Evolution vs. Thermodynamics

quote:

---

Originally posted by halcyonwaters:
This isn't where people are headed with the discussion, so forgive me if I ruin anyones day.

​

From what I understand about the 2LOT, is that the same principle can be applied to things we experience directly everyday.

​

Let's say I have a deck of cards, and I begin shuffling one card at a time. What happens? Occasionally, I may move cards towards the ultimate goal of orderliness (seperated by suits, ace to king, jokers at one end, and plug for Hoyle at the other) -- but *on average* I won't be going anywhere near that. It will tend towards disorder.

​

Is that not a conclusion of the 2LOT? If not, is there another law that this relates to?

​

David

​

[This message has been edited by halcyonwaters, 08-11-2002]

---

I don’t think your understanding is quite right. Examples such as shuffled cards or marbles getting mixed up are often used to illustrate entropy and the second law especially in popular writing. However, these analogies are only analogies and it is not correct to take them completely literally. Compare mixing marbles to mixing gases for example. If I have a partioned box with equal sized partitions and with one mole of ideal gas A on one side and and one mole of ideal gas B on the other at room temperature and remove the partition mixing will occur until after a long enough time there will be A and B equally distributed throughout the box and the entropy of mixing can be calculated(deltaSmix = 2Rln2 in this case). However, if I have a partioned box full of red marbles on the one side and blue on the other and remove the partition they will not mix. If leave the box undisturbed a million years there will still be red marbles on one side and blue on the other. A similar fact is true with cards. If you leave the cards alone and don’t put in energy by shuffling them they will never get disorderedYou can find discussion of why human concepts of order and disorder do not really relate to entropy and the second law by Frank L. Lambert : Shuffled Cards, Messy Desks, and Disorderly Dorm Rooms - Examples of Entropy Increase? Nonsense! Just a moment...and by creationist physicist Doug Craigen: Entropy, Disorder and Evolution:Entropy, Disorder and EvolutionRandy

quote:

---

Allright, I think I'm following.

​

1. entropy is defined as useable energy
2. total entropy always increases in an open system

---

Not quite.1. Increasing entropy results in a reduction of the energy available to do work. In classical thermodynamics it is the interal of dQ/T where T is temperature and Q is heat.
2. Total entropy always increases in an isolated system.

quote:

---

The cards have no useable energy, only I do. When I shuffle the cards, the energy I use to do so is no longer useable. The order of the cards is irrelevant -- as they still have no useable energy to lose.

​

Is this correct? If so, I can see why it wouldn't apply to the areas of Evolution as I thought it did. If it's not 2LOT, then what natural law is it that says that randomly shuffling cards will move towards disorder?

---

I think the point is that no useable energy resides in the order of the cards. The order only means something because we assign meaning to particular suits and numbers that are painted on the cards. Cooling a deck of cards will lower its entropy and heating it will raise its entropy but neither will change its the card "order" and the energy released by burning a deck of cards will not depend on card order. As to shuffling cards leading to randomness I guess it depends on who shuffles them. I know a magician who can do several perfect shuffles in a row. IIRC there are even a few magicians who can do enough perfect shuffles to get the deck back in its original order.Randy

quote:

---

Originally posted by blitz77:
As the entropy is higher when it is warmer, that is why you have to come up with a mechanism to convert negative heat entropy into negative bond entropy.

---

Not exactly. It is why reactions that release sufficient heat can be spontaneous even though they may lead to products with lower entropy than the reactants. Delta H is negative when heat is released and long as delta H is greater than TdeltaS the reaction is spontaneous even if deltaS is also negative. The only "mechanism" you need is for the reaction to have negative free energy under the conditions where it occurs. I think we have been over this before in some detail.
Randy

quote:

---

Originally posted by blitz77:
Yes-with extremities of temperature. However, water boils at 100C, which can only be raised with the addition of solutes or higher pressure. However, higher pressure produces the opposite effect, making it even harder. So with no other "mechanism" but extremities of conditions, it invalidates many other possible starting conditions--limiting it to hydrothermal origin of life--along with all the problems it entails. If you want the negative entropy source to be the sun, you have to find a mechanism to convert light quanta energy, for heat gradient, something to convert that heat gradient energy, etc.

