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Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You
You have misunderstood the book, then. dG=dH-TdS Reversible is when dG=0. Spontaneous is when dG<0. It is possible to have dS<0 and still have a spontaneous reaction (non-reversible) if dH<TdS<0. (54 min ago | post #19519)
Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You
But the goal in that case was merely to show the existence of such a template, not the constructibility of that templateWho said anything about one step?? Also, catalysts do not change the direction of a reaction, only the speed. They change the energy of the transition state, not the net change in energyWhere did you get the idea that a reaction that decreases entropy has to be an equilibrium reaction to proceed? That would be true if the entropy decrease was of a complete, closed system. But it is false for systems that are not open. In fact, that is what the Gibb's free energy is designed to account for: the change in entropy of the surroundings. For constant pressure situations, a decreasing Gibb's free energy completely takes into account ALL entropy considerationsYou have misunderstood the second law as it applies to our situation. First, in a closed system, a spontaneous reaction much increase entropy, or at worst leave it unchanged. Those reactions which leave it unchanged are the reversible reactions. If a reaction in a closed system decreases entropy, it simply will not happen spontaneously. However, for systems that are NOT closed, the entropy change in the environment is taken into account in the Gibb's free energy, which has two components: the change in enthalpy of the system and the temperature times the change of entropy *of the system*. It turns out that if the system is under constant pressure, the Gibb's free energy of the system decreases exactly when the entropy of the system plus the surroundings increases. So, the decrease of the Gibb's energy is *equivalent* to the second law of thermodynamics under constant pressure. What that means is that reactions can happen spontaneously even if the internal entropy decreases *as long as* the enthalphy of the reaction decreases enough to compensate for the entropy change at that temperature. In such a case, lower temperatures encourage the reaction. (58 min ago | post #19518)
Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You
Sure. I'll even pick your favorite: the polymerization of amino acids into proteins. As you have pointed out, this is a thermodynamically non-spontaneous reaction. However, it is coupled to the simultaneous decomposition of ATP into AMP, which is strongly favored. The decrease in Gibb's energy in the ATP->AMP reaction drives the increase in amino acids->proteins and makes the overall reaction spontaneous. Ultimately, the Gibb's energy comes from a reaction which traps a photon causing an increased energy state in an electron in some plant. The point? A reaction that leads to increased free energy (and is hence not spontaneous) can be driven by a reaction that decreases free energy (and is hence spontaneous). Given the huge amounts of free energy coming in from the sun, purely thermodynamic considerations are satisfied. The WHOLE question is one of mechanism, not of thermodynamicsTrue . But if your objection is thermodynamic spontaneity, it is easy to deal with. Just couple to another reaction that decreases free energy enoughYou are missing the point. The question is whether 1) a self-sustaining cycle of reactions can be found, and THEN 2) how that leads to modern life. In the first, showing that there exist templates that can direct their own replication, at least in some environments, is a relevant demonstration. Is it the whole thing? No. But it is relevant. Showing that lipids can produce vesicles that concentrate chemicals important for life is relevant and that those vesicles can split and maintain some similar internal chemistry is relevant. Again, not the whole show, but clearly relevant. (20 hrs ago | post #19467)
Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You
OK, this one is easy to deal with. The Gibb's energy is a state function. All you have to do is look at the values before and after and see which is larger. Given the fact that light is a reactant, getting a decrease in G is not difficult at all. Now, a MUCH more difficult thing is to find a mechanism that get you from start to finish. But the raw thermodynamics calculation does NOT depend on mechanism. Furthermore, a coupling of one mechanism to a non-spontaneous one can make the two together be spontaneous (happens all the time in living thingsWhat other parts do you see as relevant? Can you show any aspect of life that isn't chemical? Can you show why a study of how the basic chemicals form and react *isn't* relevant to the study of early life? You even said the basic problem is finding a template that can self-reproduce. While you see that as unlikely, do you at least see it as a question of chemistry? So those studies that show that such templates *exist* is relevant to the study of early life? We can then study how such templates could formNot exactly true. We can look at what life consists of today. We can look at how the monomers form. We have found that most of the monomers form in plausible prebiotic conditions. We can look at what conditions promote the polymerization of those monomers. As you have pointed out, thermodynamics shows that a coupling to a energy source is required. Then we can look at how polymers perform that basic metabolism of life and how simpler metabolisms could have functioned. Are there gaps? Yes, of course. There will be in research until the answer is found. But are there research avenues that directly relate to the questions of abio? Yes, definitely. Now, what research avenues do you propose as alternatives? OK, so we accept the possibility that abio was directed. So? Now what? What does that open up to us? So we accept the possibility of an 'intangible' aspect to abio. What does that do for our understanding? How does that close the gap between what we know and what we don't? So we accept the possibility that our consciousness survives after death. What testable hypotheses does that lead to? Sorry, to me you look like one of those people claiming that flight was impossible while other people were trying to figure out how to do it. (23 hrs ago | post #19441)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
