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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 3, 2010 at 10:57am

entropy only applies to closed systems. the biosphere is not a closed system as energy is constantly added to it by the sun. therefore evolution doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics (entropy).
neither is the universe a closed system insofar as it is constantly expanding. physicist Victor Stenger uses the analogy of a messy house. the house is akin to the universe while the mess is akin to disorder (higher entropy). he explains that by throwing the mess out the window- akin to the constant expansion of spacetime- you don't run afoul of the second law.
quoting Stenger now:
"The simplest way to see this is with a (literally) homey example. Suppose that whenever you clean your house, you empty the collected rubbish by tossing it out the window into your yard. Eventually the yard would be filled with rubbish. However, you can continue doing this with a simple expedient. Just
keep buying up the land around your house and you will always have more room to toss the rubbish. You are able to maintain localized order—in your house—at the expense of increased disorder in the rest of the universe."
-Victor Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis p. 118 2007
basically any talk about evolution or cosmology violating the second law rests in an ignorance of what the second law says and how entropy works.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on September 3, 2010 at 11:30am

quite right. "useless" is of course a value judgment on our part that the universe cares nothing for.

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on September 3, 2010 at 11:54am

I'd ask how this guy was able to take letters from an alphabet and construct words, then sentences, then paragraphs to form his arguments. He's breaking the laws of entropy! Common sense (along with ignorance of and the misapplication of physics) tells me that he can't do that, so therefore, his argument doesn't exist and I can ignore it.

I call that "church logic".

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Permalink Reply by Wesley on September 3, 2010 at 11:46pm

Good one Reggie!!!

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on September 4, 2010 at 12:25am

Gratzi!

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Permalink Reply by kelltrill on September 3, 2010 at 12:00pm

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT) is often bastardised by Creationists. It is said that, if the SLoT is correct, all things in the universe will increase towards entropy. What they leave out is that this only applies to entities in an open system.
The SLoT states that the entropy of an isolated system, which is not in equilibrium, will tend to increase over time, approaching maximum equilibrium. Creationists leave out the "isolated system" part. The Earth is an isolated system. Considering the earth as a closed system, any change that is accompanied by an entropy decrease is possible as long as sufficient energy is available. The ultimate source of most of that energy, is of course, the Sun (TalkOrigins).
For this reason the theory of Evolution is in perfect harmony with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Creationists love downplaying the importance of the Sun's energy. It isn't just a big shiny ball a couple kilometers away. The Sun formed over four and a half billion years ago and will probably only burn out in about 5 billion years. The surface of the Sun (the photosphere) is 10,000° Fahrenheit and the core is 27 billion° Fahrenheit. Over one million Earths could fit inside the Sun. The energy the Sun gives off supports photosynthesis, energy flow in living organisms, not to mention the creation of respiration resources and essential gasses. Energy moves through the food chain from life form to life form. The first step is always photosynthesis in which the sun's radiant energy is turned into carbohydrate molecules. These carbohydrates are used by all living things as fuel for energy, and as building blocks to build more pieces of themselves.

The universe as a whole is an open system. The entropy in the universe is continuously increasing, except for closed systems such as stellar nurseries in nebula and solar systems such as our own, which might eventually result in the Heat Death, or Big Freeze of the universe.

This website presents a basic explanation of this law, along with some very useful and helpful anecdotes.

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on September 3, 2010 at 12:22pm

Excellent explanation. Also, I like to point out that the bastardized version of entropy that creationists use precludes them from growing into an adult from a baby or a fertilized egg cell.

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Permalink Reply by kelltrill on September 5, 2010 at 4:14pm

Thanks, Reggie. And that's a damn good point. I'll definitely bring that up the next time I find myself having this argument.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on September 5, 2010 at 9:40pm

You are missing several salient issues:

1) the big bang started with a low entropy system.

2) The Cosmic inflation is taken for granted and all the rage.

There is absolutely no reason or mechanism for it.

There are some speculations to handle the low entropy, if you conjecture pre-existing systems,

however still unproven at this point. low entropy not withstanding there is still lacking the mechanism for cosmic inflation. And with the three fields being so accurately predictable (Quantum mechanics, The standard model and gravity) there leaves little room (i.e., anomalous data) to solve the conundrum of the energy of the vacuum. This is still confounding key physicist such as Leonard Susskind.

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Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on September 5, 2010 at 10:12pm

You're denying the universe is moving outward? We don't even know what happened exactly at the Big Bang. That's why we're still seeking answers. We can only approach one trillionth of a second afterwards. The LHC might shed some light sometime within our lifetimes.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on September 5, 2010 at 10:38pm

I believe in Cosmic inflation and also higher dimensions and string theory more refined as Branes maybe on the right path. The physics is outside of our 4D realm and even possibly event space.

I believe:

Yes we need higher dimensions and super symmetries.

However we must treat the Quantum mechanics a reality more so than a mathematical construct. As Roger Penrose conjectured, with this we can explain the spontaneous formation of quasi-crystals having 5 fold symmetry. An impossible that certainly happens,
Ipso Facto.

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Permalink Reply by Mario Rodgers on September 5, 2010 at 10:18pm

"On November 18, 2004, the University of Chicago published an article entitled, "Astrophysicists attempt to answer the mystery of entropy," that contains the following relevant two-sentence paragraph: "But the mystery remains as to why entropy was low in the universe to begin with. The difficulty of that question has long bothered scientists, who most often simply leave it as a puzzle to answer in the future."

If the entropy following the Big Bang had been very low the Second Law of Thermodynamics would have been satisfied, but how could a fiery, chaotic Big Bang explosion have a low entropy? That is the enigma that, "has long bothered scientists."

Jerome Drexler sees a possible solution to this enigma that would have the Big Bang firing out, in all directions, high-speed ultra-high-energy (UHE) relativistic protons and helium nuclei in a ratio of 12 to 1. A very high percentage of the energies of these relativistic nuclei would be available to do work in the universe while their entropy, the measure of the amount of their energy which is unavailable to do work, would be very low. Such a Big Bang, characterized by a dispersion of UHE relativistic nuclei, could create an ultra-high usable energy and an ultra-low entropy, and could be designated a Relativistic Big Bang.

The temperature of a Relativistic Big Bang could be estimated by averaging the energies of the relativistic protons and helium nuclei. The estimated temperature would be extremely high and probably of the same order of magnitude as the temperature scientists estimate for the Big Bang. Nevertheless, the Relativistic Big Bang would have the very low entropy that the Second Law of Thermodynamics requires for the "beginning of time."

Some astronomical evidence for a Relativistic Big Bang (RBB) comes from the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) protons that bombard the Earth every day. The RBB is the most plausible origin of the UHECR's. In Drexler's relativistic-proton dark matter theory these UHECR's are stragglers from the galaxy-orbiting UHE relativistic protons that form the dark matter streams in the halos surrounding galaxies.

It is widely accepted that the mass of dark matter today totals about 83 percent of the mass of the universe and that dark matter was created by the Big Bang. (Drexler's top-down theory of galaxy formation (see below) puts this percentage closer to 100 percent during the Big Bang.) Because of this very strong Big Bang-dark matter linkage, strong evidence of the existence of relativistic-proton dark matter would provide strong evidence for the existence of the Relativistic Big Bang. Drexler believes that his 2003 and 2006 books, his 2005 scientific paper, and his 2006/2007 scientific newswires provide very strong scientific evidence for the existence of relativistic-proton dark matter and therefore for the existence of the RBB. "

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