cypress

Are these unambiguous and true intermediary fossils? How can we be sure that there is a direct relationship? As I research the information about these examples I find there are very few researchers who claim any of these examples are direct intermediaries. I was quite careful in my previous description but you have offered a straw man in response since these examples are not confirmed direct intermediaries. This is not to say that direct intermediaries never existed, or that common descent is false, it is to be accurate about what is actually known about the fossil record.

So the kinetic energy enable change. Without the deterministic processes of density, hardness, buoyancy and such, do the random processes produce sorting and similarity of shape or is it the deterministic processes that perform the sorting and shape distribution?

Gamewizard, I can only get -3.19 when I work the problem this way: t=(13.94-15.55)/((1.8410*(1/14+1/15))^0.5) You have to work from the inside of the parentheses outward. Using standard math order convention exponents go first then multiplication and division and then addition and subtraction so this format works also: t=(13.94-15.55)/(1.8410*(1/14+1/15))^0.5 but the way you wrote it you would get -16.90. Since the 1/14+1/15 are in parentheses you work that first in either case.

I've observed the same, the beach can be a place of amazement. What though do you attribute the sorting? Do you say it is random wave action or deterministic laws of density force and kinetic motion?

Nice story. Do you think it was the random motion of the waves alone or deterministic physical characteristics of density and hardness and the interaction of buoyancy in the sand and water that caused the shapes and the sorting you observed?

They also conclude (and I think this is quite important); Which speaks towards the rate of change. And from their Conclusions section; Right, and these of course being the primary conclusions of the study and resulting paper, that the reconstruction is primarily a feature of mathematical manipulation than a representative model of truth. reconstructions using other data sources including for example ice cores provide a very different picture as other graphs linked on this site demonstrate. Is there a good reason to conclude that the Mann reconstruction reflects reality? I don't see it.

I believe the term missing link is primarily due to the fact that no direct intermediary fossils, that is a fossil form that is in the direct ancestorial chain between one major form and another have been identified. In other words with respect to major divisions in discernible forms, the fossil record contains no known direct primitive species in the sense you mean. It is true that there are no known direct line intermediary fossils mutually agreed by experts. In the same way, these researchers seem to be overselling the idea that this human finger and the differences in the DNA represents a separate human species unless one chooses a less restrictive sense of what it means to be a separate species. A better term would be a different DNA line than that of the line of modern humans. Either way I don't see how this has any implications regarding common ancestor relationships from millions of years ago.

What specific aspect of the theory accounts for differential development of advantages? if diverging paths both offer advantage, what aspect of the theory prevents both paths to develop simultaneously in the same population? They both of course are advantageous are they not? Furthermore because both occur stepwise and over a long period of time, what is to prevent the initial opportunities to initiate pathways previously not taken to occur over and over again? How can you demonstrate that your speculation has merit?

The solution to your paradox is that you specified that the clocks and the observer are brought back together. Bringing the clocks and an observer together requires relative motion as well and that action returns them all to the same reference frame.

The sciences that come into question are primarily historical science. These sciences do not rely on replicable experiments, instead they rely in inference and a prior commitment generally driven by a world-view. The methods of validation are far more similar than you would have us believe.

It is primarlily due to the energy produced by nuclear decay.

The information was not used to reduce entropy since even in tis example net entropy was not reduced. They may have reduced entropy of one subcomponent, but not of the entire system/apparatus. Instead information and a powered feedback controller was employed to isolate a particle and allow it to absorb high energy collisions while avoiding low energy collisions that would drain energy. The information is not "free energy" in any sense as that energy carrier was actually an input into the system and contributed to the function. Information was not traded or transformed into free energy.

Refrigerators are imperfect devices, the less ideally they are designed the higher the tendancy for cold and warm spots. This tendancy is increased when the refrigerator is overfilled so that air cannot freely circulate, frequently opened, have large amounts of warm items put in it at once or if there is a leaking seal. Side by side refrigerators include a fan to circulate cold air from the freezer into the refrigerator and back. The controller and or fan may be malfunctioning as well.

It's not that free will is or is not compatible with perfect morality, rather that free will provides the ability for individuals to choose to ignore their moral obligations in favor of behaviors that those individuals see as better for them personally. A perfect being would have an optimized set of characteristics including perfect choices in context with free will.

I'm not sure they can be isolated since ingress and egress comes to a pinch-point at the lung sac membranes largely driven by concentration gradients so they would be in competition right?

