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Author | Topic: Is evolution the only thing to contradict the Second law of Thermodynamics? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Sylas Member (Idle past 5281 days) Posts: 766 From: Newcastle, Australia Joined: |
quote: It depends what you mean. There certainly are simple experiments to demonstrate how order can arise spontaneously. A common example is the Bernard cell. This is an example of a more general phenomenon. In a system (like the Earth) with a large energy flux, it is normal for dissipative structures to arise spontaneously. These are complex dynamic locally organized structures. This has a beautiful fit with the second law. The second law is that any process increases net entropy; and increasing entropy corresponds to dissipation of energy, such as flow of heat from a hot body to a cold body, which can be seen as a kind of disorganization. The Earth has an enormous flood of hot energy from the Sun, which is absorbed and radiated again as cooler energy in the infrared. Thus the Earth is helping to increase net entropy by acting to cool this radiation. Organized dissipative structures make this process more efficient. They tap into an energy flow and contribute to a more rapid gain in total entropy, while being themselves maintained in a state of local organization. A discussion of dissipative structures and the spontaneous emergence of order in far from equilibrium systems is Order Out of Chaos by Prigogine and Stengers. Prigogine won the 1977 Nobel prize in chemistry for work in thermodynamics of non-equilibrium systems. The usual response of a critic is to shift goal posts and say that the order obtained is not life. Quite right; I am not talking about life. I am refuting the claim that nothing becomes more structured and orderly without continuous work of intelligence. It is curious to see Christians defending the notion of God as some kind of agent within the world, acting within the constraints of physical law in the same way as a human intelligent designer; God acting as one process amongst many in the world. Another view for a Christian might be that God is actually the creator of all the world and all processes in the world; and that we should not see natural processes as being something different from processes performed by God. But that is not for me to say... Life shows another example of things becoming more structured and organized. A forest can grow up on bare ground and form a complex ecosystem from base materials found in soil and water and air. This occurs by seeding the ground with life, which germinates and reproduces and in the process transforms (by processes of reproduction and growth) lots of non-living matter into more life. There is no direct involvement of intelligence... unless of course you can see God's hand in the natural processes of the the world, which would mean that other natural processes also should not be seen as rejection of God's involvement. Note that the laws of thermodynamics are a physical law, about the transformation of physical systems into other physical systems. It does not apply to any changes from a parent to a child; because we do not transform the parent into the child. The child is a new organism, and is built up from what the child eats. The thermodynamic analysis would consider the change in state from a pile of baby food into a pile of baby; not a change from a parent to a child. It is simply a massive and monumental error to try and apply thermodynamics directly to evolution at all. It mistakes the nature of the transformation. On the other hand, thermodynamics *is* important in various ways. For example, life forms which are more efficient at utilizing available energy sources may be subject to positive selection, and this will tend to have an evolutionary effect. The error would be to apply thermodynamics to the change from parent to child, rather than the thermodynamic efficiency of an organism's individual life processes. The error is analogous to applying Newton's law of force and acceleration to study the increase in speed from one model of car to the next. Thermodynamics may also have an important role in the origins of life itself. The problem is how replicators got started at all. Once we have replicating systems, evolution and growth are pretty much inevitable. But how did replication get started? Prigogine has proposed that dissipative structures may have a role to play in the early formation of complex structures prior to a real molecular replication process.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
quote: There are many way of performing the simple experiment I'm talking about. Blow up a pop bottle with a fire craker. You go from order to disorder and nothing gets more organized in the process. But an intelligent being can gather up the glass, melt it and form something orderly out of it. My point was that in the universe, it is illogical unproven theory that without the intervention and work of intelligent entity, entropy does not decrease as we see it has happened here on earth.
quote: I think you need to realize that many good scientists do not believe that "established physical processes" have accomplished what we see on earth without intelligence effecting it all and regulating it. Also that the established physical processes themselves simply cannot eventually cause continuous entropy as we see it on earth.
quote: So you're saying if the so called big bang didn't come about 13 billion years ago, planet earth would still have come to be as it is? Yah, it appears that that's what you're implying. Of course we all know it didn't have anything directlyto do with the earth, but of course your granddaddy had nothing directly to do with you're coming to be either did he? But he did have something to do with the fact that you're here, didn't he? No, you're attempt to discredit my analogy of the tinkerman's explosion simply doesn't wash. But the other planets of our Solar System ALL attest to the fact that entropy clearly does not decrease apart from the manipulation and work of an intelligent entity. Planet earth simply can't have billions upon billions of entropic happenings as opposed to zero for the rest of the observable bodies of our Solar System without some super intelligent outside help.
quote: I think you know what I mean here, don't you, that entropy is decreasing here while it is not on the other open system planets.
quote: But you, by your analogy, were trying to explain the decrease in entropy of the earth, were you not? Or did I missunderstand you?My point in my response was that the analogy simply doesn't wash with the earth because in you kitchen your environment was controlled by intelligence. I understand you to imply the earth's decrease in entropy was by natural processes only. quote: So then, why hasn't the entropy lost by the other planets by the sun's rays done anything? Imo, it because there's no cook in the kitchen, so to speak.
quote: .........And, of course, that's where we're back to square one on cause and effect here. I believe intelligence effected it all. That, imo, takes less faith than to believe it all ever so slowly effected a reverse of 2LOT over the billions of years, because I don't think you're gonna try to tell me that planet earth would be here without the big bang first happening.
quote: LOL. The meteor was intact before it disintegrated and disorganized. So what are all the particles and compounds gonna produce if they fell on a planet void of life as the earth was at one time. The odds are overwhelming that in a billion years, nothing's gonna happen. On planet earth things are already in place to make other things happen. But the fact that the compounds of the disorganized meteor may effect what's here becomes no argument that what's here came here by things tumbling around and bumping into one another, imo. My formal education ended at the end of my third semester of university, so please pardon if I don't use the terminologies most of you folks use, Percy, but I do appreciate the time you've given to responding to my input and appreciate the priviledge of participating in the discussions here in town.--Percy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [This message has been edited by buzsaw, 03-17-2003]
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 756 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
I think you know what I mean here, don't you, that entropy is decreasing here while it is not on the other open system planets.
