…and this is a 
Entropy and evolution
Category: Evolution • Science
Posted on: November 10, 2008 12:09 PM, by PZ Myers
One of the oldest canards in the creationists' book is the claim that evolution must be false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, or the principle that, as they put it, everything must go from order to disorder. One of the more persistent perpetrators of this kind of sloppy thinking is Henry Morris, and few creationists today seem able to get beyond this error.
Remember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?" Perhaps the evolutionist can ultimately find an answer to this question, but he at least should not ignore it, as most evolutionists do.
Especially is such a question vital, when we are thinking of evolution as a growth process on the grand scale from atom to Adam and from particle to people. This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
As most biologists get a fair amount of training in chemistry, I'm afraid he's wrong on one bit of slander there: we do not ignore entropy, and are in fact better informed on it than most creationists, as is clearly shown by their continued use of this bad argument. I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example — it's obvious that the second law does not state that nothing can ever increase in order, but only that an decrease in one part must be accompanied by a greater increase in entropy in another. Two gametes, for instance, can fuse and begin a complicated process in development that represents a long-term local decrease in entropy, but at the same time that embryo is pumping heat out into its environment and increasing the entropy of the surrounding bit of the world.
It's a very bad argument they are making, but let's consider just the last sentence of the quote above.
This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
A "gigantic increase in order and complexity" … how interesting. How much of an increase? Can we get some numbers for that?
Daniel Styer has published an eminently useful article on "Entropy and Evolution" that does exactly that — he makes some quantitative estimates of how much entropy might be decreased by the process of evolution. I knew we kept physicists around for something; they are so useful for filling in the tricky details.
The article nicely summarizes the general problems with the creationist claim. They confuse the metaphor of 'disorder' for the actual phenomenon of entropy; they seem to have an absolutist notion that the second law prohibits all decreases in entropy; and they generally lack any quantitative notion of how entropy actually works. The cool part of this particular article, though, is that he makes an estimate of exactly how much entropy is decreased by the process of evolution.
First he estimates, very generously, how much entropy is decreased per individual. If we assume each individual is 1000 times "more improbable" than its ancestor one century ago, that is, that we are specified a thousand times more precisely than our great-grandparents (obviously a ludicrously high over-estimate, but he's trying to give every advantage to the creationists here), then we can describe the reduction in the number of microstates in the modern organism as:
Now I'm strolling into dangerous ground for us poor biologists, since this is a mathematical argument, but really, this is simple enough for me to understand. We know the statistical definition of entropy:
In the formula above, kB is the Boltzmann constant. We can just plug in our estimated (grossly overestimated!) value for Ω, have fun with a little algebra, and presto, a measure of the change in entropy per individual per century emerges.
Centuries are awkward units, so Styer converts that to something more conventional: the entropy change per second is -3.02 x 10-30 J/K. There are, of course, a lot of individual organisms on the planet, so that number needs to be multiplied by the total number of evolving organism, which, again, we charitably overestimate at 1032, most of which are prokaryotes, of course. The final result is a number that tells us the total change in entropy of the planet caused by evolution each second:
-302 J/K
What does that number mean? We need a context. Styer also estimates the Earth's total entropy throughput per second, that is, the total flux involved from absorption of the sun's energy and re-radiation of heat out into space. It's a slightly bigger number:
420 x 1012 J/K
To spell it out, there's about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth's entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.
This is very cool and very clear. I'm folding up my copy of Styer's paper and tucking it into my copy of The Counter-Creationism Handbook, where it will come in handy.
Styer DF (2008) Entropy and evolution. Am J Phys 76(11):1031-1033.
Life Science
Physical Science
Comments
Posted by: Sarcastro | November 10, 2008 12:18 PM
I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example...
I just point at the sun.
Posted by: gribley | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
Sarcastro is right -- the simplest rebuttal is to point out that the Second Law applies to a closed system. I don't know why creationists don't get that; probably they just hope that their target audience won't pick up on it.
That said, great post about a great topic! I'm glad the physicists (among whom I used to be numbered) are proving useful.
For those of us interested in reading the original paper, I found it here [PDF].
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
Paging Mr. Stimpson.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
All self respecting scientists know the entropy argument was bunk, but it is always nice to see some numerical values. Twelve orders of magnitude. Well, this will make the creationist argument a trillion times more silly than before, but what do they care? The entropy lie will still be repeated.
