Rac:
Well, I probably shouldn't, but I suppose it isn't a dialogue if you let go unanswered a post that you disagree with scientifically.
I agree completely. That is exactly why I posted in the first place. It's not always easy to disagree without being disagreable, but it is worth a try. BTW. The
True Origins site gives some worthwhile responses to some of the "information" on the Talk Origins site you mentioned.
I've seen the claim that the second law doesn't apply made many times before by people who really should know better. I have yet to see anyone substantiate it. If you have a good example of raw energy entering an open system making that system less entropic in the absence of some mechanism to harness that energy, I'd be very interested to see it. Don't hesitate to get technical - my Ph.D. is in physics, and while thermal physics and statistical mechanics weren't my favorite courses, I did pay attention, so I should be able to follow along.
This quote says it better than I could:
"...there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated [closed] systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems ... there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself."
[ Dr. John Ross, Harvard (evolutionist), Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58, July 7, 1980, p. 40 ]
For more information on the thermodynamic issues see
This page .
There are a lot of open questions and unresolved issues attached to all of the different plate tectonics, catastrophic plate tectonics and the competing ideas. From some recent papers on the subject it seems the only thing sure about plate tectonics is that there isn't much that is sure. It is far from a simple situation.
As for speciation, the precise definition of species is somewhat vague. Sometimes it is defined in terms of reproductive isolation, and other times the definition is different, particularly with species crosses like ligers (lion and tiger) and mules, hinnies, zorse, zedonk etc. (various equus species crosses) and more. There is nothing related to creation ideas to prevent speciation - rapid variation in response to environmental conditions is
expected. See
here for more info. It seems to occur too fast for evolutionary time scales, but within fairly strict limits. We can breed dogs into Chihuahuas and Great Danes and lots of variety in between, but they're still dogs and we can't breed them into cats. The "fixity of species" idea Darwin et. al. were arguing against was more a product of Victorian-era popular religion than anything remotely biblical. (see Hunter's book, above)
Frank
