Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics

[Larv]

Here's a good example of two dissipative structures, operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium:

 

YouTube - man riding motorcycle inside steel cage ball http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu8Y5E62iPU

 

You will notice that a substantial increase in the dissipation of entropy is required to hold these structures in a far-from-equilibrium state of existence.

 

Biological life is such a dissipative system. Even its evolution is consistent with the principles of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics.

[JMJones0424]

Part of the problem with this discussion has to do with a misunderstanding of entropy or using only part of the puzzle. This is biology and not physics or engineering where this is bread and butter stuff. The second law only says that the entropy of the universe increases. It is possible to have subsystems, within a larger system, that lower entropy, as long as the net entropy increases.

 

Agreed, except that the OP was that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. It is important to correctly define situations in order to not confuse those who don't fully understand. However, I do not see how the concept of entropy in a biology setting should be any different than in a typical physics or mechanical engineering setting. I think it is your mis-understanding of entropy that is causing the distinction.

 

From Wikipedia;

 

The classic example is a glass of ice melting in a room. The ice will increase entropy but the room lowers entropy, as heat is absorbed by the ice from the air in the room. One part of the system is lowering entropy, while the other is gaining entropy. However, the net total is gaining entropy such that the second law is not violated.

 

I have a huge problem with this statement. You can not isolate the glass of ice water from the room and declare entropy changing in one subset and increasing in the other. It is the flow of heat from one subset to the other that shows increasing entropy in the entire system. If the glass were 100% efficiently insulated, then entropy would remain steady, as the ice water would not increase in temp, and the room would not decrease. The second law of thermodynamics states that it is impossible for the ice water to get colder, without the addition of external energy.

 

If we look at Chlorophyl and compare this the same solar energy hitting the earth directly, the direct solar energy goes into entropy, as the irretrievable heat propagates from higher to lower temperature. With Chlorophyl, there is natural work cycle that is about 85% efficient, more or less. The work cycle pushes atoms up an energy hill and locks the potential into chemical bonding (carbon fixation). The entropy is now down to 15%, since 85% is now recoverable energy.

This is a GLARING example of how you repeatedly throw out statements that have no basis in fact. Where in the world did you pull this figure out of? A very brief google search will show that your guess tremendously over estimates the efficiency of chlorophyll. Since we are using wikipedia as our source of record...

 

Photosynthetic efficiency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It is rapidly becoming apparent to me that you are more interested in backing up previous statements than in accuracy, and you have little ability to actually support your claims. I do not know how to say this any more politely, so until you demonstrate some inkling of respect for truth, I consider this matter over.

[lemit]

A little observation: even the bad science here is better than the original proposition. And I can think of a literal world of examples that, good or bad, would also negate the idea that the Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes evolution.

 

Can anyone think of a reason that an object with the potential energy possessed by earth--as well as volcanic activity and water--couldn't generate some form of life on its own? And of course, that's a really dumb question since earth isn't a closed system.

 

I'm really curious. How do creation scientists defend themselves? Did they not notice that some of the theories of the origin of life, like the Mica Theory, seem to involve really really closed systems but depend on that outside, extraterrestrial energy source? What kind of black arts and sleight-of-hand do they offer?

 

Also, I'd welcome an explanation of how wrong I am.

 

Thanks.

 

--lemit

[HydrogenBond]

I am sorry about my estimate of solar efficiency. I stand corrected. I was thinking about the light energy curve maxima, but 85% might be high.

 

The second law only states that the total entropy must increase, but does not say it must increase for every detail all the time. If we freeze ice in the freezer, the entropy of the ice will decrease as water forms tetrahedral order. However, the heat of fusion released will increase entropy within the freezer, so the net entropy increases.