Posted by: ryanm | November 10, 2008 12:22 PM
The biggest obstacle for the cretinists seems to be, as has been stated a million times before, local vs. total decreases in entropy. If there couldn't be local decreases in entropy, then how could we ever build a bridge, skyscraper, type a letter, or do anything for that matter? Physics would be violated any time us humans tried to create complexity in this world, and surely the godbots don't think this is happening, right?
Posted by: Guy G | November 10, 2008 12:23 PM
Nice. Just last week I was wondering what sort of numbers could be applicable for the entropy argument. I must say I'm very impressed with just how big those numbers are.
Posted by: Ibid | November 10, 2008 12:24 PM
Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.
--copy pasta from mchawking.com
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 12:26 PM
One of their biggest mistakes is in confusing complexity and order.
Entropy is always increasing complexity, some of which does show up in evolution as variety (though natural selection ruthlessly hacks away at much variation). Increasing order, in fact, is not something that we see in evolution, or at least it can't be quantified as such.
Of course Granville Stewart yammers on about all this, making the factual point that the sun's input of energy doesn't mean that just anything can happen--like a PC randomly self-assembling over the time the earth has existed. Well of course that's true, but evolution is readily fueled by the sun's input.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Frasque | November 10, 2008 12:35 PM
I wonder how they account for digestion.
Posted by: raven | November 10, 2008 12:36 PM
It does? That means life is impossible.
1. Farmers supposedly plant seeds every spring. These little oblong objects put in the dirt turn into corn, wheat, and other plants which we eat, photosynthetic, self reproducing, evolving machines that turn sunlight, CO2, and water into organized matter. Obvious fairy tale.
2. Supposedly in animals and higher primates (humans), two haploid cells fuse to form a zygote. 20 years later, the zygote weighs 160 lbs and wants more money for college and plans to fuse haploid cells with some other multikilogram higher primate to make more zygotes. Another fairy tale that violates the second law and clearly impossible.
Posted by: maria | November 10, 2008 12:37 PM
If you repeat a lie enough times people will believe it. I've heard this argument refuted so often that I'm amazed that it still come up.
Thank you for writing this blog.
Posted by: Sean Carroll | November 10, 2008 12:38 PM
Darn it, that's a nice little calculation. Wish I had thought of doing it first.
It's not strictly right, as you point out, as he's trying to give the creationists every benefit. But there is a problem in identifying the "reduction in the number of microstates" from one generation to another, because it's not precisely the same degrees of freedom being re-arranged. I wonder if it's possible to fix that part up just a bit. (You'd get the same conclusion, obviously.)
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 12:41 PM
I just point at the sun.
It's probably been excerpted on FSTDT or similar (I'm too lazy to look right now), but some years ago a fundie-nutter argued the closed constraint was obviously bunk because if it was true, then the Earth violated the law because there'd have to be a gigantic source of energy somewhere, and there clearly isn't. I swear I'm not making this up...!
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 10, 2008 12:44 PM
Also: Nonequilibrium thermodynamics
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-nature-breaks-the-second-law
and also:
Natural selection for least action
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/50874678nw60t5l2/
Posted by: Matt Heath | November 10, 2008 12:45 PM
raven@10: Exactly! If you read discussions of extra-terrestrial life (say Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot) "life" is more or less defined as "that which locally pumps away entropy" (at least if we treat machines as extensions of the life forms that built them). So, for example, if we found a planet with oxygen and methane in the atmosphere, whatever was replenishing them (however odd to us) would be worth of the name "life".
Posted by: SteveM | November 10, 2008 12:50 PM
here:
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | November 10, 2008 12:50 PM
The existence of mathematics proves the existence of a mathematics-maker!!! Hah, refuted you!!!
Posted by: Simong | November 10, 2008 12:51 PM
I've never actually had a creationist try to use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. Perhaps I've only argued with a better class of nutter, 'cause all it really shows is that the person knows next to nothing about entropy. Generally, I suspect I'd take it as a good indication that any discussion was a waste of my time.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 12:52 PM
best fstdt quote evah
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 12:57 PM
SteveM, yep, that's the "argument" I was thinking of. My jaw is still bouncing off the floor…
Posted by: Xerxes | November 10, 2008 12:57 PM
This doesn't affect the argument at all, but the Earth's radiation doesn't go into the cosmic microwave background (the field of photons permeating the universe that have not interacted with anything since the universe became transparent 300ky after the Big Bang), it just goes into the generic photon background. Aliens with large infrared telescopes could observe these photons to determine the Earth's temperature and maybe get some spectral information about it. Recent experiments have used space probes to look at the Earth's radiation from far away to see if the signatures of life can be picked out. That might give us a good idea what to look for when examining exoplanets.
