humans' closest relative are rattlesnakes -- the need to state that claim with such precision proves that it's a deliberate lie).Since wickless will refuse to learn something, this is for us normals. Excerpts from The Bullfrog Affair which tells the story:

quote:

---

The Bullfrog Affair itself starts with the KPBS production, "Creation vs Evolution: Battle in the Classroom", which aired 7 July 1982. After Dr. Doolittle related his story of the chimpanzee blood proteins (see above), Dr. Duane Gish responded:

"If we look at certain proteins, yes man then, it can be assumed that man is more closely related to a chimpanzee than other things. But, on the other hand, if you look at certain proteins, you will find that man is more closely related to a bullfrog than he is to a chimpanzee. If you focus your attention on other proteins, you'll find that man is more closely related to a chicken than he is to a chimpanzee."

​

This was immediately followed by Dr. Doolittle's response, "Oh bullfrog! I've heard that gibberish before, I have to tell you." This was the first recorded use of "Bullfrog" that I am aware of. Then Doolittle indicated a book full of amino acid sequences from thousands of proteins taken from many hundreds of species and offered Gish all his worldly belongings, a '63 VW and half a house, if Gish could find just one protein in chickens or bullfrogs that is more closely related to human proteins than chimpanzee proteins.

​

Robert Schadewald, then Minnesota Committee of Correspondence liaison and presently editor of _NCSE Reports_ (formerly _Creation/Evolution Newsletter_) watched that show. Since Gish's claim sounded like nonsense, he checked it out with a few biochemists, who had never heard of such proteins. So Schadewald started a three-year-long quest for Gish's source.

​

Doolittle responded to Schadewald's letter with extensive documentation for his statements about human and chimpanzee proteins. Requests for Gish to do likewise were met with evasion, obfuscation, and silence.

​

Gish ignored Schadewald's first letter and answered the second letter with a reference for his claim: a JOKE he had overheard! At a conference in Austria, Berkeley geochronologist Garniss Curtis told of having heard an unconfirmed report of someone finding bullfrog blood proteins very similar to human blood proteins. Curtis predicted that those findings would never be confirmed (he was right) since the bullfrog sample had been taken from a rare enchanted prince (see text of Curtis' letter at the end of this file). Since a joke based on a secondhand report of unconfirmed research seemed rather weak, Schadewald wrote back asking for something more substantial. Gish did not reply.

​

At the 1983 National Creation Conference, Schadewald confronted Gish in person and asked for his references. Gish insisted that the bullfrog and chicken proteins were real and promised to send documentation. He never delivered on that promise.

​

In the Spring/Summer 1984 issue of _Origins Research_, a publication of the creationist organization, Students for Origins Research, Robert Schadewald and John Patterson wrote a joint letter relating the incident and suggesting that Gish had lied on national TV and that other creationists are well aware of Gish's many transgressions but are unwilling to expose him, engaging instead in a cover-up. They had sent Gish a copy of that letter six months prior so that he could prepare a response that would be published with the letter; he never responded.

​

Instead, the letter was followed by a response from Dr. Jerry Bergman in which he denied that creationists engage in cover-ups and claimed that evolutionists are just as guilty and even more so of the transgressions that creationists are accused of. Schadewald and Patterson described Bergman's response as "a rambling, dissembling piece of obfuscation from the inevitable Jerry Bergman, whose 'reply' to us resolutely ignored our major point."

​

Shortly afterwards, at the 1984 National Bible-Science Conference, Schadewald again confronted Gish. This time Gish responded by saying that because of that _Origins Research_ letter he was not responsible to provide any documentation (Schadewald had used "ungentlemanly language in print," i.e. the words "lie" and "charlatan"). When asked who is responsible for documenting those proteins, Gish said that it was up to Schadewald and Curtis (i.e. "You want to know the sources for my claims? YOU go look it up!").

