Mr Skeptic

Yes, but the heat flux goes to system B. Including a positive heat flux in your calculations means you are merging system B with system A, same as you have been doing before and just as intellectually dishonest. Unless you want to violate the first law of thermodynamics instead, the Q of system A must decrease when heat is transferred to system B. Go ahead, look at the equation The change of Q is negative for system A and temperature is positive, so necessarily the entropy of system A decreases. Don't you understand the basics of thermodynamics? It is only for system B that the change in Q is positive, and entropy increases. In system U the entropy also increases, in that case not due to a change in Q but to a change in the distribution of heat and temperature, or if you prefer because the entropy increase in B is greater than the entropy decrease in A.

Yes, that was quite a surprise for me. So who here doesn't believe the universe exists?

Hm, this suggests to me an interesting debate tactic. When someone is trying to pull a god of the gaps, let them. Imply you don't know the answer, and ask them what that means. Let them say that your not knowing is proof god exists. Then explain to them that actually you do know and that they look silly making this sort of argument. Playing along with the god of the gaps argument by trying to explain is a losing strategy, because eventually they will find something you don't know, and in any case it could waste absurd amounts of time off topic and lose ground with people who don't understand your explanations. That's what you offered as support for your claim that atheists act like the religious. I've said the same thing too, but only about some atheists. I call them religiously atheistic or evangelical atheists, depending on whether they're being dogmatic or preachy. But more importantly, that's only true of some atheists. There's plenty who don't go beyond what evidence and rationality suggests, but they're not given the spotlight.

A system that is not isolated must have inputs or outputs. If you expand the system so that it has no inputs and outputs, as you are doing, you have instead of the original system a universe. Energy can be removed from a system if it is not isolated. Entropy can be reduced in a system (just look at how the equation for total entropy depends on temperature to see that this must necessarily be true if heat can be removed from the system). You chose to ignore the inputs and outputs by changing from the system to a universe, and that is intellectually dishonest of you. I've invited you repeatedly to account for the fluxes to your heart's content, but only so long as you don't change the system in question, and you consistently change the system in question so you can ignore the fluxes. I'll define an even more specific problem that even you would be ashamed to try to change under the premise of it not accounting for the fluxes. Here goes: Consider a closed, isolated system U consisting of systems A and B. System A is 1 liter of water at 100 C at time 0, contained in a container thin enough to be negligible for the purposes of this problem. System B consists of 1000 liters of water at 0 C at time 0. There is heat transfer between systems A and B, which proceeds until equilibrium. Calculate: 1) the entropy change of system A from time 0 til equilibrium. 2) the entropy change of system B from time 0 til equilibrium. 3) the entropy change of system U from time 0 til equilibrium. As you're so fond of pointing out, the entropy of system U and of B will increase. But as I've been trying to tell you, the entropy of system A will decrease. Feel free to calculate it out if you don't believe me. And since I included for you everything you need to account for all the fluxes, instead of telling you you can do so if you like and leaving that up to you, I don't see how you can accuse me of ignoring the fluxes and keep a straight face with this one. A plant can reduce the local entropy, using sunlight as the energy source. Chemoautotrophs can do the same with chemicals. When I used PCR to copy DNA strands, I used a rather crude heat engine (by cycling the temperature) to separate the strands of DNA; in nature thermal vents can do similarly. There are many more potential sources of energy that can be used to reduce entropy. It helps to understand what entropy means though. Perhaps, but I think the problem here is his idea of what entropy means... I think he's using the probability portion of the definition taking into account the specific setup of the processes in question, which by that definition would increase always but be completely worthless, rather than using the definition scientists use. Similarly with the probability portion in the definition of information, which would likewise be a (nearly?) worthless definition. I'm also interested in your own thoughts about this. Do you think the DNA from living creatures contain information? Is there any evidence that DNA from living creatures contains information?

Starlarvae, I note you have yet to give an example of your claimed unexpressed genes needed for later evolutionary steps. You gave examples of expressed genes instead.