Posted by: genewitch | November 10, 2008 12:58 PM
way to go pz. I spit coffee out my nose at work on the "trillion times" part.
Jerk.
:-D
Posted by: Randy | November 10, 2008 12:59 PM
I am SOOOOO downloading that paper right now.
Posted by: Jim | November 10, 2008 12:59 PM
Although intended to illustrate a much different point about thermodynamics, Drexler's Engines of Creation contains an excellent counterexample to the "disorder always increases" myth, which is simple enough that even a creationist might be able to understand it:
Posted by: Pete UK | November 10, 2008 1:04 PM
In the space of a few words, he more or less accepts the validity of physics, chemistry, biology and even geology as sciences, and of course he is upholding the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the basis for his argument.
So he seems to be supporting the scientific method and (most of) its cumulative achievements. But evolution - oh no!
A bit selective, wouldn't you say?
Posted by: O-dot-O | November 10, 2008 1:09 PM
In this month's Scientific American: Does Nature Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-nature-breaks-the-second-law
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 10, 2008 1:19 PM
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saving, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 10, 2008 1:23 PM
SteveM #16,
what you might not know, is that the fruitbat who came up with that hilarious statement did manage to add some more inepsies later on, after someone pointed out that the sun was such a source of energy :
"I didn't explain why the sun doesn't count"
It doesn't get any better than this !
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 1:25 PM
READY! SET! FAIL!
Posted by: Sili | November 10, 2008 1:26 PM
Aha!
Since everything has to from order to disorder, it's perfectly natural to ice to melt! GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIE!!
Posted by: Les Lane | November 10, 2008 1:26 PM
Lack of peer review is a unifying feature of pseudosciences. In this regard creationism is indistinguishable from astrology , homeopathy, etc. Effective peer review would cause all these "fields" to quickly disappear.
Posted by: Desert Son | November 10, 2008 1:36 PM
negentropyeater at @28:
And here I was all set to suggest that the world's major theistic traditions need to go back to worshiping Ra,
Ancient Egyptian deity of the sun.
Ra Ra Ra!
Sis boom ba!
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: speedwell | November 10, 2008 1:40 PM
why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?
I seriously think this moron thinks that a tree, say, is "dead" when you cut it down. Any gardener knows that parts of a "dead" plant can be grafted or rooted, "assuming a sufficient supply...".
I get much the same level of argumentation from people who believe that you should eat bean sprouts because they are "living" food.
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 1:40 PM
negentropyeater, I'm glad I put the café down before reading that follow-up. Even so, we need a warning on those sorts of posts. Something like:
TOYIMPDTCAFCYM...
Turn Off Your Irony Meter, Put Down The Café, And Firmly Close Your Mouth...
Posted by: Curt Cameron | November 10, 2008 1:42 PM
AS IF a creationist would have any hope of understanding entropy calculations!
The simpler path would just be to point out to them that their second-law argument would also prove that an embryo could never increase in complexity to become an adult. Either their argument is flawed, or we don't exist.
Posted by: tsg | November 10, 2008 1:42 PM
This has always bothered me, too. I've always wanted to point them at a bunch of Perpetual Motion nutters and say, "these guys think thermodynamics is bunk, so there goes your argument."
Posted by: Anthony Popple | November 10, 2008 1:43 PM
I have had this debate with friends and relatives before.
I usually ask them if they know of a child who has grown into an adult. If they say yes, I tell them that their argument is therefore clearly wrong.
To be fair, the argument isn't wrong so much as it is imcomplete. A thermodynamic argument is necessarily quantitative; you haven't made the argument until you give real numbers.
Posted by: Tom | November 10, 2008 1:43 PM
Boltzmann Constant. Named after Ludwig Boltzmann I believe. My favourite scientist, way ahead of his time. A tragic story too, if you care to look it up - Wikipedia describes him well. Statistical entropy is a cool theory (if you'll excuse the nerdy pun).