 

Looking at evolution with a broad pen, starting from nothing but small chemical precursors like methane, water, ammonia and going to all the way to multicellular, the subset called life is lowering entropy of C, H, N, O, relative to the starting state and the broad preceding states. But the total entropy of the life plus the environment is increasing. This gives a simple direction for evolution that does not violate the second law. Each time we add order, create new work cycles via new enzymes and/or increase efficiency the entropy lowers again.

 

The analysis of life lowering entropy, was actually done for that subset or life, called biochemistry. Within the cell, the majority component, water, plays the role of entropy sink. This is where the biochemistry dissipates its irretrievable heat. The water does not use work cycles in any simple direct way, but it can form extensive ordering via hydrogen bonding. This gives it an unusually high heat capacity for irretrievable heat because the structure can absorb the entropy.

 

Life does not work without water, based on hard experiments. Without water as the entropy sink, the biochemistry can't maintain its low entropy. The cell placed in other solvents increases entropy to much, all the way to dead chaos. Water provides an unique entropy sink that shelters the biochemistry from the high level entropy feedback it sees from other solvents.

 

In the diagram below, water, instead of being excited as a molecule and attacking the cell as a solvent, takes the entropy hit by altering its structure to reflect the entropy change. Other solvents can't begin with these low entropy structures, such that their entropy is different and more aggressive against life.

 

 

Back to evolution, the movement toward lower biochemical entropy is assisted by water. Since water is the entropy sink, it is the place that has the highest probability for spontaneous change. This change feedbacks to the biochemistry.

 

DNA will just sit there, if we take way the water. It can't deal well with the spontaneous changes or entropy within other solvents. DNA won't work in the air, because its low entropy work cycle state can not be compensated by the air, but would violate the second law. The best we can do is some inert order, but not work activity.

[modest]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the definition above for closed systems came from the cited source (Kyle, B. G., 1984, Chemical and Process Thermodynamics), but I'll have to double check.

 

I agree. The way thermodynamic systems are currently taught, closed means freely exchanging energy, but not mass. This should be supported by any modern thermodynamics text such as Modern Thermodynamics: From Heat Engines to Dissipative Structures page 5.

 

 

The cell is not a closed system. However, as cells became more advanced, the chemicals that can enter the cell become more restricted, because they need active transport. The open system is restricted to water and small organic molecules. Most ions are restricted from the cell and will need transport. Life is heading toward a semi-closed system from its humble beginning in evolution, when simple replicators didn't restrict anything.

I honestly do not understand the point you are trying to make in this thread and a number of other threads. You can claim that a cell is isolated from its environment....

 

Because a cell closes itself off from the environment in a semipermeable way it can maintain a steady-state, far-from-equilibrium dissipative structure. If not for the 'boundary' it could not import energy and export entropy from and into its surroundings maintaining a steady, or lowering, entropy despite the increasing entropy of its surroundings.

 

I think HydrogenBond is sometimes very difficult to correctly interpret, but after just reading this thread I see a couple concepts that he has touched on which might be quite relevant,

 

Cellular efficiency is indicative of lowering entropy. Entropy or disorder lowers efficiency.

 

This is true, and Ilya Prigogine, and others, have introduced it as the reason life consistently lowers its own entropy and perhaps why life exists in the first place.

 

If there are two bordering systems which are far from thermodynamic equilibrium from one another then energy will be transferred from one to the other in as efficient a manner as possible (or, at least, in a manner requiring the least resistance). The way nature does this often involves an ordered or complex entity—an area where entropy is lowered. As HB says, disorder is not efficient.

 

A lava lamp, for example, has a hot side and a cold(er) side. As the heat dissipates from one to the other convection currents are created. The convection current is a structured and ordered thing which in and of itself can lower in entropy as it is formed. The same would happen with a tornado between the warm earth and cold cloud. A tornado is a complex thing. In case I'm faility miserably to explain:

Dissipative Structures

 

Dissipative structures are nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that generate order spontaneously by exchanging energy with their external environments. Dissipative structures include physical processes (e.g., whirlpools), chemical reactions (e.g., Bénard cell convection), and biological systems (e.g., cells). Ilya Prigogine, whose research on dissipative structures has been seminal, found that these structures, when far from equilibrium, can transform small-scale irregularities into large-scale patterns. The most intriguing application of Prigogine’s ideas is to the origin of life and biology generally. It is an open question whether the complexity and specificity inherent in biological systems can be reduced to the thermodynamics of dissipative structures.

