Wednesday, November 05, 2008

An Artist's Hand, or Lucky Pond Scum?

6 comments:

philosoraptor said...

Styer, Daniel F. "Entropy and Evolution". American Journal of Physics. Vol 76, Number 11. November, 2008.

Science. It just works.

BallBounces said...

I'll take that as a vote for lucky pond scum.

Which presumably is also the category into which you put yourself and other human beings.

Not good for the self-esteem. But then, self-esteem is itself an absurd concept in an uncreated, morally and intellectually dark, universe.

Another one of those absurd burps of mindless evolution.

philosoraptor said...

The article calculates that the entropy flux required for *at the very least* the evolutionary rate we see is more than provided (by an order of 10^10) by the Sun.

This provides enough entropy, and self-organization and bootstrapping of nonequilibrium systems provides the rest.

BallBounces said...

That's a lot of organization from an uncaused Bang.

Anonymous said...

And you're proposing a lot of organization from an uncaused God.

A least with the science we hold the possibility of predicting what comes next.

BallBounces said...

Yes, I am. A perfectly reasonable and rational position.

OK, you tell me from science "what comes next".

And I'll tell you from the Bible.

We'll see who wins.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"