barbara writes:
is it true that entropy degrades DNA over time?
I think you really mean to ask a different question, namely, does the second law of thermodynamics require that DNA degrade over time given the processes that DNA undergoes including, replication, mutation, etc.? I'm also sure that you are not talking about the DNA in a single individual, but whether DNA in progressive descendants of an individual must degrade over the sequence of generations.
First, let me point out that my last formal life science class was 9th grade biology, and that you'll probably want a better answer than mine.
I will suggest that as long as the organisms are not a closed system, it is not even inevitable that entropy for the DNA will even increase. So I suspect the answer is no, there is no requirement for DNA to degrade over time. I'm not aware of anything showing that DNA in humans has degraded compared to previous generations.
Edited by NoNukes, : minor reformat