Dissipative Structures

The photosynthesis example that HB gave is interesting. If you had a liter of water with the sun shining on it then the evaporation of the water represents an increase of entropy. Is it more efficient for sunlight to convert that water to oxygen and sugar through photosynthesis with an available plant than it is for the sunlight to evaporate the water? I don't know. But, if, in fact, photosynthesis offers the more-efficient method of dissipating the solar energy then it would make sense thermodynamically that nature, over time, created a complex thing that lowers its own entropy.

 

That, in any case, is how I understood HB's evaporation/plant/entropy/energy thing.

 

Part of the problem with this discussion has to do with a misunderstanding of entropy or using only part of the puzzle. This is biology and not physics or engineering where this is bread and butter stuff. The second law only says that the entropy of the universe increases. It is possible to have subsystems, within a larger system, that lower entropy, as long as the net entropy increases.

 

...However, I do not see how the concept of entropy in a biology setting should be any different than in a typical physics or mechanical engineering setting. I think it is your mis-understanding of entropy that is causing the distinction.

 

The concept of entropy in a biology setting should not be different from non-biology, however the second law is inapplicable to open systems not in equilibrium. The entropy of an open system can be expressed:

[math]dS_T = dS_I + dS_E[/math]

where

• [math]dS_T[/math] is total change in entropy
  
• [math]dS_I[/math] is the change in entropy from internal irreversible processes (Clausius entropy)
  
• [math]dS_E[/math] is the entropy transported across the boundary of the system
  

In order for a cell to remain living for any great period of time [math]dS_T[/math] must be less than or equal to zero. If it is less than zero then the system will increase in complexity. In this case [math]dS_E - dS_I < 0[/math]. In this way, by consuming energy and excreting entropy the system can become more complex (as growing lifeforms tend to do).

 

Where [math]dS_E[/math] is zero the system is isolated and entropy must increase which might be a nice answer to the OP—if life can continue to function sealed and isolated from any environment (living, in a sense, on its own excrement :eek:) for long then life does indeed violate the second law of thermodynamics.

 

From Wikipedia;

 

The classic example is a glass of ice melting in a room. The ice will increase entropy but the room lowers entropy, as heat is absorbed by the ice from the air in the room. One part of the system is lowering entropy, while the other is gaining entropy. However, the net total is gaining entropy such that the second law is not violated.

 

I have a huge problem with this statement. You can not isolate the glass of ice water from the room and declare entropy changing in one subset and increasing in the other. It is the flow of heat from one subset to the other that shows increasing entropy in the entire system. If the glass were 100% efficiently insulated, then entropy would remain steady, as the ice water would not increase in temp, and the room would not decrease. The second law of thermodynamics states that it is impossible for the ice water to get colder, without the addition of external energy.

 

For an open system where mass and heat are not bound the entropy is given by wikipedia as:

[math]\frac{dS}{dt} = \sum_{k=1}^K \dot{M}_k \hat{S}_k + \frac{\dot{Q}}{T} + \dot{S}_{gen}[/math]

where

• [math]\sum_{k=1}^K \dot{M}_k \hat{S}_k [/math] = the net rate of entropy flow due to the flows of mass into and out of the system (where [math]\hat{S}[/math] = entropy per unit mass).
  
  
• [math]\frac{\dot{Q}}{T}[/math] = the rate of entropy flow due to the flow of heat across the system boundary.
  
  
• [math]\dot{S}_{gen}[/math] = the rate of internal generation of entropy within the system.
  
