Date: Tue, 30 Apr 96 09:46:25 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: Re: Group or individual -Reply



> 
> Adam:
> >Your argument is equivalent to a chemist arguing that a chemical explanation
> >of the rise of cellular life is "impossibly contradictory". On the one hand,
> >the chemist can argue whatever they like, but the fact is, chemistry did
> >give rise to evolution. On the other hand, they are in a sense correct -
> >evolution does seem to contradict chemistry ( eg the law of entropy seems to
> >be directly contradicted ). The reality has contradictions. So what's new ?
> >
> >Adam.
> >
> >PS Sociologically, perhaps you are insisting on a Darwinian approach as
> >a reaction to the religious creationists in the US ?
> 
> Didn't see this until today. I just have to comment. Neither evolution nor
> life is a contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics (law of
> entropy). The law states that the total entropy of a *closed system* does
> not decrease with time. The entire earth is anything but a closed system.
> Certainly life is not. The entropy increase in the sun, for example, while
> evolution has been going on, vastly dwarfs any putative decrease in entropy
> in certain insignificant sectors on earth. In fact, so does the total
> entropy increase on the earth. This argument is bandied around by the
> creationists over here, but it's a bad idea to try to learn science from
> them.
> 
> Rahul
> 

Hmm. I'm not an expert, as you may have guessed.

Nor was it central to my argument, which was that different laws are required
to explain different levels of phenemona. You certainly wouldn't want to try and
explain evolution in terms of entropy, even if they don't contradict.

Nor, in general, would I be at all surprised to see laws at one level contradicted
by laws at another, even if one level was made up of many interactions at the
other.

So, I don't think it invalidates the laws of either evolution or entropy if
evolution were found to contradict the law of entropy. And when you have
calculated the amount of energy leaving the sun and arriving at the earth,
and compared this to the change in entropy, let me know. And while you're 
at it, show me a closed system.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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