7.2 Evolution & Entropy

Some authoritative quotes..

1. The Second Law is inviolable and inescapable..
   "The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)
   
   
2. Life must obey the Second Law..
   Living organisms are biological machines which are also vast assemblies (or states) of matter and as such the second law applies to them. The processes by which they function, reproduce and grow creates order or an increase in complexity. That means a local reduction in entropy just like the cooling of a freezer box in the middle of a hot room. The second law requires the existance of an imaginary boundary around the process and enough of its surroundings to include everything affected by those processes. Within that boundary it will be found that there will be an overall increase in entropy. Experimental measurements show that the boundary need only approximate an isolated system for the calculation to work as predicted.
3. Evolution must obey the second law.. 
   Life processes like growth generate more disorder in their surroundings than that which they create, and the evolution of life itself does the same thing (parphrased from Peter Atkins Second Law). Evolution is the explanation for the general increase in complexity of the biosphere, but an increase in complexity is also a local drop in entropy. By the second law the same process must in a dependant manner account for that drop by creating a greater increase in entropy in its surroundings. If a chosen boundary for strict application of the law does not meet the entropy increase requirement it may simply be enlarged until it does even up to include the whole universe if necessary.

If life does not come from somewhere else then the processes which created it here must also pay for it here. If the system boundary is extended to include the whole universe (ie second law applies) it is invalid to balance negative entropy on earth by positive entropy from an unrelated process somewhere else. That means the second law must apply to the earth-sun system so to argue that because the earth is not an isolated system the second law does not apply is invalid.

Have a nice day..