No, unfortunately it doesn't because even though we recieve energy, there isn't this perpetual increase of emitted energy into that system. The plain fact of the matter is, anything that began does not have the same amount of usefulness as when it first derived. And what is the natural tendency for all things? Destruction, deterioration, death. Nothing circumvents this very evident law, but you allege that life is always reaching higher and higher, which is funny because your contemporaries understand that this logic runs counter to the prevailing facts about life. Therefore, taking notice of entropy is not a point that is moot. And creationists mention it for good reason.
This solar system has nothing but destruction and death to look forward to. The sun will die and our source of workable energy will be gone. Without this source of workable energy plants will not have any energy to put towards growing, without plants other animals will have no source of energy to put towards growing and the whole thing grinds to an unceremonious halt.
This will happen, the second law tells us it will. The energy that the sun gives off will not turn around and go back to the sun, it will spread throughout the universe.
However, whilst we have an abundance of workable energy coming to earth from the sun, we can put that energy to work (by definition) to have flowers grow, have animals grow and have those plants and animals create offspring.
These offspring will probably have some mutations. And here is the kicker - thermodynamics does not 'know' which mutations are beneficial to the resultant embryonic development->adult and which ones are harmful (and of course which ones do nothing of note.
That is to say, the mutations are effectively thermodynamically equal. At no point during the process of mutation does any event happen that does not result in a net increase of entropy in the universe. Entropy is constantly increasing, but this does not mean that life is degrading per se, it means the universe is.
Actually, the 'message' that the original replicators passed to their descendents has been hopelessly corrupted. It just happens that the corruptions that have happened to the original message have meant that the body that is built is better at competing within the environment it finds itself in than the first replicators.
This is the major issue that creationist's have to own up to with the thermodynamics argument. Despite it being a mathematically based science (engineering) they have been unable to show which process purported to occur by evolution are forbidden by thermodynamics. It should be fairly straightforward to do, if it were a good criticism, but it isn't. You'll often find creationists resort to using words rather than numbers. A classic sign of equivocation. Maths is harder to equivocate in - and when it is done, anyone who knows what they are talking about can explain exactly the error, and provide a corrected version.
You are right that creationist's mention it for a good reason. It sounds damn impressive to people who've never studied thermodynamics, and its easy to word the rhetoric in a way that seems to show evolution as being falsified. However, as I said, thermodynamics isn't a semantics issue, its a numbers one. Just like the law of gravity is not 'what goes up must come down' and thus we cannot ever leave the solar system without being dragged back to earth. The thermodynamics argument is as convincing as this parody of gravity - when looked at for what it is, its just that it is less easy to understand.
As you can tell, the thermodynamic argument is a thread unto itself, so its probably wise to not take it any further in this thread. If you want, I'd be happy to participate further in a thread all about thermodynamics, or you could look through all the other countless threads out there dedicated to it.
Oh, and incidentally, panspermia.org is probably not completely objective. One random site that seems entirely impartial to the debate is
this site which defines the second law in explicit terms as this:
quote:
It is impossible to extract an amount of heat QH from a hot reservoir and use it all to do work W . Some amount of heat QC must be exhausted to a cold reservoir. This precludes a perfect heat engine
quote:
It is not possible for heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer body without any work having been done to accomplish this flow. Energy will not flow spontaneously from a low temperature object to a higher temperature object.
quote:
In any cyclic process the entropy will either increase or remain the same.
What's a
cyclic process? A cyclic process is a thermodynamic process which begins from and finishes at the same thermostatic state.
There is a nice diagram to explain
here. Just to give you an idea why talking about 'winding down' and 'degrading' and 'destruction' and 'death' is a load of rhetoric gobbledygook if it is not supported with some numbers.
Take care.
This message has been edited by Modulous, Thu, 04-May-2006 06:10 PM
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