mind numbing masses

I would love to hear an example of this.

 

I smoked a hell of a lot more dope in private school than I ever did in my public school days.

What's your point?

 

You mean you couldn't figure it out from his "Drugs is bad" broadstroke?

 

Shouldn't this be "mind-numbed?" I mean, the masses aren't doing the numbing, are they?

 

I believe the process of numbing the minds of the masses is still a work in progress and not the relic of some past era. Therefore, depending on how you interperet that grammar-less thread title, "mind numbing (the) masses" could be valid.

 

Give the kid a break -- he had a private school education.

 

I am not and have never claimed to be pro-voucher.

As far as the drug issue - pot, crystal, acid can be obtained anywhere. I heard rumours of a couple of losers gettin' high at my private school but it definitely wasn't the norm. It wasn't until I joined the Navy that I started partaking.

 

Whatever, robot.

 

fixed

 

Good. You should be.

 

Wait....there's a disconnect here.

In fact, there's more than one.

But I still want to hear more about the bogus theory. Is it GRAVITY? Or AERODYNAMICS? Maybe it's the COPERNICAN theory? So which bogus theory is it, already?

I believe the proper response to the epithet "robot" is "Bite my shiny metal ass."

 

Well, it's not the 2nd law of Thermodynamics 'cause that's a law not a theory.

 

So which bogus theory were you referring to?

 

Ooh, you know things are gonna get good when people start talking about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the next thing you post is perchance a riff about how evolution violates the Second Law, you should be prepared for a vigorous intellectual smackdown. Just FYI.

 

The main scientific reason why there is no evidence for evolution in either the present or the past (except in the creative imagination of evolutionary scientists) is because one of the most fundamental laws of nature precludes it. The law of increasing entropy—also known as the second law of thermodynamics—stipulates that all systems in the real world tend to go "downhill," as it were, toward disorganization and decreased complexity.

This law of entropy is, by any measure, one of the most universal, bestproved laws of nature. It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems—in fact, in all systems, without exception.

"No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found—not even a tiny one. Like conservation of energy (the "first law"), the existence of a law so precise and so independent of details of models must have a logical foundation that is independent of the fact that matter is composed of interacting particles." - E. H. Lieb and Jakob Yngvason, "A Fresh Look at Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics," Physics Today (vol. 53, April 2000), p. 32.

The author of this quote is referring primarily to physics, but he does point out that the second law is "independent of details of models." Besides, practically all evolutionary biologists are reductionists—that is, they insist that there are no "vitalist" forces in living systems, and that all biological processes are explicable in terms of physics and chemistry. That being the case, biological processes also must operate in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, and practically all biologists acknowledge this.

Evolutionists commonly insist, however, that evolution is a fact anyhow, and that the conflict is resolved by noting that the earth is an "open system," with the incoming energy from the sun able to sustain evolution throughout the geological ages in spite of the natural tendency of all systems to deteriorate toward disorganization. That is how an evolutionary entomologist has dismissed W. A. Dembski's impressive recent book, Intelligent Design. This scientist defends what he thinks is "natural processes' ability to increase complexity" by noting what he calls a "flaw" in "the arguments against evolution based on the second law of thermodynamics." And what is this flaw?

"Although the overall amount of disorder in a closed system cannot decrease, local order within a larger system can increase even without the actions of an intelligent agent." - Norman A. Johnson, "Design Flaw," American Scientist (vol. 88. May/June 2000), p. 274.

This naive response to the entropy law is typical of evolutionary dissimulation. While it is true that local order can increase in an open system if certain conditions are met, the fact is that evolution does not meet those conditions. Simply saying that the earth is open to the energy from the sun says nothing about how that raw solar heat is converted into increased complexity in any system, open or closed.

The fact is that the best known and most fundamental equation of thermodynamics says that the influx of heat into an open system will increase the entropy of that system, not decrease it. All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms.

Evolution has neither of these. Mutations are not "organizing" mechanisms, but disorganizing (in accord with the second law). They are commonly harmful, sometimes neutral, but never beneficial (at least as far as observed mutations are concerned). Natural selection cannot generate order, but can only "sieve out" the disorganizing mutations presented to it, thereby conserving the existing order, but never generating new order. In principle, it may be barely conceivable that evolution could occur in open systems, in spite of the tendency of all systems to disintegrate sooner or later. But no one yet has been able to show that it actually has the ability to overcome this universal tendency, and that is the basic reason why there is still no bona fide proof of evolution, past or present.

From the statements of evolutionists themselves, therefore, we have learned that there is no real scientific evidence for real evolution. The only observable evidence is that of very limited horizontal (or downward) changes within strict limits.

