Is evolution the only thing to contradict the Second law of Thermodynamics?

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buzsaw writes:

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The so called "laws" of physics you speak of, then are rather unproven "theories." Why? Because by actural experimentation of the true laws of physics, nothing which explodes or becomes disorganized on earth EVER becomes more structured and orderly without continuous work of intelligence.

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Let's not go off into fantasyland here. No such experiments have ever been performed - if you think otherwise then just try to find some concrete information about them. The accepted view within science is that no violation of 2LOT has ever been observed on macroscopic scales, and that life on earth came about through known, established physical processes.
  —Percipient

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It depends what you mean.There certainly are simple experiments to demonstrate how order can arise spontaneously.A common example is the Bernard cell.This is an example of a more general phenomenon. In a system (like the Earth) with a large energy flux, it is normal for dissipative structures to arise spontaneously. These are complex dynamic locally organized structures.This has a beautiful fit with the second law. The second law is that any process increases net entropy; and increasing entropy corresponds to dissipation of energy, such as flow of heat from a hot body to a cold body, which can be seen as a kind of disorganization.The Earth has an enormous flood of hot energy from the Sun, which is absorbed and radiated again as cooler energy in the infrared. Thus the Earth is helping to increase net entropy by acting to cool this radiation. Organized dissipative structures make this process more efficient. They tap into an energy flow and contribute to a more rapid gain in total entropy, while being themselves maintained in a state of local organization.A discussion of dissipative structures and the spontaneous emergence of order in far from equilibrium systems is Order Out of Chaos by Prigogine and Stengers. Prigogine won the 1977 Nobel prize in chemistry for work in thermodynamics of non-equilibrium systems.The usual response of a critic is to shift goal posts and say that the order obtained is not life. Quite right; I am not talking about life. I am refuting the claim that nothing becomes more structured and orderly without continuous work of intelligence.It is curious to see Christians defending the notion of God as some kind of agent within the world, acting within the constraints of physical law in the same way as a human intelligent designer; God acting as one process amongst many in the world.Another view for a Christian might be that God is actually the creator of all the world and all processes in the world; and that we should not see natural processes as being something different from processes performed by God. But that is not for me to say...Life shows another example of things becoming more structured and organized. A forest can grow up on bare ground and form a complex ecosystem from base materials found in soil and water and air. This occurs by seeding the ground with life, which germinates and reproduces and in the process transforms (by processes of reproduction and growth) lots of non-living matter into more life. There is no direct involvement of intelligence... unless of course you can see God's hand in the natural processes of the the world, which would mean that other natural processes also should not be seen as rejection of God's involvement.Note that the laws of thermodynamics are a physical law, about the transformation of physical systems into other physical systems. It does not apply to any changes from a parent to a child; because we do not transform the parent into the child. The child is a new organism, and is built up from what the child eats. The thermodynamic analysis would consider the change in state from a pile of baby food into a pile of baby; not a change from a parent to a child. It is simply a massive and monumental error to try and apply thermodynamics directly to evolution at all. It mistakes the nature of the transformation.On the other hand, thermodynamics *is* important in various ways. For example, life forms which are more efficient at utilizing available energy sources may be subject to positive selection, and this will tend to have an evolutionary effect. The error would be to apply thermodynamics to the change from parent to child, rather than the thermodynamic efficiency of an organism's individual life processes.The error is analogous to applying Newton's law of force and acceleration to study the increase in speed from one model of car to the next.Thermodynamics may also have an important role in the origins of life itself. The problem is how replicators got started at all. Once we have replicating systems, evolution and growth are pretty much inevitable. But how did replication get started?Prigogine has proposed that dissipative structures may have a role to play in the early formation of complex structures prior to a real molecular replication process.

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Let's not go off into fantasyland here. No such experiments have ever been performed - if you think otherwise then just try to find some concrete information about them.

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There are many way of performing the simple experiment I'm talking about. Blow up a pop bottle with a fire craker. You go from order to disorder and nothing gets more organized in the process. But an intelligent being can gather up the glass, melt it and form something orderly out of it. My point was that in the universe, it is illogical unproven theory that without the intervention and work of intelligent entity, entropy does not decrease as we see it has happened here on earth.

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The accepted view within science is that no violation of 2LOT has ever been observed on macroscopic scales, and that life on earth came about through known, established physical processes.

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I think you need to realize that many good scientists do not believe that "established physical processes" have accomplished what we see on earth without intelligence effecting it all and regulating it. Also that the established physical processes themselves simply cannot eventually cause continuous entropy as we see it on earth.