  

 

Entropy balance equation for open systems

If we consider the room to be the system and not including the glass (and ignoring evaporation), then... the first term is zero as there is no flow of mass in or out of the system. The equation then reduces to a form of Prigogine's entropy equation given above:

[math]\frac{dS}{dt} = \frac{\dot{Q}}{T} + \dot{S}_{gen}[/math]

As the first term dominates and Q is negative (the system of the room without the glass looses [edit: loses, I hate that I do that] heat) the change in entropy is negative.

 

It is, then, possible to consider the changing entropy of an open system. It may help to think of entropy as an absolute (rather than relative) quantity since statistical thermodynamics gives it the more fundamental definition as the amount of information describing the system. An open system, like the room minus the glass, certainly has such a quantity.

 

~modest

[Qfwfq]

I have a huge problem with this statement. You can not isolate the glass of ice water from the room and declare entropy changing in one subset and increasing in the other. It is the flow of heat from one subset to the other that shows increasing entropy in the entire system. If the glass were 100% efficiently insulated, then entropy would remain steady, as the ice water would not increase in temp, and the room would not decrease. The second law of thermodynamics states that it is impossible for the ice water to get colder, without the addition of external energy.

Actually, the problem isn't really huge. Initially entropy was defined only in terms of its variation being [imath]dS=\frac{dQ}{T}[/imath] but since then came the microscopic definition, it is definable for a given object in a given state. Hence it can be defined for a closed system too. It is an important statistical concept and it is also useful in cryptography, along with the related one of transinformation.

[HydrogenBond]

If we look at the universe, the universal entropy increases over time, which is the second law. We can draw boxes around certain places within the universe and show areas where the entropy is getting lower (inside a box). If we draw a box around a a glass of water that is freezing, the entropy within that imaginary box is decreasing as the more mobile and random H2O in liquid water snaps into a 3-D crystal. This does not imply the entire universe is lowering entropy, just inside this box. The second law is not violated, since the second law is talking about the bigger picture and not this one detail. We only need to net to increase entropy outside this box to satisfy the second law.

 

We as humans, can create zones of low entropy which can persist over a wide range of conditions. For example, if we made a perfect diamond in the lab, this has entropy but very low and will persist for generations. It value is within its order not its entropy, since that means defects in this case. We can lower entropy further with a nice diamond cutting job to remove the random edges. Most gems cuts have never been found in nature, stemming from a spontaneous change due to entropy. This because the cut does not represent entropy, but order. It may take a galaxy of entropy to produce a spontaneous change of a diamond into a natural round brilliant cut. But order, using work cycles in factories, can make these a dime a dozen.

 

Evolution is analogous to growing our diamond from a seed, with the box of lower entropy getting larger with time. The way this is possible is via work cycles. The entropy in a work cycle is the waste heat due to inefficiency. The work is not entropy. This work or "not entropy" is used to make other "not entropy", continuing to build "not entropy" within a growing box of lowing entropy.

[Larv]

Evolution is analogous to growing our diamond from a seed, with the box of lower entropy getting larger with time.

No! Evolution has no growth or purpose or direction. Evolution is merely populations making good on random opportunities. Forget this notion that evolution is some kind of a closed system that breeds complexity.

[Pyrotex]

larv is right, HB.

 

This isn't the first time that you have assumed that one natural process or another contains some kind of "intelligence" or "intention" or "goal-seeking behavior". Give it all up. Not only does it NOT make sense, but it is also totally unnecessary.

 

The beauty of the natural universe is that it works; that it works according to a finite set of simple laws; that these simple laws are natural; that natural laws operate blindly, without goals or intentions; that blind natural laws can, under certain conditions, enable the growth of local complexity; that these certain conditions are themselves, natural and relatively common; thus making life and evolution not merely possible, but inevitable.

 

True understanding of our universe must begin with the first step: the willingness to embrace the beauty of the natural universe.

