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August 20, 2009 02:17 PM
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Evolution per se doesn't make any changes in entropy at all. The difference in order from a fish to a tetrapod to a mammal is nonexistent. A multi-cellular organism does have somewhat smaller entropy than a collection of single-celled organisms, but the entropic change is small.
The argument you're misunderstanding is that life itself is a reduction in entropy compared to the same molecules in an inorganic state. The argument is sometimes made to assert that abiogenesis (the production of life from inorganic molecules) is entropically impossible.
This is false on the face of it. Organic molecules are produced from inorganic ones all the time. Nitrogen fixation to make fertilizers happens on industrial scales, for example. This produces organic molecules from inorganic ones; they are later incorporated into your body when you eat them.
Locally, it produces a decrease in entropy, at a cost of a vast input of energy. The production of that energy requires a large increase in entropy elsewhere (e.g. when you burn coal to power the nitrogen fixation plants).
Similarly, it is not a violation of the second law of thermodynamics to produce living cells from inorganic ones, since there is an input of energy from the sun.
That doesn't mean that is what happened, necessarily. Only that yet another bit of creationist misunderstanding is temporarily and locally reduced.
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Negative entropy is something Schrödinger came up with in 1944, so it's got nothing to do with the Darwin's classic theory of evolution. I'm not even certain modern evolutionary scientists talk about it much and it sounds like something creationists are likely to get excited about more than anything else. Arguing about a 150 year old book or even 65 year old speculation by a physicist writing about an a subject he was not an expert in is an exercise in futility. There's been a lot of science conducted in the last century or so and the concept of "negative entropy" probably hasn't been a big factor.
Source(s):
http://dieoff.org/page150.htm
http://www.eoht.info/page/Negative+entropy
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Does the theory of evolution demonstrate higher levels of entropy or negative entropy?
If negative entropy, explain how?
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| August 20, 2009 05:47 PM |
The argument you're misunderstanding is that life itself is a reduction in entropy compared to the same molecules in an inorganic state. The argument is sometimes made to assert that abiogenesis (the production of life from inorganic molecules) is entropically impossible.
This is false on the face of it. Organic molecules are produced from inorganic ones all the time. Nitrogen fixation to make fertilizers happens on industrial scales, for example. This produces organic molecules from inorganic ones; they are later incorporated into your body when you eat them.
Locally, it produces a decrease in entropy, at a cost of a vast input of energy. The production of that energy requires a large increase in entropy elsewhere (e.g. when you burn coal to power the nitrogen fixation plants).
Similarly, it is not a violation of the second law of thermodynamics to produce living cells from inorganic ones, since there is an input of energy from the sun.
That doesn't mean that is what happened, necessarily. Only that yet another bit of creationist misunderstanding is temporarily and locally reduced.
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August 20, 2009 03:42 PM
In the simplest sense of "entropy = disorder," any sort of order is the opposite of entropy. So life itself leads to less entropy and more order, but, then again, so do sand dunes and clouds. Negative entropy is something Schrödinger came up with in 1944, so it's got nothing to do with the Darwin's classic theory of evolution. I'm not even certain modern evolutionary scientists talk about it much and it sounds like something creationists are likely to get excited about more than anything else. Arguing about a 150 year old book or even 65 year old speculation by a physicist writing about an a subject he was not an expert in is an exercise in futility. There's been a lot of science conducted in the last century or so and the concept of "negative entropy" probably hasn't been a big factor.
Source(s):
http://dieoff.org/page150.htm
http://www.eoht.info/page/Negative+entropy
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