THE END OF EVOLUTION?

The ideas put forward in this PNAS study aren't actually inconsistent with what's being said in the Time article. The PNAS study says that genetic changes have accelerated in humans leading to more diverse populations over the last 40,000 years. The Time article is putting forward the idea that, being one interconnected society now, diversity will be reduced and new genetic innovations won't have the opportunity to spread far, being swamped by the majority.Admittedly, the PNAS study is a little confusing, as the author seems to be misrepresenting what it shows* when he talks to the press. He insists that there is no sign that human evolution is slowing down and we should expect this diversity to be increasing today; whilst also admitting that his techniques can't really track changes in the last 2,000 years. The BBC quotes him as saying there has been little flow between different regions of the world since we all spread out from Africa, but if he believes this he apparently slept through the last 500 years.*Or what I thought it showed from reading the abstract, anyway.

Yes. Heat still dissipates in a closed system and solutes still diffuse out through a solution. As others have mentioned this only applies to closed systems at equilibrium. The Earth is not a closed system. There is energy being pumped into the system. It's called sunlight. This is the reason that we have fresh water and water flowing downhill at a good clip. If you think that evolution violates the 2nd law then you should have an even larger problem with mountain streams full of fresh water.

Everything can be expressed mathematically. That's what maths does; explains things in a universal language! A French speaking person should be able to understand germ theory just as well as an English speaking person. PaulK, I'm making the connection. Evolution is based on information. Thermodynamics extends to information as Shannon pointed out. To advance the TOE we need a mathematical expression. Peepul, your reference seems like apologetics for the TOE. A law's a law, ignorance is no excuse. Find a counterexample to disprove T2ndLOTD. In this context, the information contained wihin the human genome. Whether it is decaying (homogenization) or introducing new information. The article and the National Academy of Sciences are at odds. Yes they are caffeine, they're totally at odds. As I've said Tag, systems reach equilibrium without the necessity of being closed. We don't know of a closed system. Except the universe as a whole.

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There no doubt exist natural laws, but once this fine reason of ours was corrupted, it corrupted everything. blz paskal

Look no further than Dr. T. D. Schneider's EV program. It's a computer model that simulates evolution of a DNA binding protein and a DNA binding site using Shannon information (the protein and DNA serve as the sender and receiver). He shows that the process of evolution produces Shannon information.http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/***************************************
Nucleic Acids Research, 2000, Vol. 28, No. 14 2794-2799
2000 Oxford University PressEvolution of biological informationThomas D. SchneiderHow do genetic systems gain information by evolutionary processes? Answering this question precisely requires a robust, quantitative measure of information. Fortunately, 50 years ago Claude Shannon defined information as a decrease in the uncertainty of a receiver. For molecular systems, uncertainty is closely related to entropy and hence has clear connections to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. These aspects of information theory have allowed the development of a straightforward and practical method of measuring information in genetic control systems. Here this method is used to observe information gain in the binding sites for an artificial ‘protein’ in a computer simulation of evolution. The simulation begins with zero information and, as in naturally occurring genetic systems, the information measured in the fully evolved binding sites is close to that needed to locate the sites in the genome. The transition is rapid, demonstrating that information gain can occur by punctuated equilibrium.
************************************************ Not if energy is constantly being pumped into the system as is the case with the Earth. There is a reason that the equator has been warmer than the poles for the last 4.5 billion years. If, as you say, these systems go to equilibrium then the temp at the equator should be the same as the poles.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

There is as much idiocy written about thermodynamics as quantum mechanics, and I can see that it is only increasing here... Stop reading nonsense and then regurgitating it as if you have some authority. Some of us actually understand the subject and I can assure you that the 2ndLoT is as much an obstacle to evolution as it is to the formation of snowflakes, stars, basalt columns, and the layered distribution of my cornflakes in the packet - i.e. it isn't in any way, shape, or form, and anyone with an ounce of credibility with the subject realises this. But hey, who I am to say people can't spout ignorant bullshit about hard science and make complete arses of themselves?

You're using the argument from authority. If participants in this thread will go to the trouble of making thermodynamics clear at a layperson level, then I as moderator will go to the trouble of making sure your time is not wasted.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I have had to post about this so many times I guess I should just have a blanket response.I am going to cut and paste from one website, because it has a much better response than I can give. I will then post other links. Read them. Then think about sand dunes, snowflakes and then come back and tell us if you still think it has anything to do with evolution. First
For more explanations debunking your whole line of thought see Here, Here and Here Edited by Theodoric, : Spelling, made more readable

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi, Lucy.I'm not a physicist, and my understanding of thermodynamics isn't the greatest out there. But, let me offer a few simple insights on the subject.The common creationist argument is that complexity of a system cannot increase, because this would be a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. You are extending it to information now.The problem (which has been pointed out to you) is that there are many cases where complexity can be seen to increase in the natural world. Snowflakes are a popular example: there are nice, pretty patterns that look organized, but they form through natural processes from water the evaporated into the atmosphere and condensed in clouds.In fact, according to my understanding, entropy is technically decreased by lowering the temperature. So, your generalization of the principle behind 2LoT precludes, not only evolution, but also refrigerators and air conditioners.The point I'm making here is that there are examples where your argument fails. Because your argument fails in some instances, you can't be sure it doesn't also fail in the case of evolution unless you test evolution specifically. In order to show that the argument works against evolution, you have to use case-specific evidence showing how evolution violates the 2LoT. But, so far, all you have done is present an overgeneralization of the principle, which is known to be violated by nature in some situations.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

Thank you for your detailed refutation of my argument. Would you mind explaining how they are totally at odds?To recap, one says that human evolution has increased in speed over the past 40,000 years, partly because populations were mostly isolated from one another in novel environments. The other says that the large size of and connections within the human population in the 21st century will cause diversification and change to slow.How do these two ideas come into conflict?

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PaulK, I'm making the connection.

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No, you're not. Asserting that there is a connection is not enough.

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Evolution is based on information. Thermodynamics extends to information as Shannon pointed out. To advance the TOE we need a mathematical expression

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Even if this were true (and it is not - information theory has no equivalent of the 2LoT)) it does not draw any connection between the two papers and the 2LoT.

Maybe I've lost the thread of the discussion and am misinterpreting what you're trying to say, but information theory and 2LOT have much in common. The tendency of noise to interfere with communication is not that much different conceptually from the distribution of energy tending to even out over time.--Percy

I'd tend to think that what Lucy is thinking of as the intersect is the existence of the concept of Shannon entropy, since s/he explicitly links the thermodynamic information argument to Shannon.Informational approaches certainly can be applied to thermodynamics, as in the field of Maximum entropy thermodynamics, but this doesn't mean that the 2LoT or even an informational equivalent in any way contradict any changes in information in a given genome, or local reductions in informational entropy in a given genome.TTFN,WK

Right. I can tell that Lucy doesn't understand that it doesn't matter whether you use a thermodynamic or informational approach to the problem, the answer is the same. There are no thermodynamic or informational constraints rendering it impossible for local aggregations of energy or information.Matter obeys physical laws, and people or other intelligences, being made of matter, must obey these laws, too. The presence of intelligence cannot overcome the physical laws governing our universe.--Percy

The PNAS is, well, really bad. It misrepresents earlier work and draws conclusions that cannot be supported by the data they have. I don't know anyone who works on natural selection in humans who thinks its conclusions are sound.

OK. By your definition of the 2nd LoT does a baby developing in the womb (single cell - multi cell zygote - embryo - foetus - baby) increasing in complexity as it grows violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics?Or not?If not why not?