[Boerseun]

Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

 

Proposing that it does, merely indicates a failed understanding of both evolution and thermodynamics - and is employed as a red herring by those wanting to push a certain agenda.

 

There is nothing to be said in support of that particular hypothesis, and I think everything that can be said against it, have been said against it in this thread. We have, for instance, illustrated the failed understanding of what might be termed "closed" systems, and we have also shown that Life on Earth is not a closed system.

 

I therefore propose thread closure.

 

Any other topic stemming from this discussion (what is entropy, for instance) clearly justifies their own threads, and should be taken up somewhere else.

 

But I don't see anything fruitful coming from this thread.

 

If nobody objects, I will close this thread in 24h.

[Rade]

....If nobody objects, I will close this thread in 24h....

 

Could you make it 23 ?

[Boerseun]

23:30 and you got a deal! :rolleyes:

[modest]

Evolution is analogous to growing our diamond from a seed, with the box of lower entropy getting larger with time.

No! Evolution has no growth or purpose or direction.

 

I don't believe HB said, or is trying to say, that evolution has purpose, nor that...

 

This isn't the first time that you have assumed that one natural process or another contains some kind of "intelligence" or "intention" or "goal-seeking behavior".

...it has intelligence or anything like that. His post makes good sense to me and, despite the difficulty in understanding it, I believe it is well-informed.

 

Starting with the comment that has been replied to:

 

Evolution is analogous to growing our diamond from a seed, with the box of lower entropy getting larger with time.

 

Start with a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate. Put it in a beaker and call it a system. It is not an isolated system—it is a closed system. To avoid confusion I will be explicit: By "closed" I mean the beaker allows heat to flow freely in and out of the beaker, but not mass. The beaker contains the solution, but does not insulate it. There is also a very small crystal of sodium acetate in the beaker.

 

The crystal acts as a catalyst and turns the solution crystalline. Here's a video of this happening:

 

YouTube - Supersaturated Sodium Acetate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wifFbGDv4I

 

Does the entropy of our system go up or down? It goes down. The entropy of the beaker-system goes down. The point of HB's post is that this is possible—it is possible for the entropy of a system to spontaneously lower. It is not a violation of the second law. HB gives the reason why:

 

If we look at the universe, the universal entropy increases over time, which is the second law. We can draw boxes around certain places within the universe and show areas where the entropy is getting lower (inside a box). If we draw a box around a a glass of water that is freezing, the entropy within that imaginary box is decreasing as the more mobile and random H2O in liquid water snaps into a 3-D crystal. This does not imply the entire universe is lowering entropy, just inside this box. The second law is not violated, since the second law is talking about the bigger picture and not this one detail. We only need to net to increase entropy outside this box to satisfy the second law.

 

That is 100% true. The experiment in the video above is highly exothermic. It releases thermal energy to the environment just like water does when turning to ice. Thus, total entropy 'of the universe' does not decrease. Wikipedia supports this:

This rule suffers no exceptions when the temperature is rising. By the same token, on cooling the melt, at the very same temperature the bell should ring again, and molecules should click back into the very same crystalline form. The entropy decrease due to the ordering of molecules within the system is overcompensated by the thermal randomization of the surroundings, due to the release of the heat of fusion; the entropy of the universe increases.

 

Evolution is analogous to growing our diamond from a seed, with the box of lower entropy getting larger with time. The way this is possible is via work cycles. The entropy in a work cycle is the waste heat due to inefficiency. The work is not entropy. This work or "not entropy" is used to make other "not entropy", continuing to build "not entropy" within a growing box of lowing entropy.

 

This is true. To understand this we need to know what a work cycle is. It is like a heat engine. An example is a Carnot cycle. There is a heat reservoir which we will call H connected to a cold reservoir (which we'll call C) with a heat engine (something that can do work given thermal energy).

