Thanks you guys! What you've provided so far should be enough.

(August 23, 2011 at 5:42 pm)DraxQuin Wrote: So in short I have a bunch of religious friends, today I explained to them I was an atheist, they then went on a huge rant against me. Now they're against evolution and one of them sent me this link:

Step #1: Send them your own link and tell them to read through it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html


Step #2: Tell them you aren't their fucking secretary.

Step #3: Tell them that anyone who believes in an invisibie sky daddy is too fucking stupid to understand evolution in the first place.

Step #4: Get smarter friends.

Regarding this website claim that Evolution disagrees with the law of Thermodynamics, what is the explanation for this?

You think there's an explanation for anything that comes out of a theists mouth? That's why it's called faith in the first place.

(August 23, 2011 at 9:20 pm)DraxQuin Wrote: Regarding this website claim that Evolution disagrees with the law of Thermodynamics, what is the explanation for this?

Due to a profound,willful ignorance, apologists often misquote the Second Law of Thermodymamics.That law refers to an ISOLATED SYSTEM,which the earth is NOT. IE we get our energy from an external source: THE SUN.

As I said,it's like trying to communicate with an orangutang,and a pretty thick one at that..

Quote:The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and explains the phenomenon of irreversibility in nature. The second law declares the impossibility of machines that generate usable energy from the abundant internal energy of nature by processes called perpetual motion of the second kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_...modynamics

(August 23, 2011 at 9:20 pm)DraxQuin Wrote: Regarding this website claim that Evolution disagrees with the law of Thermodynamics, what is the explanation for this?

1. Thermodynamics concerns energy, not complexity.
2. The second law of thermodynamics does state that is impossible for entropy to reduce in a closed system (it is talking about energy entropy, not information entropy, but no matter). The Earth is not a closed system because it takes in energy from the Sun.
3. If evolution violated the laws of physics in the past, why does it not violate them when we observe it in action in the present? Any laws it violates are clearly wrong.

(August 23, 2011 at 9:20 pm)DraxQuin Wrote: Regarding this website claim that Evolution disagrees with the law of Thermodynamics, what is the explanation for this?

Here it is from Talk.origins

Claim The second law of thermodynamics says that everything tends toward disorder, making evolutionary development [which is order from disorder] impossible.

FACT: The second law of thermodynamics says no such thing. It says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or, equivalently, that total entropy (a measure of useful energy) in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order because the earth is not a closed system; sunlight (with low entropy) shines on it and heat (with higher entropy) radiates off. This flow of energy, and the change in entropy that accompanies it, can and will power local decreases in entropy on earth. Entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases. (Aranda-Espinoza et al. 1999; Kestenbaum 1998) Entropy can even be used to produce order, such as in the sorting of molecules by size (Han and Craighead 2000). Even in a closed system, pockets of lower entropy can form if they are offset by increased entropy elsewhere in the system.
In short, order from disorder happens on earth all the time.

FACT: The only processes necessary for evolution to occur are reproduction, heritable variation, and selection. All of these are seen to happen all the time, so, obviously, no physical laws are preventing them. In fact, connections between evolution and entropy have been studied in depth, and never to the detriment of evolution (Demetrius 2000). Several scientists have proposed that evolution and the origin of life is driven by entropy (McShea 1998). Some see the information content of organisms subject to diversification according to the second law (Brooks and Wiley 1988), so organisms diversify to fill empty niches much as a gas expands to fill an empty container. Others propose that highly ordered complex systems emerge and evolve to dissipate energy (and increase overall entropy) more efficiently (Schneider and Kay 1994).

And, for the record, there's no evidence that John Michael Fischer has any sort of degree. The most information I've been able to find about him on the internet says he is apparently from Alabama. I've done everything short of asking him (His email address is on his home page, but considering all the things I'm going through right now, between getting my basement back in order and all the stuff surrounding my college transfer, I don't feel like getting into a debate with a crank who sees fit to make every discipline of science his bitch), but I seriously doubt he has an actual degree, certainly nothing related to science.

Tell them they need to get a proper education, trying to argue thermodynamics against evolutions just proves that they understand neither. A person capable of correctly understand thermodynamics, certainly is capable of understanding evolution, unless there is a very strong bias toawrds their particular fairy tale.

(August 23, 2011 at 6:31 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Invite them to this forum.

x2