---

All of this has been answered before by myself and others. I suggest you look back at post #66 by Percy or any of several I and others have made on this subject. You can question the plausibility of any of the several current scenarios put forth as possible paths to abiogenesis but to claim that you can show that abiogenesis must have violated the second law is simply wrong for reasons that have been explained several times to you now. You don't know what the required reactions may have been or what sequence they may have occurred in let alone the reaction conditions where they may have occurred. Without this knowledge you can't prove that abiogenesis violated the second law. If I were really going to explain abiogenesis I might need to come up something similar to the mechanisms you describe (though your wording is a little confusing) but they really do go beyond thermodynamics. I am not trying to prove that abiogenesis occurred or how it occurred. I am only saying that you can't prove that it didn't occur naturally by using the second law. If you want to discuss how abiogenesis might have occurred, this board has a separate forum on the origin of life.
Randy

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard:
The essence of entropy from a thermodynamic standpoint is simply that the tendency of the universe is to seek the minimal energy level. This is why all forms of free energy will diffuse and why chemical bonds will only spontaneously form when they will can establish that minimal bond energy. The problem that the slot causes for evolution is that at the temperatures and pressures that are necessary for the precursors of dna and rna to survive the amino acids will not SPONTANEOUSLY form. This why abiogenisis is a problem where the origin of life is concerned. To my knowledge no expiriment has yet been perfomed that will give spontaneous development of the necesary amino acids unless enormous expirimenter interference is involved. Every abiogenis scenario postulated from the prebiotic soup to clays to hydrothermal vent and far from equilibrium thermodynamic fail either due 1: reaction is not spontaneous at the suggested temp and pressure so experimentor interference is needed. 2: the environment would destroy the amino acids at a rate that would not leave sufficient concentrations or acids to combine. 3) No mechanism is shown to account for the complex specified information that is inherent in the genetic code.

---

This has all been discussed and answered at several places on this thread, including just above. Please read posts 50, 54, 66 and 91 of this thread for discussion of points 1 and 2, and of course "experimenter interference is needed since conditions present on the prebiotic earth are no longer present in nature. As to 3, "complex specified information" is not part of thermodyanmics. This has also been discussed on this thread.I don't expect it will ever be possible to prove exactly how life arose on earth or prove that it did have a natural origin. The best that will be done is to develop scenarios that are more and more plausible. However, to prove that the second law prevented life from arising naturally you must show exactly which reactions where absolutly necessary for abiogenesis and show that there were no possible conditions on the prebiotic earth where these reactions could have occured. You don't and can't know this information therefore you can't prove that the second law prevented abiogenesis.BTW your description of entropy and the reasons for chemical bond formation are not very precise.In statistical thermodynamics the entropy may be defined as Boltzmann's constant time the log of the number of quantum states of a system with equivalent energy but this relationship only holds under very specific conditions and I don't think that anyone has yet started with statistical mechanics and derived a general statement of the second law of thermodynamics that holds in all conditions.In classical thermodynamics, where the second law is defined (though not dervided mathematically), the entropy change in a process is the integral of the differential of the heat (reversible heat flow) divided by the absolute temperature when the process is carried out in a reversible fashion. It is the sum of the changes in this quantity in a system and its surroundings that can never decrease and that must increase for the universe as a whole (system + surroundings) in any irreversible (ie real) process. In equilibrium thermodynamics the direction of a reaction is determined by the free energy change which is influenced by reaction conditions. Chemical bonds form when the enthalpy of bond formation is negative (heat is released) and is greater than the product of the reduction in entropy times the absolute temperature under the conditions of the reaction. They are trying establish "minimal bond energy" whatever that means. Reactions that are not favorable can be driven if they are coupled to other reactions that are favorable.Randy

quote:

---

Thanx for the specific posts I will go back and review.
By minimal bond energy I mean that all chemical bonds will spontaneously seek the most stable bond configuation.

