Post details: The Amazing World of Snowflakes

11/28/06

Permalinkby 12:43:25 pm, Categories: Books/Videos/Reviews, 235 words   English (US)

The Amazing World of Snowflakes

Cal Tech Physicist, Kenneth G. Libbrecht, maintains a very interesting website summarizing his research on snowflakes and has coauthored a book on the topic (The Snowflake: Winter’s Secret Beauty).

Snowflakes are often cited as evidence against intelligent design as examples of highly ordered structures that form naturally. Snowflakes are highly ordered and possess a somewhat complex, specified structure. While the probability of the exact conformation of each individual flake is quite low, the structure of snowflakes is the predictable result of matter obeying the laws of chemistry and physics under certain conditions. Snowflakes, then, although low-probability and specified, are also low in information, because their specification is in the laws, which are always and everywhere the same. So the formation of a snowflake is quite different from the natural formation of DNA which is highly ordered, complex, and high in information content.

Whether you think snowflakes are evidence for or against ID (where did those laws of physics and chemistry come from that cause snowflakes to form?), you will enjoy Dr. Libbrecht catalog of snowflakes and explanation of how they form, and marvel how much we still don't understand about these beautiful crystals that fall from the sky. You might also cheer that Dr. Libbrecht spends his time studying snowflakes for the pure curiosity of understanding the world around us (and not because some corporate ski resort is paying him to make more snow).

Permalink

Pingbacks:

No Pingbacks for this post yet...

In the News

July 2008
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
<<  <   >  >>
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31      

Search

Linkblog

Links - Groups and Organizations

Links - Of General Interest

  • A Brief View of Time and Those That Live There

    Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio

    Permalink
  • A Quick Guide to Sequenced Genomes Permalink
  • ARN Related Web Links Permalink
  • Creation/Evolution Quotes

    Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.

    Permalink
  • CreationEvolutionDesign

    Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.

    Permalink
  • Darwinian Fairytales by David Stove

    Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"

    Permalink
  • ID The Future

    Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.

    Permalink
  • John Mark Reynolds Blog

    A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at
    Biola University.

    Permalink
  • NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Permalink

Misc

Syndicate this blog XML

What is RSS?

powered by
b2evolution