Entropy and the immutable law of death

So that individuals aren't forced to compete with their progeny. Individuals who are forced to compete with their ancestors for resources are selected against compared to individuals whose ancestors conveniently remove themselves from competition via death.Hence, living cells undergo programmed obsolescence, a process called "apoptosis." Hence, death pre-programmed into our very genetics (telomeres.) It doesn't have anything to do with "entropy" of any kind, and everything to do with natural selection favoring the offspring of those who remove themselves from the population so that they don't steal resources from their progeny.Thermodynamics is relevant to biology - at the biochemical level. And it's known that none of the chemical life processes violate the second law - indeed, the second law makes the chemistry of life possible. Life is not in violation of thermodynamics, it exists as a result of it, as a result of thermodynamics making certain chemical reactions energetically favorable under the right circumstances.The evolution of livings things over time has nothing to do with thermodynamics, because it's not a system. Evolution is a description of what populations of living things do over time, not a description of those populations as some kind of system with input and output. Thermodynamics is irrelevant to the evolution of populations.

No, he's right. All systems, open or closed, exhibit entropy to some degree, and at any time that entropy may be increasing or decreasing. Entropy is not a property exclusive to closed systems; it is present in any system.The second law makes specific reference to isolated systems because they're the systems with the least confounding factors; in all such systems that are not already at equilibrium, entropy increases until they are.But entropy tends to increase in open systems, as well, and only decreases if the interaction of the system with the exterior reduces entropy. The universe can and does gain entropy as heat differentials are exploited to do work, and the entire universe trends inexorably towards equilibrium. Biological systems are indeed open, but again, entropy applies to such systems just as much as to any other. Indeed, its the second law of thermodynamics - the trend towards increasing entropy in all systems - that makes chemical reactions, and therefore life, possible in the first place.At least that's a Chem 109 perspective on it.

A universe at equilibrium means entropy is at a maximum. It means that no energy is available to do work. It means that all temperature differentials have equalized until the entire universe and everything in it are at the same temperature.

No, it's finite time. It has to be, according to the second law.It's possible that the universe may collapse before equilibrium is reached, but I'm not a physicist, and I'm not in touch with the current thought on that. (I think the discovery of anti-gravitational "dark energy" turns out to be enough of a prop to hold the universe open long enough to experience equilibrium, aka "heat death", but I don't know for sure.)

Evolution is actually not a thermodynamic system. Organisms are thermodynamic systems, open ones; evolution is a description of what happens to populations of such systems over time, much as the second law of thermodynamics is not itself a system but a description of what systems do.It is true that the 2nd law does not apply to evolution and represents no obstacle to it. People seem to forget that the reason this is true is not because evolution is not a closed system, but because evolution is not any kind of system at all.

Well, no. Combustion and decomposition are thermodynamic systems. Combustion in many ways is the classic thermodynamic system.Evolution isn't like either of those, because it's not a process where molecules break and form chemical bonds causing a net change in the total heat of the system.Evolution is a description of a trend in living populations. It's not a thermodynamic system, evolution doesn't take in energy and output work or heat. It's a description of a trend. Evolution doesn't have anything to do with entropy. The living populations that experience evolution are made of organisms, and organisms are thermodynamic systems, but evolution itself is no more a thermodynamic system than the Second Law of Thermodynamics itself is. Evolution is just the description of a trend we observe in living populations. It has nothing to do with the second law, except insofar as the second law represents a constraint on the living organisms that form the populations evolution influences.

The laws of thermodynamics apply to thermodynamic systems, that is, systems where heat (thermo) is changing (dynamic), hence the name.Evolution is not a thermodynamic system, any more than the Second Law is a thermodynamic system. It's a description of a trend in populations.The Second Law describes a trend of systems. Evolution describes a trend in populations. The second law no more applies to evolution than it applies to itself. The second law puts a constraint on living organisms, but it doesn't apply to populations (because populations are not thermodynamic systems) and it doesn't apply to evolution (which is a description of a trend in populations, not a thermodynamic system.)

