Does it violate? your view please?

Question

Here is the problem: last year, the letters page in a national newspaper carried a long running story over a comment regarding the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.

The orignial comment that generated the letters was:

The theory of evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics; this is because the theory of evolution predicts increasing order over time, whereas the second law of thermodynamics predicts the opposite.

state whether you agree or disagree with the comment. Give detailed reasoning

Cheers!

Answer 1

Your premise is wrong, the theory of evolution does not state that progressive mutations must be more complex than previous generations. Yet that is not the real issue.

The real answer is that life processes are disentropic. There is nothing astonishing about this and there is no chicken and egg problem either. It just requires the application of energy (no god required).
I can't believe that theists are so stupid!

Answer 2

The second law of thermodynamics talks about entropy in a closed system. Nature is far from a closed system. Life in all its forms will generate mutations over time, of which some will provide an advantage for survival, and some don't. However, these changes don't constitute a tendency or striving for increased order.

Answer 3

Disagree, and answers above carry most of why.

But note:
Thermodynamics defines entropy [S] as integral dQ/T

Consider Earth with hot heat coming in [from sun] and colder heat going out [radiated to space]. At steady state [NOT equilibrium] where heat out = heat in, the incoming energy will have a lower entropy than the outgoing, ie, there is an opportunity to REDUCE entropy of the earth.

Of course, this is exactly what a steam engine does - takes in hot heat at the boiler, rejects cooler heat at the condenser, and produces work. Work can be used to reduce entropy.

Creation science is an oxymoron.
Karl Popper laid out one requirement for any theory, that it must be 'falsifiable', ie, that there must be some experiment that, if a particular result happens, will disprove the theory.
For example, fossil rabbits in the pre-cambrian [when life was just jelly blobs] would disprove the current picture of evolution of life on earth [JBS Haldane's example].
However, creation science denies ANY possibility of disproving the creation, so IT AIN'T SCIENCE !!!
It is just people sounding scientific using scientific jargon to befuddle the ignorant. You can put a lab coat on a jackass, but that doesn't make its braying science.
Every time I have heard someone espousing some bit of 'creation science' they have had the science WRONG, or did not understand how to apply it.

Another requirement for a theory is 'concilience', ie, the explanation of facts previously thought unrelated. The theory of gravity explained not only why the apple whapped Newton, but also the motions of the planets. Evolution explains how current life forms developed, why animals on small islands are smaller than their mainland relatives, and why bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
Creation science fails this test as well.

Any science must also be able to make accurate predictions of measurable reality [this is very close to falsifiability above], but I do not know of any predictions made by 'creation science'.

Answer 4

I will sum up the problem with this argument (as I have done before) in the form of a rap song:

"Creationists try to use thermodynamics' second law
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies:
Only in closed systems must the entropy count rise.
The Earth's not a closed system; it's powered by the Sun,
so **** the damn creationists. Doomsday, get my gun!"

Comical, but also true.

Answer 5

Life uses energy sources.
The increase in order violates no law if energy
is applied to create the increase.

Answer 6

Heheheheh... the intellectual death toll of creationism is rising. Our Mormon engineer just proved it. He forgot to read the fine print in his thermodynamics book.... the details where the text talks about system boundaries.... and that one part of a system can have falling entropy as long as the sum of the entropy in all parts of the system rises.

:-)

Answer 7

This is a no brainer for anyone who will use their brain and not rely on someone else's influence.

Nothing in nature ever has, or ever will go from chaos to order. The laws or thermodynamics do work. Those who think ancient soup turned into humans isn't thinking.

Put a pile of garbage in your front yard and it deteriorates. It does not turn into a Ferrari. No matter how long you wait!