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Re: [Phys-l] [PHYSHARE] Darwinism under attack? plus some relevant Darwin quotes



Hi all-
Treating Bob's question as an embarrassed attempt at serious inquiry, some creationists make the following physics argument against creation of life as being an evolutionary bio- chemo- physics phenomna:
If a bunch of molecules happened to get together and arrange themselves into a chunk of RNA, that would be a spontaneous lowering of entropy in the region where the RNA was formed, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. I heard Oral Roberts, or someone of that ilk, make that claim in a TV broadcast, so the next day I asked my premed non-calc physics class to critique the argument. I think that a couple of students got it right.
I'll not insult Bob by giving him the answer, which should be obvious to anyone with a grasp of elementary thermo.
Regards,
Jack


On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

OK Jack - I'll bite - How did life originate? Please explain using
physics.

Bob at PC

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Jack Uretsky
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 1:47 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] [PHYSHARE] Darwinism under attack? plus some
relevant Darwin quotes

High all-
Origin of life is emphatically a physics related topic..
Physicists Freeman Dyson and Erwin Schroedinger (some of you have
heard of
him) have written nice books about it.
Regards,
Jack

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, LaMontagne, Bob wrote:

Sorry Brian,

But I don't see how evolution explicitly comes in here. Our brains
don't
necessarily have to work differently if they are a product of either
Evolution or Creation. I do agree with spending valuable physics class
time on physics.

Bob at PC
(Emphatically not a Creationist!)

________________________________

From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of Brian
Whatcott
Sent: Sun 7/27/2008 5:20 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] [PHYSHARE] Darwinism under attack? plus some
relevant Darwin quotes



I took exception to this note, attributed to jbeyer3@AOL.COM :

After teaching physics for 26 years, I still find no use for a
discussion on evolution! It does not impact physics or most other
sciences for that matter. The last time evolution entered into a
engineering solution discussion at GE or IBM or (you name the
company) was....uh....NEVER!


Au contraire! A glance at the toolboxes in Matlab, available to
engineers at the upper reaches of GE, IBM and elsewhere,
includes such items as the Genetic Algorithm, Fuzzy Logic,
and Neural Networks, all of which owe their conception to the
wetware comparison.


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!

_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley



_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l
_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


--
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley