Robert S. McKee (rs_mckee at pnl.gov) wrote:
: >> Simply stated, evolution is the belief that physical systems (in this
: >> case biological systems)
: >> spontaneously through random processes organize themselves into states of
: >> higher-order. Unfortunately, this violates the entropy laws which tell
: >> us that all physical systems tend toward greater disorder.
: >> Ref: Thermodynamics With an Introduction to Thermostatistics,
: >> Herbert B. Callen, 3rd ed.
: Thanks for the complement...however, I am an engineer by education.
: I might point out the application of the laws of thermodynamics to
: OPEN systems is standard engineering practice, and has been for
: over a century...the closed system is merely a mathematical abstraction.
: All real systems are open. -- RS McKee
Never-the-less, evolution *DOES*NOT* contravene any of the laws of
thermodynamics, because:
(i) The assumption that higher life-forms have a lower entropy is simply not
true (is the entropy of an elephant lower than that of a rat ?; does an
organism become 'higher' when it empties its bowels <faeces have a high
entropy because the body has extracted a lot on energy from them>)
(ii) The assumption that evolution produces 'higher' organisms is flawed.
Evolution just produces survivors. Some of them are 'higher', some of
them are not. (It's a mistake to think of (for example) people as being
more highly evolved than microbes. They're both equally evolved (they've
both been doing it for the same total time) it's just that they found
different solutions to the question "How do we survive ?".)
(iii) Even if 'higher' organisms were of lower entropy, it still wouldn't
voilate the laws of thermodynamics. In this case all that would be
required was that the entropy of some other part of the universe was
increased by an even greater amount. (Which is the case. Many
sub-systems can be shown to have gained entropy (like all the grass the
elephant ate) but the ultimate factor is that the IR quanta which
leave the earth have a far higher entropy that the UV and visible quanta
that arrive from the sun.
Anyway, my ultimate point:
"Please don't waste our time with these *STUPID* and obviously flawed
ideas. How dare you invoke a theory which you obviously don't
understand merely in order to try and disprove another theory which
obviously don't understand (and to which it can only be applied with
great care) ?
Worse than that, how dare you do it in a newsgroup which by its very
nature caters to those who do understand (and believe) the latter
theory (so there's *NO*CHANCE* of you persuading any of them,
anyway).
I can only assume that your real intention was just to trigger a
Flame-Fest. Well done. Now go and do it somewhere else."
Badders (who won't respond to any more messages on this subject)