Not at all. The evidence shows that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, and there was never a earth-wide flood. That you bury your head in the sand ignoring that evidence doesn't make it wrong. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123178)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
And even easier to prove the universe is older than 6000 years: just look at how many things are farther than 6000 light years away. I can go (much) farther. It is possible to see something 2 million light years away without even using a telescope. The light has taken 2 million years to get from there to here. So the universe is *at least* 2 million years old just based on what we can see with just our eyes. If you allow telescopes, there are galaxies visible in amateur telescopes that are hundreds of millions of light years away. For professional scopes, the figure is several billion. And, just for those who want to get around the constancy of the speed of light: 1) we have ways of measuring hopw fast the light was in the past (light echos on nebula, for example) and those again show the universe to much older than a mere 6000 years. We have verified light echos from a supernova from 168,000 years ago. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123136)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
I'll take one and you can take the other. *clickWhich is how those scientists who are religious tend to reconcile things. Such scientists are commonYes, learning about the universe is definitely an uplifting experience. To the universe! (Friday Sep 5 | post #123043)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
Based on scientific standards of proof, it can and has been proved. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123038)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
Which agrees with what I saidInflation is a *modification* to the Big Bang theory. It is one part of the overall theory, but not, by any means, the whole thingAs I said. The term 'explosion' is misleading at best. There *is* an expansionAgain, this is specifically about the inflationary stage, not the overall Big Bang. The Big Bang itself is well established and acknowledged by that site. By the way, later evidence has established the inflationary stage alsoYet again, the inflationary scenario, not the Big BangOnce the distinction between the expansion and the inflationary stage of that expansion are cleared up, I think you will see unanimous agreement in what was said. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123029)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
Actually, yes. In your first reference, it explicitly points out that it is not like the explosion of a bomb where things are thrown outward. I strongly suspect that you are confusing two different things here: expansion of the universe and the short inflationary stage of that expansion. Those references that questioned the inflationary scenario were NOT questioning the expansion, just a short period of hyper-expansion. Until very recently, the inflationary scenario was widely questioned even though the Big Bang itself was established. In the last few years, the evidence has gone over to to saying that the inflationary stage probably did, in fact, happen. But that is not nearly as clear as saying that the overall expansion happened. Do you see the difference? There is a difference between the Big Bang expansion and the inflationary stage of that expansion. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123027)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
1) We don't know. 2) We don't have any evidence to help us say. 3) We don't even know if the question makes any sense. Remember time is *part* of the universe, so time may well have begun along with the universe. If that is the case, there simply *was* no 'before the universe'. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123019)
Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You
There are models where universes can 'bud off' of other universes with the 'child' universe having different constants. In such scenarios, the number of different universes is immense. Of course, we could only actually *live* in a few of them. But, if we find ourselves alive, we are guaranteed to be in a universe where we *can* live! This alone would explain the supposed 'fine tuning' of the constants we see. As with all of these flights of fancy, though, until there is actual evidence it is all just speculation. It makes for good sci fi literature, but not such good science. Perhaps that is part of what the discussion of God has missed. Religion is a type of literature. It has morality tales. It has inspirational passages. It helps us organize our lives. As literature, it doesn't have to be *true* to be *useful*. Just as nobody believes that the animals in Aesop's fables actually talked (or even existed) but we can still derive instruction from them, the religious books are a mixture of legitimate history with fables, national propaganda, and simple stories. They don't *have* to be true to be relevant! (Friday Sep 5 | post #19290)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
I'll wager, but we have to agree on the terms. No popular science pieces (they tend to simplify and end up distorting things). Must be a credentialed author published in a standard astro-physics journal-no vanity presses. Must be published in the last 20 years- no bringing up the Steady State (which was shown wrong in the 1960's). (Friday Sep 5 | post #123005)
LETTER: Stand up for the unborn child
Of course, that depends on your definition of 'contemporaries'. I'll bet you won't be able to find a single article in a professional astrophysics journal in the last 25 years that disagrees with what I said. We have found a tremendous amount of information in the last 10 years that has not only supported this view, but has made it even more precise. Because of this, we have been able to answer many questions that were open for decades. We have truly entered into the age of precision cosmology. For example, just a decade or so ago, our uncertainties about the age of the universe were quite large: we knew it was between 10 and 20 billion years old, but that was the limit of our accuracy. Now, we know it is 13.7 billion years old. (Friday Sep 5 | post #123002)
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