---

But systems can get locked into non optimum metastable states for ever if the activation energy necessary to get back over the hump between the metastable and the equilibrium state is not supplied.

quote:

---

This is in line with the concept of entropy that says that all systems will tend toward the lowest possible enery distrbution.

---

Actually the broadest possible energy distribution may be a better way to state it.

quote:

---

Whether you are dealing with "ideal" gasses or heat engines this will always be true. The slot does hold under all circumstances there are no exceptions to this law.

---

This is true for macroscopic systems but there are deviations in microscopic systems. We have discussed this a bit before. Here are the links that were brought up then.Page not found | American Institute of Physics Abstract Linkhttp://arxiv.org/ftp/cond-mat/papers/9901/9901258.pdf

quote:

---

However it follows from the second law that in order to reverse the natural tendency work must be done to reverse this tendency.

---

Energy must be supplied true. That’s why it is fortunate that we are not dealing with an isolated system.

quote:

---

The point about expirimenter interference is that the expirementer must drive the reaction in other work is performed because amino acids will not form spontaneously. To date no one has been able to synthesize rna or dna under labratory conditons and these condition will be far more favorable than they ever woluld be on the prebiotic earth.

---

Because no one has done it to date you assume that no one will. This assumption has not been justified about other scientific studies in the past. Why are you so sure that it is now. How do you know that the conditions will be far more favorable when you don’t know what the conditions were? I do suppose that we must use more favorable conditions though since we probably don’t want to wait 100,000,000 years to see what happens.

quote:

---

As for CSI the point is that thermodynamically under the conditions that exist today and have existed for many millions of years and these are the conditions under which life has flourished.(if you believe in evolution)

---

CSI? It is well known that conditions on the prebiotic earth would have been quite different. What is your point?

quote:

---

The probablily of spontaneous coding is for all purposes zero.

---

Ah the old bogus post hoc calculation of probability. In my this really has little to do with the second law and has been answered many times before.

quote:

---

No one knows what the conditons were one the prebiotic earth

---

Exactly my point.

quote:

---

but since even the simples amino acid will be quickly annilated if conditons are too extreme you have to assume that abogenis took place under conditons close to what exists today in terms of viable tempeatures and pressure since you need the amino acids to survive long enough and in sufficient quantities to allow for self organization.

---

How do you know what I have to assume? What about the presence of temperature gradients? Macromolecules created at one temperature could diffuse to regions of lower temperature where they would be stable. What about catalysts and coupled reactions? There are far too many unknowns here to claim that you can show that the second law prevents abiogenesis. BTW since you are only talking about abiogenesis are you conceding that the second law does not prevent evolution.Randy

Richard wrote:

quote:

---

Good article but the slot still hold even here since at base the slot deals with energy transfer in other words unless the bead was temporarily at a lower energy level than the water no energy could have been xferred. I had trouble linking to the abstract I will try again later.

---

Experimental Demonstration of Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for Small Systems and Short Time Scales
G. M. Wang,1 E. M. Sevick,1 Emil Mittag,1 Debra J. Searles,2 and Denis J. Evans1
1Research School of Chemistry, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
2School of Science, Griffith University, Brisbane QLD 4111, Australia
(Received 04 March 2002; published 15 July 2002)
We experimentally demonstrate the fluctuation theorem, which predicts appreciable and measurable violations of the second law of thermodynamics for small systems over short time scales, by following the trajectory of a colloidal particle captured in an optical trap that is translated relative to surrounding water molecules. From each particle trajectory, we calculate the entropy production/consumption over the duration of the trajectory and determine the fraction of second law—defying trajectories. Our results show entropy consumption can occur over colloidal length and time scales. 2002 The American Physical SocietyIn terms of statistical mechanics the second law represents a tendency. This tendency is overwhelming with large collections of particules over long time scale but significant fluctuations can occur in smaller systems at short time scales as this paper demonstrates.

quote:

---

The slot hold true for all system closed isolated and open.