Systems. That's why burning produces heat; it's a thermodynamic system.If combustion isn't thermodynamic, how do you explain the heat of the flame? Evolution is a description of what happens to populations of organisms. Evolution is not a mutation. Mutation of individuals is partly why it happens to populations, but the mere fact that mutations are occurring - which does represent something thermodynamic, incidentally - doesn't make evolution into a thermodynamic process, because you can't describe evolution as a function of moving heat.It's simply not possible. Yes. And evolution is a description of what happens to populations of these systems.It is not, itself, a system, not any more than the laws of thermodynamics themselves represent a system. They're a description of traits of systems. Evolution doesn't cause any changes in entropy. The changes in entropy that organisms experience are functions of metabolism. Populations of organisms experience a certain kind of change over time that is not entropic in nature, it isn't related to the movement of heat, and therefore is not a thermodynamic system.The description of that change is evolution. Evolution is not a thermodynamic system, open or closed. The evolution of organisms causes no change in entropy to any system, no movement of heat, does no work. Evolution is not a system; it's a description of a trend in populations of organisms.

Right. Why don't you think that process is thermodynamic?Why do you think evolution is thermodynamic if combustion is not?

Messages 42 and 48. From my reading you've been consistently denying that combusting fuel is a thermodynamic system. You've been insisting that it's a "process", like evolution.But it's obvious that combustion is nothing like evolution. Combustion can be modeled as the movement of heat and the use of energy to do work, and as a result, its a thermodynamic system to which the LoT all apply.Evolution is not thermodynamic, it's not a system, it can't be modeled as the movement of heat or as the use of energy to do work. Evolution doesn't do work. It's just a description of a trend in populations to change in certain ways over time.The Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply to evolution. It doesn't not apply because "evolution is an open system", it doesn't apply because evolution is not a system at all.I don't understand what about that remains unclear to you.

I don't disagree; in fact that's what I told you back in messages 41, 44, and 45.Living organisms are systems. Evolution is not a system. It's a description of what happens to populations of organisms over time, in the way that the Second Law is a description of what happens to systems over time. Do you get it? Evolution is no more a system than the Second Law is a system. They're both descriptions of things, not systems themselves.

Because you're not paying attention and not addressing my posts. Start paying attention, start addressing my posts, and that's how this discussion can move forward. So long as you're not paying attention to what I'm trying to tell you, discussion with you is impossible. Evolution is not a system. Let me just stop you right there. Evolution is not something individuals undergo. Evolution is what happens to populations as they are shaped by selection of individuals according to their traits.Evolution is not a thermodynamic process, it is a description of changes that occur on populations of organisms (not to organisms, which do not evolve.) I assure you that the combustion of a fuel such as ethyl alcohol does create measurable changes in temperature and pressure, because a combusting fuel is a thermodynamic system.Decomposition is the same way - chemical changes that result in the movement of heat. Did you read them, ever? If so how could you ever come to the conclusion that evolution is a thermodynamic system? That's why I find it so incomprehensible that you're getting it all so completely wrong. How could you not know that combustion of a fuel is a thermodynamic system, when combustion is the textbook example of a thermodynamic system?By the way, the "Crashfrog" in Crashfrog stands for "biochemistry", so believe it or not I know what I'm talking about, too.

Any of my points. Specifically, the fact that evolution can neither be described as the movement of heat nor as the use of energy to do work, which means that it is not a thermodynamic system.It's not a closed system, it's not an open system. It's not a system of any kind. It's a description of what happens to populations of organisms. That's why the Second Law doesn't apply to evolution.Why is that point so difficult for you to address? I don't need to Google when I have the textbooks right here.You know, the ones they use in those classes you apparently missed? The ones where they describe the activation energy and net enthalpy change when ethyl alcohol (for instance) is burned in the presence of oxygen to produce CO2 gas?You know, because it's a thermodynamic system. But it is not a thermodynamic one. Why is that so difficult for you to understand when I've proved that it is not, over and over again?

Do they maybe teach two different kinds of chemistry, one kind for chemgineers and one kind for biochemists?Because the H-O bond actually does break at room temperature, spontaneously, which is why pure water at 25 degrees C contains both hydronium ions (H₃O⁺) and hydroxide ions (OH^-), the H-O bond is broken, rarely, by the available heat at room temperature, in a process called "self-ionization."(The concentration of hydronium to hydroxide in pure water at 25 deg. C can be given by the expression 1.0x10^-14 = [H₃O⁺][OH^-] and that -14 exponent is the basis for the pH scale, on which most acids and basis fall within a range of 1-14 and pure water is pH 7.)

At higher room temperatures than 25 deg. C, there are greater concentrations of both ions, which proves you wrong.Temperature is a statistical property, which means that, in any substance at a certain temperature, some molecules of it have greater kinetic energy than average, and some have less than average. Arrhenius proved this, and it's why most chemical reactions display a continuous relationship between temperature and rate, rather than the discontinuous relationship one would expect from the examination of activation energies alone.Hell, I have the lab notes to prove it. Don't they teach chem engineers any chemistry at all?