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This is the caricature you argue against, but it is not something anyone within science is claiming. The analogy is false because the Big Bang has nothing directly to do with life on earth. The Big Bang happened about 13.7 billion years ago, while life arose on earth maybe around 3.8 billion years ago.

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So you're saying if the so called big bang didn't come about 13 billion years ago, planet earth would still have come to be as it is? Yah, it appears that that's what you're implying. Of course we all know it didn't have anything directlyto do with the earth, but of course your granddaddy had nothing directly to do with you're coming to be either did he? But he did have something to do with the fact that you're here, didn't he?No, you're attempt to discredit my analogy of the tinkerman's explosion simply doesn't wash.But the other planets of our Solar System ALL attest to the fact that entropy clearly does not decrease apart from the manipulation and work of an intelligent entity. Planet earth simply can't have billions upon billions of entropic happenings as opposed to zero for the rest of the observable bodies of our Solar System without some super intelligent outside help.

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There's a lot of misunderstandings here, so it's difficult to know where to begin. If by "entropic happening" you mean a violation of 2LOT, then no "entropic happenings" are thought to have ever occurred here or anywhere. All biological processes obey 2LOT. If you think you've found an exception then name it.

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I think you know what I mean here, don't you, that entropy is decreasing here while it is not on the other open system planets.

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If you won't follow an analogy then I'll simply stop using analogies, but I'll give clarification one try. An analogy is a tool of explanation that works by placing an unfamiliar concept in a familiar context.
In my analogy the familiar context was cooking. All the things you mentioned, like who created the pot, the stove, the fuel, and so forth, are completely irrelevant to the analogy of comparing the decrease in entropy of your lunch by cooking it to the decrease in entropy of any chemical mix by heating it.

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But you, by your analogy, were trying to explain the decrease in entropy of the earth, were you not? Or did I missunderstand you?
My point in my response was that the analogy simply doesn't wash with the earth because in you kitchen your environment was controlled by intelligence. I understand you to imply the earth's decrease in entropy was by natural processes only.

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There's a lot here to comment on.

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While I agree that life on Jupiter is probably unlikely, we cannot say at this point that there is no life on Jupiter. And Europa, a volcanically active moon of Jupiter, is thought by many scientists to be the most likely body in the solar system, other than our own, to possibly harbor life (for example, see Possibility of Life on Europa). So the conclusion that all other bodies of the solar system have no life would be premature at this point.

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But let's say for the sake of argument that earth is the only planet in the solar system with life and that all other planets are lifeless. What are the implications regarding 2LOT here on earth? Would the absence of life on other planets imply that 2LOT has been violated here on earth? No, of course not. Life is simply chains of chemical processes that follow well known physical laws. If you think otherwise then merely provide an example of a biological process that violates 2LOT.

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I think part of your problem is that you don't understand that 2LOT applies to the entropy of a system. If you divide your system into two parts A and B with entropy EA and EB, then you can decrease the entropy of B by increasing the entropy of A by an equal or greater amount. If we say that the entropy at time 1 of our system is EA1+EB1, and that the entropy of at a later time 2 is EA2+EB2, then 2LOT requires that this relationship hold:

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EA1 + EB1 <= EA2 + EB2
The entropy of A and B can change over time, becoming either larger or smaller, as long as this equation is obeyed. Any decrease in entropy at B would have to be compensated for by an equal or greater increase in entropy at A. And if A is the sun and B is the earth, then this says that any decrease in entropy on the earth has to be compensated for by an equal or greater increase in entropy of the sun. Which is precisely what happens when the sun radiates huge amounts of elecromagnetic radiation into space thereby gaining huge amounts of entropy, and the earth receives a small amount of the radiation thereby losing a small amount of entropy.

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So then, why hasn't the entropy lost by the other planets by the sun's rays done anything? Imo, it because there's no cook in the kitchen, so to speak.

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You also seem confused about the role of intelligence in 2LOT. The fact of the matter is that intelligence has no role. The universe was following 2LOT long before intelligence came on the scene, and it continues to follow 2LOT.

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.........And, of course, that's where we're back to square one on cause and effect here. I believe intelligence effected it all. That, imo, takes less faith than to believe it all ever so slowly effected a reverse of 2LOT over the billions of years, because I don't think you're gonna try to tell me that planet earth would be here without the big bang first happening.

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Meteorites provide a good example of producing complexity in the absence of intelligence. Most meteorites that fall to earth contain complex organic compounds that obviously have much lower entropy than the original simple elements from which they formed. How did these compounds come about? Heat from the sun.

