Monday, April 12, 2010
Remember Thermodynamics?
An intelligent design argument is that the laws of nature tend to destroy rather than construct, and that this tendency toward entropy is too powerful say that evolution could be sustained long enough to be called macroevolution. Coyne says, "we easily accept that the Grand Canyon resulted from millions of years of slow, imperceptible carving by the Colorado River, even though we can't see the canyon getting deeper over our lifetime. But for some people this ability to extrapolate time for geological forces doesn't apply to evolution" (125). A logical (perhaps not infallably logical) reason for this would be the above. In fact, as stated on the cover of the AP Physics B textbook last year, delta-S-sub-universe>0, meaning the universe is always becoming more chaotic rather than more organized. How can one refute this in the case of evolution? Is there perhaps a solution related to thermodynamics? Any explanations as to how we can be at least fairly certain that the nature of nature is not so destructive as to prevent evolution would be welcome.
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Well it is true that the entropy of the universe is meant to increase, but evolution dose not defy this because in this case evolution must be considered on a smaller scale. For us to understand this body processes must be reduced to a series of reactions. There are many chemical reactions that give the appearance of creating a more "organized" universe; for example the freezing of water is actually the rearrangement of its atoms into a more ordered structure. The reason for this is because the heat released as water is said to raise the entropy of the universe. One of the fundamental laws of chemistry is that chemical reaction must cause the entropy of the universe to increase or remain constant or else the reaction will not proceed. When evolution is brought down to the atomic level it obeys this law.
ReplyDeleteBut this still levels the question of how we evolved. Evolution it self is not required to follow, thermo dynamics chemical reactions must. If simply arranging things were to decrease the entropy of the universe that placing books on a shelf would be impossible, yet we do this all the time. Evolution itself is a process in which beneficial chemical pathways are "selected" for. An organism can be looked at as a series of chemical reactions and so the reactions them selves are producing a greater entropy; evolution is not necessarily making this organism more "orderly".
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ReplyDeleteEntropy can be seen as the disorder that comes from thermodynamic reactions. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that every reaction will cause entropy to either increase or remain the same(allaboutscience.org). Mehul does a good job explaining the law of entropy. The intelligent design argument fails when we take into consideration the size of the universe compared to the Earth. According to myastrologybook.com, the Earth's diameter is 1/24th of a light second. Astronomers estimate the Universe to be 27.4 billion light years across, filled with an almost infinite amount of stars and space. The combined added entropy of every reaction on Earth would not make any significant difference to the entropy of the universe. Its like throwing an atom into the ocean. The entropy argument is invalidated because our entropy is just too small. We live in a universe of chaos and it would make sense that in such a large universe, that chaos has lead to what is apparent order.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I disagree with is Mehul's generalization of an organism as a series of chemical reactions. That is an oversimplification. Our metabolism is a combination, a web, of millions of tiny reactions. To call our metabolism "a series of chemical reactions" would be to discredit the wonder that life is.
Yeah, Mehul, I would say everything has to follow the laws of thermodynamics, and I would say evolution DOES follow the laws of thermodynamics. I agree with Eric. I was hoping someone would mention how we live right next to this huge energy supply called the sun, so that's why we are not disobeying thermodynamics. The website http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#thermo confirms this: "However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things."
ReplyDeleteThermodynamics provide a general overview of the rules, yet fluctuations occur. We live on a fluctuation called Earth. It's true that as time progresses, ON AVERAGE, the universe becomes more chaotic. Yet this rate is not constant in all places. And like my brilliant colleague Eric has said, "we live right next to this huge energy supply called the sun," which supplies us with more than enough energy. In fact, the oldest star ever recorded, HE 1523-0901, is 13.2 billion years old. Stars deliver a steady supply of energy throughout the universe until they have expired through their cycle. Over BILLIONS of years, the universe has become more chaotic as it loses energy density, yet in no way does this mean that our life on earth has to conform to this trend. Indeed, it seems as if evolution is a trend heading away from chaos, creating organisms better suited to their environments than their past counterparts. Yet let us take a step back. What exactly do we mean by "entropy?" "Gain of entropy eventually is nothing more nor less than loss of information." Personally, some scientific principles such as entropy are designed to sound extremely vague, because they are an overarching trend, not a strict rule that applies at any scale at any time and at any place. Simply, forget entropy for Earth. It's a strange concept, and we shouldn't equate Evolution as against "loss of information."
ReplyDeleteSources:
Gilbert Newton Lewis, Letter to Irving Langmuir, 5 Aug 1930. Quoted in Nathan Reingold, Science in America: A Documentary History 1900-1939 (1981), 400. Source: www.todayinsci.com
However, every single chemical reaction MUST increase the entropy of the universe or at least hold it neutral, including on Earth. I don't know of anyone claiming that the chemical reactions necessary for life do not increase entropy, but if they do, then there will have to be more discussion.
ReplyDeleteThere is some ambiguity to this. Every reaction has a overall change in entropy greater that or equal to 0, but the overall entropy is that of the whole universe; every reaction does not necessarily increase the entropy of the the products (see forming example in my previous post). Additionally if we were to take the same example and reverse it (ice melting) it would seem as though the entropy of the universe is decreasing because the room- though you wouldn't notice it- gets slightly colder as the ice melts, and when things cool down they become more ordered. The problem with looking at it this way is that while molecules of air in the room are becoming more ordered as they lose energy the water in the room is experiencing an increase in entropy greater than or equal to that of the air; essentially the entropy change in the water cancels out any decrease in the air.
ReplyDeleteBut evolution seems to defy this in the eyes of creationists. They claim that humans are so much more complex and "ordered" that the state the lifeless earth was in or more "ordered" than any of their ancestors. This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly is the simple fact that we are more "ordered" than the first cell to have evolved from chemicals, or most of its ancestors, and therefore are breaking the laws of physics. This is wrong in two ways. Firstly saying that god created us and so that is why we were originally formed doesn't make sense because it implies that time we reproduce we are breaking the laws of physics and since humans don't fall from the heavens its logical to assume that our bodies are following the laws of physics so humans can be created from preexisting cells (sperm and egg). A second refutation to this is that though evolution is creating more complex and organized patterns it can not be looked at on such a large scale. A more complex organism is not produced spontaneously it is produced through a chemical reactions that slowly build aspect of the new slightly altered organism from parts of the old. This means that as long as no reactions in the chain or reactions defy the laws of thermodynamics the creation of a organism as a whole does not. As we already no this to be true we have proof that as whole the formation of new organisms does is in fact with in the limits of thermodynamic laws.