Batchelor's Demon

Mathematician James Clerk Maxwell famously suggested a demon which he proposed could violate the laws of thermodynamics. The demon, sitting between two rooms, controls a gate between the two rooms. When the demon sees a speedy molecule coming his way (from room A), he opens the gate and lets the speedy molecule leave the room and when he sees a slow molecule coming at the gate (from room A), he holds it closed. Oppositely, when he sees a speedy molecule coming at the gate from room B he closes the gate but when he sees a slow molecule from room B coming toward the gate he opens it. In this way, the demon segregates the fast moving molecules into one room from the slow ones in the other. Since temperature of a gas is related to the velocity of the molecules, the demon would increase the temperature of room B and cool room A without any expenditure of energy. And since a temperature difference can be used to create useful work, the demon would create a perpetual motion machine.

Maxwell's demon was shown to fail by Szilard who showed that the demon needed to use light (and expend energy) to determine a fast molecule from a slow one. This energy spent to collect information meant that the demon couldn't violate the 2nd law.

Introduction to the series: Read The Book Doug

If a Christian encounters someone who wants to discuss the bible, holds strong opinions about the bible but has never read the bible, what would we imagine the Christian's response would be? What would a rational and appropriate response be? “Hey, perhaps you should study up on the bible, huh?”

It's no different with science. You don't have to agree with every conclusion - scientists themselves can't even come to pure unity on that. This internal discord and disagreement highlights though the beauty of the scientific method – it's driven to improve the accuracy of knowledge. If you want however to knowledgeably engage on a topic (let alone hold informed opinions on the it) it only makes sense to study up on it and understand it before nailing down a position.

Yes Doug, where are the people?

In both his "Evolution, Creation and Logic" video and the accompanying text on his website, Doug dives in headfirst into a cesspool of bad population math presented with a straight face as fact. If I hadn't seen him do it so often it would be astonishing to see someone drop nonsense bombs with such ferocity onto an unsuspecting population.

Though he makes some ignorant and demonstrably horrible assumptions regarding anthropology, I'm not going to quibble with him about those this round and I'm only going to expose his assertions of truth as merely stupid bad arithmetic (and heck, it's only high school level math at best). I'm not talking about little mistakes here, as you'll see. We're talking mistakes so big that the width of a human hair is turned into tens of thousands of light years.

Converging Streams Form Raging Rivers

In this installment of the series I want to illustrate something very important in science and history -- the principle of converging evidence or “consilience” as it’s known in science. This is something Batchelor and Company use every single day, just as all humans do, and yet that group minimize, bob, weave and avoid acknowledging it with all their might when it regards the earth sciences.

While it might sound like a word from a Monty Python comedy skit, consilience says that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can converge to strengthen conclusions we make. This means that when multiple sources of evidence are in close enough agreement, the conclusion can be really strong even when the individual sources might not seem as strong individually.

But When I Became A Man, I Put Away Childish Things

I'm sure we've all struggled from time to time figuring out which things we were told as young children that we now need to let go of. The belief a young child holds in the teachings of adults has a very strong survival component after all.  If children doubted every single thing they were taught during the early years and set about to test each one, death would soon follow.  'They tell me I can't fly, but I think I'll jump out the high-rise window just to find out.'  or  'Does boiling water really blister your skin if you pour it over your head?' or "Clorox looks just like water - why not drink it?'

Eventually however, as we mature we must learn to use our intellect to test the things we were taught as children. Just as sure as survival depends on that early blind trust, human progress depends on the mature and intelligent questioning of things. 'Will my eyes get stuck if I look cross-eyed?' or 'Will cracking my knuckles actually cause arthritis?' or 'Do toads really give us warts?' or 'Am I most likely to kill myself while I'm a teenager?'.

If we never decide to check things out for ourselves and simply parrot what we were taught as kids, we'll be no better off than Doug is in this installment.