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LOL. The meteor was intact before it disintegrated and disorganized. So what are all the particles and compounds gonna produce if they fell on a planet void of life as the earth was at one time. The odds are overwhelming that in a billion years, nothing's gonna happen. On planet earth things are already in place to make other things happen. But the fact that the compounds of the disorganized meteor may effect what's here becomes no argument that what's here came here by things tumbling around and bumping into one another, imo.My formal education ended at the end of my third semester of university, so please pardon if I don't use the terminologies most of you folks use, Percy, but I do appreciate the time you've given to responding to my input and appreciate the priviledge of participating in the discussions here in town.
--Percy--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 03-17-2003]

And I think that it might be appropriate for you to show us the calculations that indicate that the total entropy of the earth is decreasing. For that matter, show me the calculations of the entropic balance in raising an elephant from zygote to adult. I don't think that the numbers will come out like you would prefer.

When I say entropy is decreasing on earth I'm talking about what I would call creation from the void to very complex living things. I would imagine it has been increasing since creation as far as the earth itself, except for the positive effects of man's work on the earth. Mankind is certainly not getting better overall physically, nor is the weather or the environment. That can be reversed though, imo.

1) Explain how you would measure if man is 'better' or 'worse', physically, in terms of enthopy.2) What is 'better' or 'worse' with regards to the weather and environment and how exactly would you measure this in terms of enthropy?------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

So essentially you are CALLING things a "decrease in entropy" - without knowing if in fact they are. Can you back up that claim ? Because if you cannot there is nothing to discuss.You might like to start with explaining if in your view the development and growth of a human being - from a fertilised ovum to an adult - violates the second law, and if not, why it does not.

Hi Buzsaw,As you might have already concluded from the above very brief responses from other people, there's more to 2LOT than you've yet dreamt of.One part of your misunderstanding is summed up here: To the layperson, entropy is often represented as a measure of the degree of disorder in a system, asserting that the higher the level of disorder the higher the entropy. While this definition is not incorrect, it often leads laypeople to false conclusions, such as that a tidy room has lower entropy than a disheveled one. But such thinking is far off the mark. Entropy has no concern whatsoever with human perceptions of order.You'll get much more accurate conclusions if you think of entropy at the molecular level. The types of chemical bonds and the distribution of heat within a system are much more the primary contributors to entropy, not whether those molecules happen to reside within an orderly stack of glassware or neatly folded shirts.Deducing whether entropy increases or decreases in any complex system such as a room in a house would be pure guesswork, and deterministic answers are unlikely to be possible. But just to illustrate for you how human intuition is often wrong about entropy, if we take as our system an untidy room with you in it and you work for two hours cleaning it, at the end of that two hours the entropy of the now spic-and-span room is probably higher, almost all of it due to changes in your body after all the exertion. The result of all your labors has gone mostly for naught as far as entropy, because entropy really isn't affected much by whether the socks are on the floor or in the hamper. You've picked this up from Creationist websites, and it couldn't be more untrue.It you're not going to look into the actual science behind the claims you're making, at least look at it in a rational and reasonable way. If there were really "many good scientists" out there who believe as you say, then there would be a major uproar within science right now that would be splashed across the pages of all the major news outlets and be on television and radio and Newsweek and Time. It would not be limited to quiet debates at obscure websites, it would instead be one of the most significant scientific findings of all time. *Everybody* would be talking about it. Flim-flam artists would be taking advantage of the hoopla by selling 2LOT devices for people to turn their own intellectual power into usable energy. Major laboratories around the world would be changing their focus to look into the new field. Governments would be mobilizing to be first to develop both peaceful and defense technologies based on it.But none of this is happening - because your statement is false.Entropy is impersonal. It doesn't care whether we're intelligent or not.You go wrong in other ways, too, for example: As I said above, determining whether the entropy of any complex system is increasing or decreasing is problematic. There are simply too many unmeasurable factors, and a planet is certainly an extremely complex system. Your assumption that the entropy of all planets but earth is increasing is something you haven't established. I certainly wouldn't claim to know the direction of entropic change of any of the planets, but something you might want to consider is that all planets, including the earth, are gradually cooling by radiating heat into space, that in general (but not always) the colder an object the lower the entropy, and that therefore possibly the entropy of all planets in the solar system, including earth, is decreasing.You must have misunderstood the meteorite example, because you say: We were talking about entropy, and I was giving you a "decreasing entropy in the absence of intelligence" example, not an origin of life example. Before the meteorite fell to earth it was orbiting the sun for eons where there are no kitchens or cooks, and over time some of the basic elements of the meteor like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen have combined to form complex organic molecules of lower entropy than the original elements.--Percy[Correct typo - "increasing" becomes "decreasing" in one spot. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percipient, 03-17-2003]