Or perhaps you should have written, "people taking the side of the atheist in a religious debate". How do you know whether they are in fact atheist or not, maybe they're playing the devil's advocate. And in any case, if you do make that restriction then you remove any support you offered on your position that atheists act like religious people. Are you willing to also restrict that claim to only atheists debating religion?

For the poll: An atheist is someone who does not believe in god, which could either mean simply not believing in god or believing there is no god. But to have any meaning, one must first define what this god is that they don't believe in. There are many many definitions/conceptions of what god is. See Conceptions of God for more detail: * Pantheism is the view that the Universe (Nature) and God are identical. * a powerful, human-like, supernatural being * Some comparatively new belief systems and books portray God as extraterrestrial life. Many of these theories hold that intelligent beings from another world have been visiting Earth for many thousands of years, and have influenced the development of our religions. * A posthuman God is a hypothetical future entity descended from or created by humans, but possessing capabilities so radically exceeding those of present humans as to appear godlike. One common variation of this idea is the belief or aspiration that humans will create a God entity emerging from an artificial intelligence. Another variant is that humanity itself will evolve into a posthuman God. * the deification of an esoteric, mystical or philosophical category; * the Ultimate, the summum bonum, the Absolute Infinite, the Transcendent, or Existence or Being itself; * the ground of being, the monistic substrate, that which we cannot understand, etc. * Brahman is the eternal, unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being and everything beyond in this Universe. The nature of Brahman is described as transpersonal, personal and impersonal by different philosophical schools. * any of the other definitions/conceptions of god I might have missed It would seem to me that in order to be an atheist one would have to not believe in all the conceptions of god, else an atheist would be no more atheist than a Christian, since Christians believe in one god but deny the existence of all others, but do not get called an atheist for that. But given how broad the definitions of god are, it seems to me that perhaps atheists don't exist. ----- On a separate but related note, it seems to me that "atheist" is an unacceptable label, since to properly go by that name the atheist would have to be granted the right to define god, but isn't given that right nor is necessarily even interested in it. I think that it would perhaps be better to call ourselves by what we actually believe, for example many of us that might be called "atheists" would better fit the label of "materialist". As such, the materialists have issues not with "god" whatever that is, but with all sorts of supernatural things, and so I think we should reject the label of "atheist", go by a label such as "materialist" or "naturalist" describing our actual beliefs, and call our opposition by the opposite, like the theists call us atheist we should call them "immaterialists", "amaterialists", "supernaturalists", or "anaturalists". This is better because we have issue not just with "god" whatever that means, but with all sorts of strange and unnatural beliefs like magic, and in any case these terms are more well-defined than is the concept of god.

I suspect that the majority of the atheists you've talked to, didn't respond to your theism at all. It's not like being an atheist means that they automatically care what you believe enough to try to convince you to change your mind.

OK, I edited your post to include your links and explanation.

Nope. Deleting posts can't shut people up. It just means the forum is not repeating their speech. Would you rather we redesigned the banning system so they can still submit posts but get a message that says their post is rejected? Your right to freedom of speech does not translate to infringing on our right to freedom of speech (by choosing whether to repeat your speech or not). Really, would you like it if people were allowed to paint messages on your house, or force you to repeat whatever they wanted you to repeat? Is that what you think freedom of speech is?

You don't know the difference between a system and a universe, do you? Or do you know the difference but are being intellectually dishonest? I'm rather curious.

There's a lot of tension and conflict between the Islamic world and America because [we] believe in the correct god and [they] worship the wrong one. And for those who don't really care about religion, that still carries over a bit because on average [they] mistrust and don't like [us], and vice versa. And it's not just religion, we also have different culture. And America in particular likes to meddle in other people's business, especially when other people have oil. And then America put the Taliban in power so they could kick the Russian's sorry asses for us, which probably wasn't a good idea but then we didn't want to have open conflict either. And of course the media loves the whole thing -- they try to make things as controversial as possible. And then there's the suicide bombers which we associate with Islam and are terrified of, even though they have not managed to kill more people than peanuts do. I don't think poverty and jealousy are too much of an issue directly, but indirectly it matters because it makes people more desperate. Then again, so does polygamy, which puts a whole new meaning to "all the good ones are taken". Anyhow, it is easier to convince desperate people to do desperate things.