​

Within the week, Schadewald and Patterson sent a letter to Gish's boss, Dr. Henry Morris, President of the ICR. In it, they brought Morris up-to-date on the affair, quoted Gish's statement on national television concerning the chicken and bullfrog proteins, told of Gish's repeated failure to produce his repeatedly promised documentation for them, and finally related his reversal and subsequent refusal to produce that documentation or to accept any responsibility for producing it. They concluded the letter:

"We have long been conscious of the numerous substantial differences between creationism and science, but this is new to us. Scientists (and science writers) take full responsibility for their public statements. Gish apparently rejects this responsibility. Was he speaking for himself in this matter, or is this doctrine of nonresponsibility an official ICR policy? If so, we suggest that ICR speakers should level with the public and preface their presentations with the following disclaimer: 'I am not responsible for the truth or accuracy of any statements I make.'"

​

As of press time, there had been no reply to this letter.

---

So Gish's lie was based on a JOKE about that bullfrog sample having been taken from a rare enchanted prince?The Bullfrog Affair was the first big case of creationist dishonesty and deliberate lying that I encountered, having just then started studying "creation science". And the pattern of creationist lies that it revealed just continues to build over the subsequent decades.I tried to watch that PBS program when it aired, but cable TV service on base was poor, such that the channel carrying PBS would routinely go down in the evening. Fortunately it came back on at the end of the program so I was able to order a transcript.That show also included what had just happened in a Livermore, Calif, elementary school when one of the teachers started a "two-model approach" class. For one thing, instead of adhering to the actual goal of science education (ie, that the students be familiar with the current ideas of science with no requirement to believe in those ideas, each lesson in the creationist materials would end exhorting the students to decide between their "unnamed Creator (nudge nudge wink wink)" and "the atheistic evolution model" (which Dr. Henry Morris himself admitted is extremely theistic since it "includes most of the world's religions, ancient and modern."). As a result of this class, some of the students, pushed to make a decision that should have never been forced onto them, decided to become atheists.

quote:

---

JP Hunt, student in Ray Baird's 1980 "balanced treatment" class at Emma C. Smith Elementary School, Livermore, CA, in "Creation vs Evolution: Battle in the Classroom", KPBS-TV, aired 7 July 1982:

quote:

---

"Someone that I know has become an atheist because of this class, because the creationist theory was so stupid, he thought. Well, if religion requires me to believe this, then I don't want to have any part of it."

---

---

Forcing elementary grade students to become atheists! Way to go, creationists!Edited by dwise1, : Hanging a lantern on the Enchanted Prince part of Gish's lie

I can prove evolution to you but it will take some effort on your part. This forum is not appropriate for the amount of information required.First you will have to qualify, apply and get accepted at a nearby university. Not a church school but a nationally accredited secular one, like University of Iowa or Stanford, etc. Closest one to you should do. Evolution is not a glass-shattered fragmented set of cults like religion. The information will be all the same school to school. Science is like that. Then you need to enroll in biology classes, actually attend and let them show you all the evolution proof for, let’s say, 2 semesters.You should learn two things. You will learn the facts and the reality of evolution, and you will learn that proof is for math, not science. There is just evidence. Mountains of overwhelmingly convincing hold in your hands hard physical evidence. Science.Contrast that with religionists. Each one that comes in here has a different story to tell. No one has ANY evidence whatsoever that their god exists. None. And what's worse is the idiots go off and make war over the differences. Fools.Second, you need to ditch the church stuff. I know religion is your world right now and learning will lose you some friends. You can make new ones attending atheist gatherings for your Sunday-go-the-meeting fix. This is vital. The church doesn’t want you to learn. Knowledge is abhorrent to religion and it will make every effort and put up whatever roadblocks they can find to keep you from the truth. The bible being one of the biggest things they’ll throw at you. Avoid that thing. It’s toxic to the human mind.I know, I know, you ARE the church in your community. It’s like losing your flock. But if you really want to see the deep evidence, the deep truth of biological reality, the power of evolution, then this recipe will do that for you. I guarantee it.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Actually, there is no need for him to ditch religion or even ditch Christianity. He just needs to ditch the Christian Cult of Ignorance and Deceit.