Evolution of honeycomb design

That's a common misinterpretation of the law of entropy. What you stated applies to a closed system where energy is not permitted to enter the system.

An air conditioner or refrigerator appears to defy the law of entropy if one falsely assumes that no energy is permitted to enter the air conditioning system and if one is selectively looking at only a particular spatially local region and ignoring the other regions of the system. When looking only at the colder region where an air condition is operating, heat appears to be flowing from a colder region to a hotter region outside, apparently defying the law of entropy.

What is actually happening is that energy is being pumped into the air conditioning system as payment for a decrease in entropy that is occurring in the spatially local colder region. Some energy must be expended to make the evaporator colder than the inside room temperature and to make the condenser hotter than the outside air temperature. Heat is actually flowing from hot to cold indoors at the evaporator, consistent with the laws of physics. It's also flowing from hot to cold outside at the condenser The entropy of the universe is still increasing overall when an air conditioner is running. It just appears to be violated from the viewpoint of being indoors in a cooler room when not considering the energy being expended to make this process happen and ignoring the temperature rise that is occurring outside.

As simple experiment, you can place a window air conditioner in the middle of a room and run it for some time. The temperature of the room will rise as a result. The air conditioner doesn't create cold in violation of the laws of physics. Overall it actually makes the environment warmer and more disordered, consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.

Intelligent Design proponents like to ignore the energy that is being expended to create order in a local region and then make a false claim that tries to ascribe such order to a divine intelligent being. Those trying to use this approach to explain how an air conditioner works on an exam in a thermodynamics class won't get a very good grade on the exam.

 

Yeah, I get all that, I understand how refrigeration works, but my point had more to do with the energy that must be put into a system, as you pointed out.
I think Intelligent Design proponents argue the same thing, they agree that they order perceived is do to some input of energy, which would be consistent with your example above and the laws of thermodynamics, the dividing line would appear to be what that energy is.
That is the point of my post that I feel you missed.

 

For some reason it wouldn't let me quote you meagain but I find the comparison of and subsequent explanation involving the plums to be completely inadequate. It's 2 different phenomenons as far as I can tell. Your explanation of how the bees operate was informative but I still feel like it's just all too perfect to just 'bee' ( ). Also, I don't believe that IF there is design that it stops at just living organisms. I believe it permeates all matter (so of course there will be many enviromental examples of the seemingly magical geometry that makes up the system) and I take a further leap to say that nature is simply an expression of how the system works. I feel like It's trying to show us something.

 

Many people know how an air conditioner works technically but don't understand how the laws of thermodynamics relate to it.

You've moved the goalposts compared with your previous post. Instead of implying that some outright violation of the laws of thermodynamics is occurring, the claim is now more sketchy and implying that something mysterious is happening with the energy that is used as payment for the increase in the orderliness associated with a system, such as that the energy expended in an air conditioner to reduce entropy in a local spatial region.

Creationists have been known to use the honeycomb as an example of bees supposedly having an uncanny ability to know the math needed to make the angles to produce hexagonal cylinders. It's been shown that honeybees start with circles that transform into hexagonal shapes due to heat from the bees that softens the wax. This allows the circular shape to change naturally into a flat shape where adjacent circles meet, forming hexagons, as opposed to using intelligence to design hexagonal cells. Darwin proposed such an explanation but didn't have experimental proof at the time.

http://www.livescience.com/38242-why-honeybee-honeycombs-are-perfect.html

http://phys.org/news/2013-07-secrets-bee-honeycombs-revealed.html

http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=22288

The goalposts could be moved again by creationists, claiming that the bees have a technique of using heat that is so clever and perfect that it can only be explained by the true love of Jesus Christ. Even gravity can be explained using such an approach.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/

 

The creationist view has a recurring theme that is a response to a lack (or a perceived lack) of what could be considered a sufficient natural explanation of a phenomenon and then ascribing a divine explanation to it. In the context of science, there can be a mental laziness to such an approach, similar to that of the explanations made by Greek mythology, because it can become an answer in itself without having to delve further into using natural laws to further explain a phenomenon.

Within the context of science, it's difficult to prove or disprove divine explanations, which makes them a liability. In science, the vulnerability of an explanation to being falsified is actually an asset. Creationists like to pounce on that vulnerability of scientific explanations as if it is a liability and counter it with sketchy explanations that can't be falsified, as if that lack of ability to falsify an explanation is somehow an asset (in the context of religion, it actually is an asset).