Maybe we should start charging for our services!

Well, two things. First, your K is not very constant. Secondly, what does your formula predict for deuterium?

Your right to freedom of speech does not mean that you can force us to publish multiple copies of your speech. Nor do our forum rules forbid you from speaking freely wherever you so choose. You can even speak freely to our forum software when you are banned, all that means is that the forum software will ignore it. You can speak freely and we are not required to repeat your speech, as should be. On a different note, we are not a public carrier like a phone company. By having chosen what content we repeat on our site we become somewhat responsible for the content of our site, for example we have to take down copyright violations. A public carrier on the other hand does not interfere with the content no matter how illegal it may be, and bears no responsibility for illegal content. If we did that our website would be full of flamewars and other trash, if you could see any of that under the pile of spam.

So you found nothing wrong with what he said?

! Moderator Note The mainstream in science is what it is because it went through a trial by fire -- hundreds of attempts to disprove it, all failed. Whatever new idea you came up with does not conform to that standard, and you should not confuse our members by pretending it is. We can help you verify your idea (which like in all other science is done by trying to poke holes in it), but that should be done in its own thread not in someone else's. Explore past the boundaries if you like, but if you try exploring past the rules of this site you'll find yourself doing so elsewhere.

Try your friends or family members.

Yeah, it would be like asking whether Goldilocks is a blond who likes things "just right", or whether dragons have claws, or like whether the item in your proof by negation has the properties you say it has when doing your proof, etc. Just because you don't believe something exists doesn't mean you can't talk about its properties, nor does it mean you can't believe it has contradictory properties. Of course, if it has contradictory properties that is fine if you don't believe it exists.

You're right, we can't really believe that without some proof. In science things need to be objective and repeatable. You should find someone who's willing to experiment, and see if it works for them too. If it works for many different people, then you might become famous.

True. The correct claim here is that everything in the universe is explainable with only a material source. By Occam's Razor actively adding the extra axiom to exclude any other possibilities is inappropriate. Sure you can. There's no reason your theism has to extend to anything past creating the universe. In fact, I could be a theist and believe god is not involved whatsoever in this universe, not even its creation. But if you're not including god in an activity it is a secular activity.

Edtharan, there may be mathematical proof that evolution is possible, but that doesn't translate to mathematical proof that it actually happened. (which would be impossible to have mathematical proof for anyways). I got caught by that question too, since I assumed the question was meaningful, ie that by "certain, irrevocable proof" it meant something that was in theory possible for the most certain beliefs we have about the natural world.

What's more notable is that you have something extra. Per the problem, you need the person to (briefly) come to a complete stop at the end (he'll bounce back though). What's the kinetic energy for someone who's not moving? Now for the missing things (poorly defined problem-- teacher's fault, not yours): If you want to annoy your teacher you might want to point out that it is really difficult for a person to have their center of mass at exactly where they're jumping off. For example, the person would be higher up if he walked off than if he rolled off. I suppose the rope could be tied at waist level though. The problem isn't really clear about where the center of mass of the person is when he jumps, but you should consider that if his center of mass starts at where the rope is tied, the length the bungee cord gets stretched will be different than the length for the gravitational potential equation. Also, the center of mass of the person is important for both parts of the problem but isn't defined. For example, you'll need to know how far off the ground the center of mass is at maximum stretch. It also matters where the bungee cord is tied, since if it is tied at the feet it will need to be shorter than if it was tied at the center of mass, and also that's another difference between the height the person falls and the length the cord gets stretched.

In that case, couldn't we do that now, using rapid enough heating that the boiling water will provide enough pressure to keep the rest from boiling, at least for a few seconds? Rather pointless to terraform if you don't end up with a terraformed planet, I would think.

So then you agree that materialistic arguments are always good and fair, because you say that they are always causally adequate. Or do you disagree with yourself? Either you can prove a non-materialistic cause or to the best of our knowledge they are never necessary. You can't deny both.