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Originally posted by 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 Society
In 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.html
The 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.
You are correct dna etc is not composed of amino acids amines are used by dna to construct the protiens that drive biological functions.
I am saying that the slot put constraints on the direction of energy flow. For example the expiriment that showed loss of entropy at the micron level. The slot does not forbid the loss of entropy in isolated or open systems. This experiment qualifies at the very least as an isolated system. So it is not a true violation of slot for it to be a violation the expirement would have to show that energy flowed from a lower level to a higher level spontaneously. this was a isolated system far from equilibrium and localized entropy fluctuations are permitted. what the experimentors did was quantify the old argument between boltzmann and loschmsmidt which was what is the upper bound of the scale you would see the fluctuations on and for how long. No one is claming that this will allow for the self ordering of life from non life.
Now back to abiogenis at some point you have to say what are the minimal conditions to expect for raw elements to spontaneous combine not only form the base products of life but contribute to thier surivability long enough for the base element to under go another spontneous reaction to actually live. Since we are speculating from the standpoint of a prebiotic earth no one knows the initial conditions but it is an unworthy dodge to fall back to that as a cover when life as is here on earth presents some constaints.
1:all life is carbon based. 2. all life requires either rna or dna and amino acids. Now I agree entirely that in the prescense of catalysts the conditons can be made more favorable. To date however no one has postulated how you get both the base materials and survialbilty in such a harsh environment because in the presence of hcl h2s02 hg various minerals other reactive elements which certainly would be present on earth at this early stage there are other reactions that are far more thermodynamicaly favorable and the would destroy the base material and the catalysts. Think of our own bodies our stomachs contain very dilute hcl. Do you think that if you had the base element that form dna in our stomach along with whatever catalyst you need to spontneously form the more complex compounds do you think they would form no the hcl would destoy the bases and probably the catalyst. This is the reason slot stand in the way you cannot always say no one knows the intial conditons. But we do know the constraints that life puts on the initial conditions.
There are creationists and non creationists that know more about thermodyamics but it does not change the fact that the reactions must follow thermodynamic constraints. Until some one synthesyses dna in a lab in conditons that could reasonably be expected to have occurred on the primitive earth all you have are just so stories and woefully unrealistic experiments. But the overall path must be consistent with its laws. Taking in to account the most probable conditons on the primitive earth (given life as we know it) where is the thermodyamically consistent path that spontaneously generates the base constiutents of life make them live and provide a self replication code dna?
Abiogenis is the fly in the ointment of evolution. There would be no rehashing of these objections if you had a resonable and testable hypothesis to account for abiogenis. You have to have spontaneous generation of life from non life and this includes information coded into it so it can replicate itself otherwise it will go extinct and this all has to be thermodynamically possible.