Posted by: Skeletor | November 10, 2008 1:44 PM
You can also think of entropy as thermodynamic equilibrium, removing the whole disorder idea all together.
http://www.entropysite.com/entropy_isnot_disorder.html
Posted by: Kalirren | November 10, 2008 1:44 PM
Sounds like a physicist's argument to me. He's only looking at organisms, and failing to take into account all of the possible states of the biosphere = (organisms + environment).
Although if you're dealing with a creationist that has that deep of a understanding about what a system, whether open or closed, really is, then you may as well go back to pointing at the sun.
I wouldn't disseminate that paper. It's just throwing them ammunition.
Posted by: rob | November 10, 2008 1:46 PM
why did the author pick the factor of a 1000 as the ratio of the initial and final entropies? the author writes:
"I regard this as a very generous rate of evolution, but you may make your own assumption."
hmmm...let's say that the final state is ONE BILLION times as improbable!!! heh, heh, heh...(evil scientist laugh)
in the calculation, we replace 10^-3 with 10^-9 and get
k*ln(10^-9)=k(-20.7233)= 3* k(-6.91) = 3 times authors calculation.
so, by increasing the improbability factor from 1000 to 1 billion, you only change the amount of entropy flux by a factor of 3, which is still much much less than the available entropy flux on the earth.
with this in mind, one might ask oneself if there is so much entropy flux available why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams? how come evolution moves so slowly.
Posted by: Josh | November 10, 2008 1:48 PM
Link to the paper by Styer? Googling his name and the title you give only links to this page.
Posted by: Loren Petrich | November 10, 2008 1:50 PM
I once saw a similar sort of argument about William Shakespeare and the plays that he had written -- how does the entropy decrease of composing his plays compare to the entropy increase of his metabolism?
We can get a hint by considering the number of bits needed to write down his entire collective works. Project Gutenberg has a collection of his works that is a total of 5458199 bytes of plain-text file. Each byte has 8 bits, making 32749194 bits.
Entropy = k(boltzmann) * ln(2) * (number of bits) = 3*10^(-16) joules/K
-
William Shakespeare likely ate about 2000 food calories / day, which is 100 watts of energy consumption. About 20% of it would be used by his brain; that is 20 watts. His body temperature was 37 C or 98.6 F, meaning that his brain produced metabolic entropy at 0.065 (joules/K)/s.
This, a few seconds of metabolism result in an entropy gain MUCH greater than the entropy loss of all his works.
Posted by: Tom | November 10, 2008 1:50 PM
Another word about Boltzmann and then I'll shut up! From the wikipedia article:
Check him out. He is a relatively untold hero of the science story.
Posted by: G.D. | November 10, 2008 1:51 PM
Please, everyone, also take a look at this one from another science blog "Good Math, Bad Math" - an excellent piece (from an excellent blog); on information theory - which is, to put it mildly, pretty relevant to the topic:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/08/why_is_randomness_informative.php#more
Posted by: Hans | November 10, 2008 1:54 PM
Love this stuff. Reminds me of how woo-woo types love to latch on to the uncertainty principle, and bloviate endlessly and irrelevantly. But when you go back to the science, and look at the equations, you realize that not only do scientists know what they don't know, they can tell you exactly how big it is.
In the words of xkcd's author: "Science: it works, bitches"
Posted by: Darth Wader | November 10, 2008 1:58 PM
Ω, Its Greek to me
Posted by: charley | November 10, 2008 2:01 PM
These creationists imply that wherever entropy decreases God is defying physics to perform a miracle. He must be so busy building each snowflake from random water molecules, and grabbing CO2 and H2O molecules to stack into oak trees and dandelions and the like. How does he find time for managing the rest of the universe and hating gays?
Posted by: michel | November 10, 2008 2:02 PM
just the number -302, followed by the number 420 x 10^12 made me laugh out loud.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 10, 2008 2:03 PM
Link to abstract for "Entropy and Evolution" (for those who don't have access to AJP)
And here's the author's home page:
http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/index.html
Posted by: jackalopemonger | November 10, 2008 2:03 PM
blf @13:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=1073734&postcount=232
That's the source, from what I can tell. Naturally, said fundie-nutter knew all about the sun, and clarified his position thusly:
Sorry, my mistake guys, I didn't explain why the Sun doesn't count. Here is the info on that from ChristianAnswers.net:
Is Energy the Key?
