minasoliman said:
Jonathan Gress said:
Actually, an open system is not sufficient for spontaneous increase in organizational complexity. You also need a program to direct the increase in complexity, and a mechanism for storing and converting the incoming energy:
“...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 scientist (evolutionist), Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58, July 7, 1980, p. 40]
Living organisms already have the energy conversion mechanisms in place, so they can take advantage of the sun's energy to grow and reproduce. Non-living things do not have such a mechanism, and therefore we do not observe them growing and reproducing.
Gene duplication and mutations occur, but none of them result in the addition of new information to the biocosm (the sum of all genetic information in the world). Observed changes involve either re-arrangement of the genetic information already present, or else the loss of such information. This includes the "evolution" of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, which takes place either by lateral transfer of genes (re-arrangement), or else some kind of degradation of the genes that happens to be beneficial in that environment, such as loss of some structural feature that the antibiotic must attach to in order to work. In other words, change does occur, but not the kind of change needed for Darwinian theory to work.
Why do you continually argue against abiogenesis? You haven't disproved evolution at all here. But just to entertain the idea I bolded from you, non-living things do change over time. Rocks change (albeit very slowly). They do however change very quickly if the environment around it is unforgiving. When chemicals work together in harmony, things start to change and happen, and change and chemistry is the central idea of life. If you take biochemistry, you understand that the basis of our life throughout all our body is all simply and basic chemistry.
And yes, it has been observed that duplication and mutations have occurred to lead to the information we have now.
http://www.evolutionfaq.com/faq/how-does-evolution-cause-increases-genetic-information-required-go-single-celled-life-complex-an
There are two interconnected reasons I am arguing against abiogenesis and Darwinian "macroevolution": firstly, Orthodox Christianity and Darwinism are dogmatically incompatible, meaning either one or the other may be true, but not both at the same time; secondly, Darwinian theory is not scientifically justified based on the observed laws of physics, which demonstrate an inexorable trend from order to disorder, and organized complexity to disorganized simplicity. Rather, it is justified on the basis of the extra-scientific, philosophical tenet of naturalism, which holds that everything MUST have a materialistic explanation, which is at least in principle discoverable by science. These observations of the current laws of nature entail that organized complexity is primordial, not accidental, and hence that we cannot account for the origins of this primitive order based on our current observations of natural processes. Thus, both science and revelation point to Creation, not evolution.
But the question you ask is not directly relevant to our discussion. I may as well ask you why you are so eager to defend abiogenesis and Darwinian evolution. Surely it can't be justified by the need to defend your faith, since there is nothing there that requires belief in evolution, but rather much that opposes it.
No one is arguing there is no change. That would be absurd. But Darwinism requires not just any sort of change. It requires change from simplicity to complexity, aided by purely natural forces, without the intervention of an extraneous intelligence. I submit that this theory is simply not justified by the observed laws of nature and contradicts the teaching of the Church.
The genetic changes resulting from duplication and point mutation result in no net gain in information in the biocosm, as I already explained. All observed point mutations involve either a degradation of the genetic code, or a back-mutation whereby the chemical degradation is reversed under the right conditions. But no mutation has been observed whereby completely new informational complexity is added to the gene. So, it is true that where a gene duplicates, and one copy undergoes a degrading mutation while the other does not, you could express that as a local increase in information: there are two genes with two different expressions in the place of one gene with one expression. But the entire store of genetic information in the biocosm has not been increased by this degradation: proto-gene A with x information has been replaced by copy B with x information and copy C with (x - y) information.
The order of the universe either maintains itself, according to the principles of its inherent design (and, as we Orthodox believe, established by the Will of God), or else it gradually decays into disorder. This is the law of corruption, as revealed to us both by scientific observation and the Word of God.
For more information on the net degradation of the genome, consult the following article:
http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp
Here is the abstract of the article:
An evaluation of DNA/RNA mutations indicates that they cannot provide significant new levels of information. Instead, mutations will produce degradation of the information in the genome. This is the opposite of the predictions of the neoDarwinian origins model. Such genome degradation is counteracted by natural selection that helps maintain the status quo. Degradation results for many reasons, two of which are reviewed here. 1) there is a tendency for mutations to produce a highly disproportionate number of certain nucleotide bases such as thymine and 2) many mutations occur in only a relatively few places within the gene called “hot spots,” and rarely occur in others, known as “cold spots.” An intensive review of the literature fails to reveal a single clear example of a beneficial information-gaining mutation. Conversely, thousands of deleterious mutations exist, supporting the hypothesis that very few mutations are beneficial. These findings support the creation origins model.