Regarding George Andrews' comment:
>> These included:
>> -2nd law of thermodynamics (still not sure what that had to do with
>> their arguement?)
>
>Systems maintained far--from--equilibrium regularly enjoy a decrease in
>entropy at the expense of the surroundings; e.g. the Sun's entropy is
>increasing in that it is becoming more ordered as it burns and the
>Earth's (and its occupants') entropy LOCAL decreases as evolution
>progresses.
We certainly don't need to look at anything as exotic as a
"maintained far--from--equilibrium" system to see a decrease in
entropy. All we have to do is observe *any* system placed in thermal
contact with some other object which is at a somewhat lower
temperature than the system of interest. When the hotter object
cools by heating the cooler object the hotter object's entropy
decreases. This can and does happen even for systems that are
infinitesimally away from equilibrium.
The entropy of the Sun is *decreasing* (maybe Andrew just mistyped
his comment here)--recall the temperature of the Sun is higher than
that of interstellar space. In addition, the Sun's entropy is
decreasing because the fusion processes in its core consume more net
particles (hydrogen) than they accumulate (helium). The fewer
particles present in the Sun the lower its entropy (absent other
effects due to changes in other variables as well).
Also, the claim "entropy LOCAL decreases as evolution progresses"
is ill-defined, and as such, may or may not be true in some
circumstance depending on just *which* entropy is being considered.
But overall, biological processes (including those that result in
evolution) are irreversably dissipative, and as such they generate
net entropy.
David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
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