And I think that it might be appropriate for you to show us the calculations that indicate that the total entropy of the earth is decreasing. For that matter, show me the calculations of the entropic balance in raising an elephant from zygote to adult. I don't think that the numbers will come out like you would prefer.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
When I say entropy is decreasing on earth I'm talking about what I would call creation from the void to very complex living things. I would imagine it has been increasing since creation as far as the earth itself, except for the positive effects of man's work on the earth. Mankind is certainly not getting better overall physically, nor is the weather or the environment. That can be reversed though, imo.
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compmage Member (Idle past 5174 days) Posts: 601 From: South Africa Joined: |
buzsaw writes: Mankind is certainly not getting better overall physically, nor is the weather or the environment. 1) Explain how you would measure if man is 'better' or 'worse', physically, in terms of enthopy. 2) What is 'better' or 'worse' with regards to the weather and environment and how exactly would you measure this in terms of enthropy? ------------------He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. - Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
So essentially you are CALLING things a "decrease in entropy" - without knowing if in fact they are. Can you back up that claim ? Because if you cannot there is nothing to discuss.
You might like to start with explaining if in your view the development and growth of a human being - from a fertilised ovum to an adult - violates the second law, and if not, why it does not.
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Hi Buzsaw,
As you might have already concluded from the above very brief responses from other people, there's more to 2LOT than you've yet dreamt of. One part of your misunderstanding is summed up here:
buzsaw writes: Blow up a pop bottle with a fire craker. You go from order to disorder and nothing gets more organized in the process. To the layperson, entropy is often represented as a measure of the degree of disorder in a system, asserting that the higher the level of disorder the higher the entropy. While this definition is not incorrect, it often leads laypeople to false conclusions, such as that a tidy room has lower entropy than a disheveled one. But such thinking is far off the mark. Entropy has no concern whatsoever with human perceptions of order. You'll get much more accurate conclusions if you think of entropy at the molecular level. The types of chemical bonds and the distribution of heat within a system are much more the primary contributors to entropy, not whether those molecules happen to reside within an orderly stack of glassware or neatly folded shirts. Deducing whether entropy increases or decreases in any complex system such as a room in a house would be pure guesswork, and deterministic answers are unlikely to be possible. But just to illustrate for you how human intuition is often wrong about entropy, if we take as our system an untidy room with you in it and you work for two hours cleaning it, at the end of that two hours the entropy of the now spic-and-span room is probably higher, almost all of it due to changes in your body after all the exertion. The result of all your labors has gone mostly for naught as far as entropy, because entropy really isn't affected much by whether the socks are on the floor or in the hamper.
I think you need to realize that many good scientists do not believe that "established physical processes" have accomplished what we see on earth without intelligence effecting it all and regulating it. You've picked this up from Creationist websites, and it couldn't be more untrue. It you're not going to look into the actual science behind the claims you're making, at least look at it in a rational and reasonable way. If there were really "many good scientists" out there who believe as you say, then there would be a major uproar within science right now that would be splashed across the pages of all the major news outlets and be on television and radio and Newsweek and Time. It would not be limited to quiet debates at obscure websites, it would instead be one of the most significant scientific findings of all time. *Everybody* would be talking about it. Flim-flam artists would be taking advantage of the hoopla by selling 2LOT devices for people to turn their own intellectual power into usable energy. Major laboratories around the world would be changing their focus to look into the new field. Governments would be mobilizing to be first to develop both peaceful and defense technologies based on it. But none of this is happening - because your statement is false. Entropy is impersonal. It doesn't care whether we're intelligent or not. You go wrong in other ways, too, for example:
I think you know what I mean here, don't you, that entropy is decreasing here while it is not on the other open system planets. As I said above, determining whether the entropy of any complex system is increasing or decreasing is problematic. There are simply too many unmeasurable factors, and a planet is certainly an extremely complex system. Your assumption that the entropy of all planets but earth is increasing is something you haven't established. I certainly wouldn't claim to know the direction of entropic change of any of the planets, but something you might want to consider is that all planets, including the earth, are gradually cooling by radiating heat into space, that in general (but not always) the colder an object the lower the entropy, and that therefore possibly the entropy of all planets in the solar system, including earth, is decreasing. You must have misunderstood the meteorite example, because you say:
LOL. The meteor was intact before it disintegrated and disorganized. So what are all the particles and compounds gonna produce if they fell on a planet void of life as the earth was at one time...etc... We were talking about entropy, and I was giving you a "decreasing entropy in the absence of intelligence" example, not an origin of life example. Before the meteorite fell to earth it was orbiting the sun for eons where there are no kitchens or cooks, and over time some of the basic elements of the meteor like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen have combined to form complex organic molecules of lower entropy than the original elements. --Percy [Correct typo - "increasing" becomes "decreasing" in one spot. --Percy] [This message has been edited by Percipient, 03-17-2003]
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