To create any kind of upward, complex organization in a closed system requires outside energy and outside information. Evolutionists maintain that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not prevent Evolution on Earth, since this planet receives outside energy from the Sun. Thus, they suggest that the Sun's energy helped create the life of our beautiful planet. However, is the simple addition of energy all that is needed to accomplish this great feat?
Compare a living plant with a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a completely dead plant live?
A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to temporarily increase its order and grow and produce stems, leaves, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.
If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of Earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?
What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.
You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.
In response to Crimson King: Of course we use science to prove you wrong, but of course you just deny it. Jesus is the son of God so therefore can perform miracles. Raising from the dead is nothing short of a miracle. Creationists have their essential beliefs about God, and take those views and put them to use when they find scientific evidence. Those views more than always agree with the evidence.
Which I guess can be summarized as: if the Sun can't perform miracles and bring plants back to life, then evolution can't occur.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:04 PM
But who determined the LAW?!?!? There has to be celestial law bringer!
Posted by: Michael X | November 10, 2008 2:04 PM
I realized I was a child of the internet, when I read how much entropy we (highly overestimated!) humans cause per second as: -302 units of Just Kidding.
Is it just me? It's just me isn't it?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 2:05 PM
I wrote "Granville Stewart" in #8, when it should have been "Granville Sewell." It's hard to keep these bozos straight--especially when they're as pathetic as Granville is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: QDA | November 10, 2008 2:05 PM
To anyone that can provide some insight:
Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?
Yes, I'm a 'troll' as most of you would refer to me, but no, it's not a loaded question. A valid, respectful, insult-free response would be appreciated and I'll be on my merry little way. Thanks.
Posted by: uncle noel | November 10, 2008 2:06 PM
The 2nd Law argument is obviously bunk. I mean good lord: even condensation entails entropy reduction! But - just being the devil's advocate here - wouldn't the creationist respond that the biggest reduction in entropy occurs in going from inanimate matter to living thing? Doesn't the argument beg the question when we can't say exactly how that happened or how long it took? There seems to be a big difference in entropy between a prokaryote and a crystal. This may be a different issue than the one of whether evolution can occur, but it is related.
The 2nd Law argument is also used to "refute" the Big Bang theory. Again, it is the initial state that is tricky. "Let there be light" is not too different a theory. I mean, except for God and stuff.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:06 PM
did you see me lay down the law?!!!
I am the law giver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghANtP1JPPg
Posted by: templewhore | November 10, 2008 2:09 PM
Science and math make me very happy.
Posted by: Sili | November 10, 2008 2:10 PM
QDA,
No. Or no, if that's your poison.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:13 PM
Nope QDA. Plenty of people accept the fact of evolution without ever giving up their superstitions. They just usually fold evolution into whatever "sacred" beliefs they have. The biblical story of "creation" is just so silly, how could they not?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 2:13 PM
Certainly not, at least not without the rest of science providing the same "agnostic" message as evolution does.
Evolutionary science simply fails to support the claim that God exists, along with the other divisions of science.
If, say, meteorology indicated a rational mind behind weather, the silence of evolution would do nothing to gainsay the evidence provided by meteorology. Likewise with cosmology.
The only reason evolutionary theory is supposed to be especially contrary to the idea of God is that religious folk have held onto life as "proof" of God in a more central manner, and for longer, than they claimed, for instance, that the weather was due to God/the gods. Then came Darwin, and he was blamed for "God's death," when theist Newton is at least as responsible--not least because evolution brings biology into the same realm of causation as the "celestial spheres" are, hence it is basically the extension of classical physics (with a smatter of QM) into biology.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 2:15 PM
No it says nothing about it. Now reaching that conclusion after understanding and accepting the validity of the Theory of Evolution and weighing it with a multitude of other bits of data, that's another thing.
your millage may vary.
Posted by: oldtree | November 10, 2008 2:16 PM
I would expect a correlation with time. The lack of a timepiece may be causing the person some distress. Entropy may look like decay to someone out of time.
Posted by: The Chemist | November 10, 2008 2:21 PM
Ha! I was just working an entropy problem before I came here, and I was earnestly thinking about evolution in the same context.
Quite stealing my thoughts PZ! My tinfoil hat shall defeat you!
