Maxwell’s Angel: God and the Physics of Design in Life's Molecular Machines | Paul D. Ashby

The phenomenal efficiency of molecular machines doing the work of cellular function has captured the imagination of scientists from earliest times that our most powerful microscopes could explain them. Whether they are using fuel to power the chemical reactions in the cell or making an organism move, molecular machines work more efficiently than any man-made machine. And thermodynamics is the investigation into the interplay of these different forms of energy both at the macroscale and down to molecular interactions.
In this video, Dr. Paul D. Ashby argues that the field of thermodynamics needs to move into the information age to understand how design is essential for creating more efficient machines like those in the cell. Building from the simple analogy to steam engines, he walks the viewer through some principles of thermodynamics and uses the classic thought experiment of "Maxwell’s Demon" to show that information is as essential as energy to the creation of useful work. He continues with a description of a few of the enzymes involved in metabolism and the high levels of design required for their function. Lastly, he addresses the inability of an unguided natural process such as Darwinian evolution to generate the design found in nature.
OUTLINE:
1. Steam Engines and Thermodynamics
2. Maxwell’s Demon, Information and Machines
3. Efficient Molecular Machines
4. Information and Evolution
Paul D. Ashby is a Staff Scientist in the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, and a Director and Treasurer of the C.S. Lewis Society of California. He received his B.S. in chemistry Magna Cum Laude from Westmont College and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Harvard University. He is the author of over sixty scientific papers in leading peer-reviewed journals.
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[@jasonparker6138]

Very interesting discussion. I wonder about its relevance, though, in light of the groundbreaking work of Granville Sewell of the University of Texas at El Paso, one of the top mathematicians in the US, as well as a born-again Christian and author of excellent apologetics books (inspired by C.S. Lewis, no doubt). Sewell has derived a math equation (using a multivariate quantum algebra technique called partial integration--it's said only 3 people in the world can follow it) that proves there are infinitely many different entropies, one for each type of order. For example, the order present in a well-designed jumbo jet is just the negative of the jumbo-jet-entropy, and is unrelated to thermal entropy. It is merely a historical accident that thermal entropy given by the familiar formula dS = dQ/T, which measures uniformity of temperature, is the one studied by physicists like Clausius in the 1800s. Thermal entropy has little or no relevance to the type of order present in intelligently designed machines and living things. They have completely different units. But thermal entropy works well for calculating the work you can get from a steam engine, like the one in your talk.
Here is a link to one of Sewell's many peer-reviewed articles on this subject, "On Compensating Entropy Decreases" published in the highly prestigious journal _Physics Essays_
www.math.utep.edu/faculty/sewell/articles/pe_sewell.pdf
(although I highly doubt any atheist-naturalist-materialist can understand it)
A lot of people are saying that Sewell's work has completely turned the science of thermodynamics on its head. Everything scientists thought they knew about thermodynamics is either wrong or has to be rethought. This is the normal course of things. Man-made dogmas have to be questioned and even abandoned in many cases. A growing number of scientists are even questioning whether entropy is a physical concept at all, or just a man-made contrivance. Sewell himself suggests that since entropy must be defined differently for each situation (Q/T only works for thermal entropy), and is very difficult to define in some situations (evolution of life from dead matter), it is more relevant to think in terms of the underlying concept of probability. And then there is no need to consider Maxwell demons or angels. Either way, Sewell's discovery has completely undermined the atheist/marxist-liberal-globalist/materialist compensation argument, which makes the fatal logical error of equating living order/negentropy to thermal order/negentropy from the sun (again, they have different units, so they can't be the same, as should be obvious to anyone with a _modicum_ of common sense). Thus the lowly atheist is left without the slightest hope of reconciling materialist evolution with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which forbids spectacular increases of order of each individual type when only natural forces are in operation. As Thomas Eddington as memorably said, "If your theory contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can offer you no hope! It is false!" And as Dembski has also memorably said, "Materialism is toast!" Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!

[@neilenglish7433]

Interesting content; well delivered!