 

By the first law of thermodynamics the work done by the engine is related to thermal energy of the hot and cold reservoir by:

[math]Q_H = W + Q_C[/math]

Q_H is heat from the hot reservoir, Q_C is heat absorbed by the cold sink, and W is work. Work could be the moving around of molecules or the creation of a daughter cell or many other things which could, in principle, increase complexity.

 

The change in entropy of such a process is:

 

[math]\Delta S = \frac{Q_C}{T_C} - \frac{Q_H}{T_H}[/math]

 

Substituting the first equation for Q_C

 

[math]\Delta S = \frac{Q_H - W}{T_C} - \frac{Q_H}{T_H}[/math]

 

The most efficient such an engine could be would have a change in entropy of zero. All of the entropy coming from the heat reservoir goes to the cold sink. Wiki supports this:

The theoretical maximum efficiency of any heat engine depends only on the temperatures it operates between. This efficiency is usually derived using an ideal imaginary heat engine such as the Carnot heat engine, although other engines using different cycles can also attain maximum efficiency. Mathematically, this is because in reversible processes, the change in entropy of the cold reservoir is the negative of that of the hot reservoir (i.e., dSc = − dSh), keeping the overall change of entropy zero.

Heat engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Imagine everything in the above equation is constant except for entropy and work. To make this intuitive I will substitute numbers (completely fake numbers that allow us to examine the behavior of the equation):

[math]\Delta S = \frac{10 - W}{5} - \frac{10}{10}[/math]

At maximum efficiency [math]\Delta S[/math] is zero. In that case W is 5. The amount of work that the engine can do is 5. If the engine does less work... let's say 3... then change in entropy will be 0.4 and if the engine does even less work... let's say 1... then change in entopy will be 0.8. This demonstrates that the change in entropy is lower for more efficient heat engines. The most work this engine can do is 5. Any greater number than that (any greater efficiency than that) will give negative entropy which is precluded by the second law.

 

Therefore, HydrogenBond's statement...

The entropy in a work cycle is the waste heat due to inefficiency. The work is not entropy.

...is absolutely correct and very relevant to the thermodynamics of life. Life can situate itself between an energy source and a cold sink (e.g. a warm planet heated by the sun and a cold outer space), do work, and violate no law of thermodynamics. The most fundamental thing we can say about life is that it does work—it grows, it procreates.

 

Evolution is procreation. One generation of life creates, mechanically, another generation. The point being—even if that process were perfectly efficient it would not violate the second law.

 

~modest

[lemit]

As the person who inadvertently started this thread, I think the arguments have been made, including a bunch nobody could anticipate. If somebody has a new contribution which would further this discussion, make it now. Any other evolution-related comment can go on a bunch of other threads, including the one this is spun off from.

 

I think it's time to close this.

 

--lemit

[Larv]

A key failure here is the assumption that entropy dissipation leads only to more disorder. That is clearly not true. Picture a boat resting on calm water (in a state of thermodynamic equilibrium). Now give it some forward speed by running its engine. There will be entropy dissipation through the exhaust, of course, but there will also be a production of order in the generation of the boat's bow wave. This will require leaving the relative comfort of equilibrium thermodynamics. That wave will have a length, a periodic frequency, an amplitude, and an organized geometry. The essential feature to such a dissipative structure is its fluctuation. As Prigogine has emphasized, there can be no order or ordering principle without fluctuation (or a departure from equilibrium to non-equilibrium thermodynamics).

[Pyrotex]

Non-equilibrium dissipative structures RULE!!!

[snoopdogg]

We need to stop the argument wither evolution exist or does not exist. I mean come on what a silly argument. Of course evolution exist. We no longer drive model T cars, our computers are much faster and we can talk to someone on the other side of the planet at will. So it is easy to see that evolution exist within technology and in many other areas of our world (probably everything). What I am trying to say is that if evolution can show the capacity to exist any wear it must exist every wear... End of discussion.