Divine explanations are along the lines of clinging to the concept of the aether to explain relativity. The aether conspires against us in every possible way (perhaps the result of some clever intelligent being out there) that we can never measure it. Einstein argued that the mathematics without the aether are simpler and give the same results as when using the more complicated math that occurs when assuming an aether exists. In the realm of science, why not simply dispense with the aether and the divine explanations.

 

You're trying to put me in some box or label with creationists. I obviously am not one. I have my own unique ideas as you can tell. Sorry I decided to include my own intuitive thoughts about the subject. But the leaps I took, are noted, and labelled as such. So there's no point in even mentioning those.

That being said, there are some things here that are hard to argue against. Such as the complete lack of explanation for the perfection of the honeycomb design. Hexagons or circles, doesn't matter. Still completely mystifying as to how perfect they create their system. It's funny you show those links too, because now it's even MORE mystifying because they actually heat the cells in an unknown way and what is formed from that is the hexagon shape. All these different forces and elements go into the making of these things and yet somehow these little bugs with a pinhead sized brain make perfection from as far as we can record back. I guess a scientist just shrugs points to some basic natural laws and studies on how bees make the individual circular cells and goes, it just is. I can't help but wonder, how can it be? I'm just pointing out, what in my mind, is obvious. I'm not pointing to any solution, I'm really just pointing out a 'problem' and asking questions.

Now you might say that's only one example but there are so many in the animal kingdom alone. This just happens to be the one I brought up, mainly because it was the one in which proof of evolution is very likely to be or have been found.

I respectfully, ask you sir, to never imply that I am a creationist again. I will state emphatically that I came up with these thoughts on my own and not based on any goofy group. You can drop the divinity mumbo jumbo too. If you read the posts, you know that was never my angle anyway.

sidenote: Your views on intelligent design also seem to be just plain wrong and misguided. I believe the proponents believe that the dna in any particular species is a code and was designed. For instance: The bees were designed to perfection in their dna NOT that they 'know math' or are 'using intelligence to design hexagonal cells'. I find that idea .. pretty damn funny lol. No idea where the heck you read that. Anyway, like I said, I'm not for this school of thought, but I do know a little about it and figured I'd point that out.

 

I don't think so. At this point, I'm just pointing to what i think is a phenomena. I have my own intuition about possibly why it is so, but I think it would be ignorant to make the leap and say definitively that that is why. I mean, the answer could be something else that is simple, or something that is out of the scope of my current comprehension.

The obvious counter-argument to that analogy, is of course, evolution. So if we can find or do find some moderate to substantial evolution in this case, then hey, these ideas take a big hit.

 

At the moment, no. And it's not even the complexity that gets me. It's the sheer perfection of it all.

 

Good point but it's perfect because of it's strength, form, and function. I don't think there is any other way to do what they do better (within their means, that is. I mean it's not like they can craft alloys or some shit haha).

 

I just wanted to make a last note and make certain that I am clear about this: All of this could be horseshit. Maybe human science simply hasn't been able to trace wasps/bees far enough back to show evidence that there indeed was evolution. Maybe some of you guys are right, and it 'just is' and was, from the very beginning of this species (though that really doesn't sit right with me haha). I hope I didn't sound like some pompous dick and all of your contributions whether for or against were very necessary and valuable. Thanks again

 

So you are saying that your position on this topic has not evolved in any way?

 

No, it has. I definitely have more to consider now

 

i dont think that there is any evidence related to it now, i would say better stay away from such query..

 

Yea, pretty much what I came to. But if we never find evidence that it ever changed (which is likely imo)... hmm that would be interesting indeed

 

Examining the math, it turns out that 6 circles of radius R just fit around the perimeter of a circle of radius R.

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/278642/w-many-equal-circles-can-be-placed-around-a-circle

So now an unfalsifiable statement can be made that it is so fortuitous that an intelligent agent made the geometry of space-time such that six circles can be placed around another circle so that bees can make a hive with a compact arrangement of circular cells, which subsequently relax and form hexagons, so that the bees can survive.

 

A plethora of biological lifeforms have gone down a path that led to their extinction. The imperfections and failures tend to not be noticed because such lifeforms are longer around to be observed. A supposed intelligent designer must have made many mistakes.

What we currently see are the lifeforms that have been successful in surviving and reproducing, which can give the impression that an intelligent agent out there has caused what we think of as a path to success. It's like talking with cancer survivors and erroneously thinking it's a highly curable disease and that everyone is miraculously surviving, because we usually don't get a chance to talk with all the many people who died from it. It gives a false impression of perfection and success.