Experimental Error Does Not Mean 'Mistake' Doug

It's interesting (and frustrating) watching folk like Doug use high tech methods of distribution to ignorantly mock the scientific method. Without the scientific method of course, the high tech distribution channels he uses wouldn't even exist.  Nor would modern transportation, medicine, agriculture, shelter and infrastructure just to name a few.  A student of history will notice immediately the correlation between the growth of the scientific method and the growth of modern civilization.  Causation is also rationally inarguable.

But here's Dougie -- using his high tech platform, created wholly by the scientific method to misuse and berate the very platform upon which his ministry rests.  All in a days work for someone who talks a lot but doesn't know much.

You're Still A High School Dropout Doug

In this installment, we're going to look at the way Doug represents himself falsely to his audience as educationally credentialed in order to bolster his credibility on science topics. Additionally we're going to touch on sources with fake doctorates that he relies on. While we're on the topic, we'll address a couple other famous (infamous) SDA “scientists” who also fabricated their credentials and evidence.

I want to be clear that this installment is not about any need to have credentials to be knowledgeable or credible, but rather the seeming need for Doug and others in the YEC (Young Earth Creation) presentation crowd to exaggerate, inflate, mislead, or outright lie about their educational accomplishments.

The Bigger They're Told, The Harder They Fail

I'm upset and I'm going to vent this round. Sometimes I try to use humor to vent my frustrations regarding all the “Lying for Jesus” that happens in the YEC (Young Earth Creation) presentation crowd, but screw the humor this time – I'm just plain POd. I'm upset at the laziness (intellectual and other) and dishonesty (intellectual and other) that pervades this genre of “Christian Ministry”.

Ok, so you don't believe in the old earth or evolution – no worries. Does that give you the right to be lazy and dishonest in your “education” of others?

Stop Chasing Your Tail Doug

In this installment, we're going to address some misunderstandings and flagrant falsehoods that Doug Batchelor asserts regarding fossil dating methods. Without understanding how dating works, he considers them “circular” and parrots a very typical YEC (Young Earth Creationist) line.

Referring back to the content of the Introduction to the Series - "Read the Book Doug", this is the perfect example of attempting to comment on the book without having actually read the book.  If one has never studied the easy to follow principles of geological and faunal succession, then one really can't rationally comment on their workings or value. We'll see in this episode just how ignorant Doug is in this regard.

Dating The Earth (Part 1)

In the most recent installment of the series, I addressed the misconception of “circular dating” regarding fossils and rock layers. I said that later in the series I would get into the way rocks and fossils are actually dated and that time is now.

Besides the nonsensical and just plain made up “circular” dating system that Doug Batchelor presents, there are two sorts of dating systems you will hear about – real ones... relative and absolute. Sometimes the term “numerical dating” will be used instead of “absolute dating” and I prefer it because people get too confused by the term “absolute” and its usage in science. People tend to think that when science refers to absolute dating, it is insisting it's "absolutely right" or "exactly perfect" – that's not how it's being used. Rather “absolute” in this case means it's referenced to a number (along with its inherent experimental error) rather than referenced to another object. Let me explain:

Real Experimental Error Isn't Hard To Find Doug

In Installment # 6  - Titled:  "Experimental Error Does Not Mean 'Mistake' Doug",  we touched on the scientific usage of the term "error".  As we discovered, it's widely used to mean the difference between a measured value and an actual value and thus cannot be taken to automatically imply 'mistake' as Doug tried to do against Willard Libby, the inventor of carbon dating.  Since 'error rates', 'error ranges' and 'experimental errors' are such a critical part of science (and life), let's dig a bit deeper into that.

Coming Soon To This Series

Watch for these future installments - all inspired by Doug's "scientific" video archive.

Dendrochronology
Geologic Column
Yes, scientists argue
Numeric dating (geologic process rates)
Numeric dating (radiometric and other)
Hydrologic Sorting (or not)
KT Boundary
Index fossils
The world wide tree
Scientific predictions
More experimental errors
The law of entropy
Sharks teeth in Wyoming
Speeding to Philly
Genetics (the "good" science)
Shrinking sun
Faunal succession
Why GPS is unreliable and totally useless
More C14
The navigation game
Diamonds and coal
Salted clams
Theories, laws and just the facts
Atheist morality
Even more ...

Suggest one ...