---

While the second law may hold in all macroscopic systems it is only in isolated systems that entropy must always increase as I think you know. It is also quite difficult to figure out exactly how to apply the second law in open systems that are not at least fairly close to equilibrium for the purpose of calculating entropy changes in processes. At least I think irreversible thermodynamics are a bit difficult especially at the statistical level. Maybe you don't but I do.

quote:

---

This has everything to do with the slot because dna and rna are at a higher bond energy than the individual amino acids they are made from.

---

Actually DNA and RNA are not made from amino acids at all. DNA codes for the production of amino acids through messenger RNA but DNA and RNA are of course made from nucleotides. Perhaps you should read a basic biochemistry text. I like Biochemistry by Chris Mathews and Ken van Holde but I am probably biased because I did a significant fraction of my Ph.D. research in Ken van Holde's lab many years ago.

quote:

---

what this means is it will not happen spontaneously but had to go against the energy gradient. What the slot does it it tells you is that without energy and a way to couple the energy in a useful fashion to reverse the natural tendency tranfer of energy will not happen from a higher energy level to a lower energy level.

---

What the second law says is that transformations from one equilibrium state to another equilibrium state in thermodynamically isolated systems will lead to an entropy change that is greater than or equal to zero. There are many open systems far from equilibrium that spontaneously order. Examples are the Benard Instability in viscous solutions under temperature gradients and oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction.

quote:

---

Abiogenis is an implict assumption in all evolutionary scenarios.

---

The common descent of all life on earth from previous ancestors going back to single celled organisms depends not one bit on how the first cells arose or appeared.

quote:

---

Abiogenis does because you must be able to show the intermediate spontaneous steps for the self organiztion of elements to amio acids and amino acids to dna and rna and each step must obey the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

---

As I said above DNA and RNA are not made from amino acids but that is beside the point. The formation of biopolymers involves chemical reactions. Chemical reactions will proceed if the free energy change is favorable. Unfavorable reactions can be driven if they are coupled to favorable ones. You don’t know what the reaction conditions were. You don’t know what sequence of reactions were absolutely required, how they may have been catalyzed or what reactions may have been coupled together. You don’t whether or not the currently proposed scenarios actually reflect what may have happened. Without this knowledge your arguments against abiogenesis do not and can not have the force of the second law of thermodynamics behind them. Many creationists, some of whom I expect know far more about thermodynamics than you do, understand that the second law does not prevent abiogenesis or evolution and I have given links to the web pages of a couple of them in previous posts but here they are again.http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/thermo.htmlThe page you were looking for doesn't exist (404)You are recycling arguments that have been discussed in detail in the posts that I asked you to read before.Randy
PS I had a bit of difficulty sorting out your replies from my post. Please use some way to distinguish the two and the preview function to see if it worked in the future.

Richard,You are still arguing from incredulity. Some of your arguments are worthy of discussion perhaps on the orgin of life forum. I suggest you might want to read some papers on abiogensis, perhaps in the journal Origin of Life and the Evolution of the Biosphere and maybe in some other journal. You can find them easily through medline searchs and a good college library should have them. You may find more research and hard thought in this area than you realized exists. But that is beside the point. Saying that we don't know if something happened, that we don't know how it happened if it did happen and that we may never figure out how it happened is not equivalent to saying that you can prove that it violated a fundamental law of nature if it did happen.What you have not done and cannot do is prove that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics or prove that abiogenesis could not be a natural process because it must have violated that second law. Percy and I have both explained why you haven't done either can't hope to do either in some detail.Randy