Is complexity in the sense you mean synonymous with low probability states? It does not appear to be the same. My argument is based on probability theory. I don't know one way or another about any significant differences in complexity in the sense you mean. I don't see any difference in molecular configuration and the probabilities of those discrete states and the probabilities of subatomic particle states. I don't think there is much of a difference since information is based on probability and elimination of alternative configurations. It would seem that information in some form is present wherever probability is less than 1. Information is available when the probability can be determined. This is why deterministic processes cannot import information since they cannot change the probability of a configuration.

The reference to closed systems was due to your attempt to suggest that your refrigerator was a closed system. Open systems still must adhere to probability theory and entropy laws, though one must consider and include the change in mass and all other relevant fluxes. When all inputs and outputs are included and only physical processes are involved, these systems cannot experience a net increase in order either. What I said about abiogenesis and evolutionary processes (with respect to accounting for all observed diversity) and the failure of the positet theories to account for the source of molecular and information order is correct. You have been attempting to demonstrate that conventional and well understood systems including a heat pump and growth of plants undergo a drop in entropy (though only when relevant fluxes are conveniently ignored) despite the unscientific and incorrect treatment due to ignoring these heat, energy and mass fluxes. If you are suggesting that the modern synthesis is simply ignoring an incoming fux of low entropy molecular order and information please point us to that source and describe in real terms precisely how these sources act to generate functional prescriptive information in biological and chemic systems. Your example was imagination. It was as fictional as a perpetual motion machine. If you could offer an actualized case we can talk through it. DNA contains low entropy functional prescriptive information superimposed on a high entropy backbone chemic structure. This low entropy signal requires a source of order to form, it would be a violation of entropy law to spontaneously organize by a random process without a pre-existing source of order. existing life has a source of order in the parent organisms. But where did the original order originate, and what is the source of new and additional order for new form and function posited by evolutionary theory in the context of accounting for all observed diversity? Design is known to be capable of organizing information into highly ordered patterns. It very much is an adequate explanation for the presence of functional prescriptive information. If you are saying that you personally reject the possibility that life on earth was designed and will continue to reject it despite the fact that design appears to be an adequate mechanism until you personally shake hands with the actual designer, I can't help you with that hang-up.

A fixed volume of air in a refrigerator is not a closed system, it is open because as the temperature changes, density increases so mass is moving into the system. In addition there is circulation in the refrigerator. My answer stands that including inputs and outputs, entropy rises slightly for the contents and the associated heat flux. While entropy of a non-reacting substance drops as temperature drops, it can only experience a reduction in entropy due to communication with other systems. Isolated, closed systems do not spontaneously drop in entropy. There must be a source for this increased order. Neither abiogenesis nor evolutionary theory (as an explanation for all observed diversity) offer a source for molecular and information entropy. Your hypothetical case cannot happen. It is like the backyard engineer pedaling a perpetual motion machine. If there exists a deterministic process that changes from one occurrence of discrete states to another, those two occurrences of discrete states must have equal probabilities. It is possible that a random process does change from one occurrence to the other, but the probabilities must be unchanged. Design by engineers would demonstrate that design is a causally adequate mechanism, whether you accept the implications or not. I am not saying either. There is insufficient information to know how diversity occurred. I do know that the modern synthesis fails to offer a causally adequate process, other processes must have been involved.

Yes public safety overrides private property within reasonable limits. the owner has an obligation to maintain the building. failure to maintain it forfeits property rights.

It is intellectually dishonest to fail to include inputs and outputs when speaking of open systems, because it leads to misleading conclusions. All of my training was done this way. Inputs and outputs are always included. We will simply have to disagree on methods if you continue to insist otherwise. The change in entropy is dS = ∑dPilogPi , For deterministic processes Pi = 1 and dS=0 Your hypothetical example can't happen, it is a form of a perpetual motion machine and there can be no real examples of this situation. A deterministic process has only one outcome possible and therefore cannot change the sum of entropy for the i discrete microstates. If the probability of the occurrence of particular configuration of a discrete microstate is a particular value and that configuration occurs but then that occurrence is acted on by a deterministic process and changed to another configuration, the probability of both configurations must be equal. It is improper to treat the system in isolation since the DNA molecule is not isolated. It is an open system with many other systems acting on it, and thus inputs and outputs must be included. Failure to include them results in incorrect results just as failure to include inputs and outputs caused you to come to incorrect results with the heat pump and the lawn examples. Experimental biology can tell us what and how things actually happen. Speculating about what might have happened over the last 4 billion years will never tell us anything about how it happened or even how likely it was to have happened a particular way. It will remain nothing but speculation. It is improper to treat the system in isolation since the DNA molecule is not isolated. It is an open system with many other systems acting on it, and thus inputs and outputs must be included. Failure to include them results in incorrect results just as failure to include inputs and outputs caused you to come to incorrect results with the heat pump and the lawn examples. Experimental biology can tell us what and how things actually happen. Speculating about what might have happened over the last 4 billion years will never tell us anything about how it happened or even how likely it was to have happened a particular way. It will remain nothing but speculation. But inference can never tell us how it happened. Let's be honest. We don't know and can't know how diversity occurred until we experimentally confirm a process that is causally adequate and validated to derived the posited changes. Genetic engineers are getting very close to confirming design is a causally adequate process. Evolutionary biologists have made almost no progress in demonstrating the capability of the modern synthesis to generate new form and function. Answered in the comment immediately following my statement in the post of interest. I am not debating that change occurred, I am debating how it occurred.