Posted by: Greg R. | November 10, 2008 2:22 PM
PeteUK
Ah, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a LAW, created by God, while the theory of evolution is merely a theory, created by man. Fixed.
Posted by: Epikt | November 10, 2008 2:28 PM
Tom:
In (IIRC) Goodstein's graduate text on stat mech, there's a nice riff to the effect that the study of this stuff induces depression. It describes Boltzmann's work on the subject and his subsequent suicide. Ditto for Paul Ehrenfest. Then, to encourage the student, there's something like "Now it's our turn to study statistical mechanics."
Posted by: Lee Picton | November 10, 2008 2:35 PM
Sigh. I don't get the math (never having gotten past high school third year algebra), but then, I have the security of relying on experts who know what they are talking about. Having some expertise in other fields prompts me to mention that minuscule is spelled minuscule. You're welcome.
Posted by: Christian A. | November 10, 2008 2:40 PM
I am i bit annoyed I did not look into Pharyngula earlier today. That awesomestnerd bit is really the bestest quote evar!!!!!1!one It's a bit like a bullet stuck in my skull. I *feel* that quote from time to time moving in my head, especially when someone mentions evolution and entropy. It's a highlight of ignorance, kind like ignoring a bat when hit by it.
Posted by: tsg | November 10, 2008 2:42 PM
No, but it is one less thing for which god is needed as an explanation.
Posted by: Travis | November 10, 2008 2:45 PM
Suddenly I feel a song coming on
http://www.imeem.com/joshgreenslade/music/-EvoJAbV/flanders_and_swann_first_and_second_law/
Yeah - that's entropy, man!
Posted by: Randy Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer | November 10, 2008 2:47 PM
Hi Rev a #3,
Thanks for the page. Looks like I got back from vacation just in time. I am at work right now so my comment will be brief. Consider this strawman statement:
Of course creationists understand that entropy can decrease. We also understand that the earth is not a closed system. Some of us are even smart enough to wear sunscreen to reduce our risk of skin cancer.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 2:51 PM
Exactly! Here we can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.
I mean, I can see how the creotard idiot might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...
Posted by: Chris Crawford | November 10, 2008 2:52 PM
When I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis, around 1970, a creationist by the name of Duane T. Gish gave a lecture in which he made the same claim about 2nd Thermo. He was corrected on it by one of the physics professors in the audience. These people don't seem to learn, do they?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 10, 2008 2:53 PM
QDA@55,
A "troll" is someone who comments on a blog simply to annoy or waste time, not to make a contribution to the discussion or ask a sincere question, so on the evidence so far you're not one - and have been answered politely. Incidentally, the original derivation of the term is apparently from a method of rod-and-line fishing, not from the mythical ugly creature that lurks under bridges.
Posted by: bill ringo | November 10, 2008 2:53 PM
When biophysicists are around biologists we talk physics, around physicists we talk biology. Amongst ourselves we talk about our grandchildren.
Nice paper, nice commentary by our host.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 10, 2008 2:56 PM
En-tro-py
And I-vo-ry
Live together in perfect har-mo-ny
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Tell me:
Why can't we?
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 3:05 PM
And of course, there is still no good measure for entropy of far-from-equilibrium systems!
That's the nailer that everyone pretends isn't there --- most measures of entropy, all the way to grand canonical, assume close-to-equilibrium conditions. On top of that, almost every real calculation of entry drops half the dimensions of that calculation -- the distribution of velocities.
So, not only is there a sufficient energy gradient to support the "negentropy" of life --- but in fact that negentropy might not exist at all, but is purely an artifact of improper entropy calculations!
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 3:07 PM
Hear hear PZ and Daniel Styer...!
We can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.
And since these systems are so complex as to be unpredictable without running a complete facsimile (like cellular automata, see Complex Systems at Scholarpedia and Cellular Automata on Wikipedia), we know with certainty that even deism or "god-guided evolution" is wrong because the only way god could have planned for any of what happens in life on earth today is if he already ran exactly this universe before he did ours... what a pathetic god that would be.
I mean, I can see how the creotard might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...
Not only does science not show that evolution is incompatible with theormodynamics, all of science - especially systems theory, biology, complexity theory, information theory - show that Theism and even Deism are incompatible with the universe as we understand it scientifically and rationally.
Posted by: Adrian | November 10, 2008 3:18 PM
"Thou are a geek