Marie Monday

lmao that's a new one to me. If you come across any nice specimens of discussions on the topic do share them; I'd actually be interested in seeing what kind of misguided thought acrobatics they use to come up with their arguments

Edit: this got me thinking and I suppose they base their argument on the fact that they've heard that entropy will eventually cause the universe to be an atom soup that is the same everywhere? Which makes them think new DNA combinations violate entropy? In that case what they don't understand is that entropy tends towards randomness, but that's not necessarily sameness. To use an example that I've been working on, if you align molecules they're all pointing in the same direction, but the randomness is reduced, so it comes at an entropy cost. The analogy with our genes is shaky at best anyway, but even if we viewed all the world's genes as a communal DNA soup, enforcing that everyone has the same DNA is actually less random and goes against the entropy principle

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Guybrush

Like any good biologist should, I've tried to fight Darwin's good fight, battling ignorance and teaching people about evolutionary theory online. I've done it in various places. The last place I did it regularly was quora. The place is ripe with religious nuts. Someone can ask an innocent question about some aspect about evolution and you can be sure to find religious idiots invading comments. They really hound any discussion on the subject.

A few classics that I see again and again:

• Conceding that sure, evolution happens on the MICRO-level, but not on the macro-level (micro/macro-evolution isn't really a thing)
• Evolution is just a theory
• Evolution would break the second law of thermodynamics
• There's no fossil evidence. Where is it?!
• There's no evidence of a species turning into a different species
• That something as complex as the eye could not have evolved due to irreducible complexity (thoroughly refuted many times and long ago)

I got a little burnt out, so I haven't been doing it as much lately (came here instead). However, next time I find one of these idiots, I'll give you a nudge

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rostasi

Why seek out people who have mental disabilities in order to have arguments with them?
(yeah, I know: irony!)

Guybrush

Sadly, even if you don't want to, you'll probably find yourself having arguments just because loud idiots show up any time something relating to evolution is discussed.

Empirically based knowledge seems to be on a downwards trend in general. I saw the Q-anon documentary on HBO. It's scary how lies, myth and conspiracy theory just seem to spread like a wildfire, especially in the US. So many people don't know what's real anymore.

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Guybrush

Though my understanding of entropy is somewhat limited, I think I can recreate our general understanding of it along with their argument like this:

Let's say the universe is only my kitchen and I want to make a cup of coffee with the important property of coffee being that it is warmer than its surroundings. To heat water, I have a stove. If I have a hot cup of coffee, its heat will evaporate into the room, heating the room ever so slightly while cooling the cup and the difference in temperature outside and inside my coffee cup will decrease. This represents an increase in entropy. That energy is still in my kitchen, but it won't help me make more coffee. To do that, I need things I can burn in my stove. So over time, as I make more coffee, more of the energy in my kitchen that is tied up in matter instead gets converted into radiation, energy which is not useful to me in terms of coffee production. Eventually, there's no more matter, only evenly distributed raditation.

Their argument then I guess would generally be that something like a plant works to decrease entropy because it takes energy carrier by photons and orders that into building carbohydrates.

So to my dumb kitchen analogy, they argue that while I make cups of coffee, I could also grow plants. The light from the stove will provide them with energy to do photosynthesis. As the plants develop into wood, I get more wood for my stove. This DECREASES entropy in my kitchen. Perhaps I could keep it running indefinitely.

HOWEVER, without going into too much detail, even if the plant can do this and even if I can keep planting them, the best plants can hope to do is slow down entropy in my kitchen ever so slightly. Entropy is still increasing and moving my kitchen towards heat death.

So I'm not sure how good this is.. sorry if I made everyone reading this a little dumber

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Marie Monday

This is certainly true, the rest of your reasoning holds too. I don't really see the link with evolution though Or are they just trying to argue that photosynthesis contradicts thermodynamics?

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Guybrush

Haha, I edited that part out again and it was the best one

They'd say evolution orders energy, not just from photosynthesis/photons, but from inorganic chemicals, into molecules like proteins and DNA, hence reduces entropy in the universe.

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Marie Monday

Yeah that's just silly. They also should keep in mind that entropy decrease is not 'forbidden' by physics: it just comes at an energy cost, which means that it does actually happen if it is compensated by a higher energy reduction as a consequence

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Guybrush

Right? That's what I always say

Thanks for your input, Marie

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