Given the law of entropy, how do we explain evolution?

Question

The law of entropy says that over time, everything falls apart and becomes more disorganized and diffuse.

Evolution, though, is a process of increasing complexity and organization over time. How can this process be reconciled with Entropy?

Answer 1

Becauase evolution is not a process of increasing complexity. It is adaption to fit an environment. It really does not have an end goal and is brought about by environmental pressures. Some cases the species become simpler and loses functions or even organs.

Studies of entropy are applied mainly in closed systems, and even then on a molecular level. Not really applicable.

You should study a bit more on both. Here's a good start.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/entropy.html

Answer 2

Without going into the technical details, there is a slight link between these two. Evolution is getting complex, yes you are right. BUT I dont think we have even reached the Half life period. The dexterity and the complexity of the human gene is still decipherable and thats not complex at all!!

IMHO, evolution has to go for another million years before entropy can be corelated. Well by that time I wont be around to be proven wrong!!

.:Fishie:.

Answer 3

You might just as well ask: "Given the law of entropy, how can anything possibly be alive?".

The answer is that the overall triumph of entropy required by the second law of thermodynamics does not forbid entropy to decrease locally, as long as it increases in the Universe as a whole. The rather small decrease in entropy on the surface of the third planet is more than compensated by the enormous increase in entropy at the center of the Sun.

Answer 4

This argument reflects a very poor understanding of both entropy and evolution.

Over time, heat (energy) becomes increasingly diffuse and spread out.

Complexity and chaos are products of entropic diffusion of heat.
The amount of energy in the chemical bonds will generally decrease. For example when a single oxygen atom is formed, it holds more energy than a pair of oxygen atoms, although three oxygens is also an abonormally energetic state.

Another factor regarding the outcome of chemical mixing is kinetics. When a reaction occurs at a faster rate, it can lock-in and sap reactants from going to a more thermodynamically-favored reaction.

Another way to illustrate the criticism of your argument is with the following analogy:

If you were to mix a number of reactive agents which were simple compounds or pure elements, don't you think it is more likely to get increasingly complicated structures, instead of less complicated?

For a very simple example, the burning of methane in air yields carbon dioxide and hydrogen monoxide (water).

Answer 5

In the law of entropy, "organization" and "disorganization" are just referring to the total amount of usable thermal energy in a given CLOSED system. "Closed" is the key word here. A closed system means that there is no external source of thermal energy being provided. It just so happens that the earth has the sun as a source of thermal energy, so the earth is an open system - and the sun provides us with more than enough energy to sustain ourselves (and the process of natural selection).

It is more complicated than that but i will not get into it.

Answer 6

Because evolution is by natural selection which selects for the mutation that is more adapted tothe environment and gives the animal more fitness. Entropy on the grand universal scale may be but you are talking hundreds of billions of years for that.

Answer 7

These days life is powered by sunlight. The sun's entropy is increasing. Same principle your refrigerator uses -- you can increase order in a part of the system by increasing disorder elsewhere in the system.

Answer 8

Wow! That's one good question. However they are both different systems, one being 'of energy' and the other 'being a living organisms that feeds on energy'. Which in a way, is chaos because as an organism evolves to a higher trophic level, it becomes harder, as more energy is spent to consum energy.
You people need to get over evolution and the human race, evolution is a scientific theory having to do with natural selection, and gaps in the fossil record, "DUH", but that is anthropology.

Answer 9

That's a really great question! Survival of organisms can be defined as their ability to stay the way they are, i.e., organized. If they are not capable enough, then according to the law of entropy, they'll tend to move towards disorderliness, i.e., die. In order to stay organized, organisms evolve thus bettering their chances of staying that way.

Answer 10

Because evolution is a theory which has many contradictory contraversies even among evolutionist. There are holes on evey aspect of the theory - from the fossil record - to the gradualism principles as expounded by Darwin ( who by the way points out many flaws in his own theory). However it is difficult to find accurate information on these different agurments. But the more you know about them the less you will be convinced that evolution is a solid and viable theory.