It would have been misleading and Begging the Question to answer the way you were pushing for the question to be answered, thus the explanation. For open systems including the heat pump example and the lawn, one must include inputs and outputs in order to come to an accurate and representative answer. Including heat transfer from the contents of the refrigerator, net entropy is greater or equal to zero as it must be for all open or closed systems when physical processes are involved.

I am trying to keep the scope of the questions in context and consistent with the topic. Questions that address straw man arguments don't add any understanding or clarity. All physical processes conform to the observed physical laws including those based on probability such as entropy. Entropy considerations define the direction of heat transfer, and molecular and information ordering on a macro scale over a large number of discrete events. The direction is invariably such that net entropy is zero or greater for closed systems and for open systems when inputs and outputs are included so long as these systems involve physical processes. Chemic and biological processes that are known, observed, and understood all conform to these physical laws at the macro level. Two posited processes that are not well understood are abiogenesis (life from non life by chemic processes alone) and evolution (the derivation of all observed biological diversity by known evolutionary processes alone) both of these processes as currently described by the respective theories lack causal adequacy because neither theory accounts for a source of low entropy molecular and information order that would be required by entropy considerations to drive previously disorganized systems lacking the molecular and information order to a state of higher organization. Existing biological systems do not have this problem because they do contain sufficient organization within them to account for observed biological processes and even allow for modest limited adaptation, but do not contain sufficient molecular and information order for observed evolutionary processes to generate new form and function. The refrigerator example is a good opportunity to demonstrate these realities. A refrigerator is a heat pump that uses external potential and kinetic energy to transfer heat from the cool inside of the box to the warmer outside. Entropy considerations prevent direct transfer of heat from low to high since heat must flow in a way that causes entropy to remain constant or rise, and thus heat must flow from high to equal or lower temperature components. The heat pump delivers cold refrigerant to the ice box heat exchanger to allow for heat flow out of the ice box and into the refrigerant stream. The kinetic work energy is imparted on the refrigerant to raise the pressure and temperature of the refrigerant to a high temperature so that the heat energy plus the kinetic energy now transformed into heat energy will flow to warm area outside the ice box. Finally the condensed refrigerant is passed across an expansion valve where the pressure and remaining heat does work in the evaporator by expanding in volume greatly such that the refrigerant becomes very cold. The net effect for heat pump systems is that heat from the cool area plus input energy is expelled to the higher temperature area such that net entropy is increased. To address Skeptic's question directly, treating the contents of the box as an open system as he requested, the entropy of the contents drop while an equal or greater measure of entropy is transfered out of the icebox into the refrigerant through the evaporative heat exchanger. Thus the net entropy including the inputs and outputs of the open system Skeptic described is zero or greater depending on the efficiency of the heat exchange process. No, skeptic you are wrong. Since there is twice the mass, thermal entropy of the plant prior to burning will have doubled as a result of the growth. Check the entropy tables and you will see that it is as I say for all matter, not undergoing a phase change, and at the same temperature and pressure. The net change including inputs and outputs will be positive as well. Biological growth, indeed all physical processes involve a net zero or increase in entropy. There can be no net drop in entropy for any macro level physical process. Straw man. I have not made this claim. You know perfectly well we were both speaking of a lawn actively growing. Your pattern of logical fallacies continue to add up. I will return to address your other errors later.

The OP stipulated that God was omni-benevolent, omnipotent and omniscient. I take that to mean absolutely perfect, is this incorrect? Because if a perfect being is less than perfect at something then it would be illogical to speak of absolute perfection as a real entity since there could be no most perfect by your logic. But this can't be because most perfect is considered more perfect than any other configuration and is thus most perfect is absolute perfection since nothing can be more perfect. So even with competing goods, there must still be perfection.

But then absolute perfection would be impossible, which is illogical. This is because neglecting B would mean that one is not totally perfect in B.

Competition does seem to be a necessity. First off it is self evident that competing goods do exist in the only world we know. Second, in economic theory, the fact of something having value guarantees competition. Competition is a necessary outcome of holding more than one independent good of value even if equally so. But in this case absolute perfection would not be possible.