For more info - http://www.icr.org

 

and right on cue...

 

You think I'm gonna let a challenge like that pass me by? Ya'd better think again.

 

According to this website, they actually are teaching aerodynamics improperly.

During most of the 20th century, much of the popular teaching of how wings work has been false. In part this has been deliberate. Many years ago, a most famous aerodynamicist, Dr. Theodore VonKarman, instructed his assistant: "When you are talking to technically illiterate people you must resort to the plausible falsehood instead of the difficult truth." (From Stories of a 20th Century Life by W.R. Sears)

http://www.geocities.com/galemcraig/

 

Damn!!! I wish I had my thermodyamics book with me. Oh well, I'll let this website argue the Entropy vs. Evolution argument (unlike Daksims I won't post the entire article, you can read it if you want):

http://www.2ndlaw.com/evolution.html

To summarize the article, the author is saying that the entropy argument is faulty because it assumes that entropy means dissorder. "All known cases of decreased entropy (or increased organization) in open systems involve a guiding program of some sort and one or more energy conversion mechanisms." This is true when one is talking on the macroscopic level, however it is not necessarily true when talking about the atomic level. The following quote from the website explains this.


A simple example is the reaction of the behavior of elements is that of hydrogen gas with oxygen (that was tragically illustrated when the Hindenburg dirigible burned in 1937). Hydrogen atoms have such a great inherent tendency to form strong bonds with oxygen and form water that a small energy of activation, in the form of a spark affecting only a relatively few molecules, causes the two substances to start to react, resulting in an enormous evolution of energy. This is exactly as the second law predicts: some of the energy in hydrogen and oxygen tends to be spread out when the lesser-energetic water is formed. Yet, water is more complex than the simple elements and its atoms are arranged in an exact geometric pattern.

So basically entorpy is inceased AND order is increased. Hydrogen and Oxygen inherently wants to be bonded together, all they need is a little energy. The author later goes on to talk about how chlorophyll has been created in the lab by using chemicals.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not preclude evolution because the very first beginning steps occured at the atomic level.

 

There are a number of things that occur at the atomic level that would seemingly violate the 2nd Law as put forth by creationists. Fusion would be one - put some energy into a critical mass to kick-start things and that mass perpetually (er, until we use up the fuel) forms more and more complicated elements.

Besides, the 2nd Law is about energy, not patterns. A more "complex" structure can - and often is, as demonstrated by the H and O reaction earlier in this discussion - be more stable and with a lower overall energy. Hydrogen is the simplest atomic structure in existance, but it's also one of the most unstable, due to it's unpaired electron. It prefers to bond with just about anything other than itself.

And, finally, the 2nd Law does not say it's impossible for local systems to temporarily increase in entropy. Q: What do current theories say about the long-term fate of the universe? A: That it will either collapse back upon itself and destroy all the local entropy increases, or that it'll expand until it "dies" a cold death, and all the local entropy eventually lowers. The 2nd Law says that - barring other circumstances - systems tend towards lower entropy. Not instantly reach a lower entropic state.

Oh, and I do have my thermo textbook sitting on the bookshelf (I was a mechanical engineering student for a while - before I switched to electrical). I'd be glad to look anything up anyone requests. FYI, it's "Fundamentals of Engineering Thermodynamics" by Moran and Shapiro (I had Moran for one of the thermo classes while at Ohio State).

 

This is where I stopped reading.

Yeah yeah all those bones they keep finding and all the genetic evidence? God's practical jokes, you see. Oh that God, he's such a cut-up. He cracks me up with His endless jests.

Anyway, I'm not typing a huge refutation of the idiocy that is fundamentalist Creationism seeing as someone has already done it for me:

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt.html

The bit relevant to thermodymics is here:

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt.html

Happy reading.

As for evolution itself, evolution theory has gone way beyond Darwin so Creationists can pretend that Darwin was the last word on the subject and nothing has changed in over 100 years but people like Stuart Kaufman and other scientists are still unravelling more and more pieces of the puzzle and giving us an ever-clearer idea of how evolution works and why the picture of a 3,000 year-old universe with a sun revolving around the Earth is now merely amusing. Or it would be merely amusing if some ignorant self-deluded yahoos weren't try to force those whacked-out beliefs on everyone else.

 

You are a wise man joseph pakovits.

 

Well dammit, Mike, why couldn't you have made all women look like Playboy playmates? Some creator you are!

 

Florida 2000 proved that a bunch of ignorant people designed a poor ballot that could become invalid through handling, and a bunch of boobs that are afraid to ask when they don't understand something.

 

If it would make you feel better, we would call what we were doing "playing soccer."