Re: teaching evolution in Wisconsin

Cliff Lundberg (cliff@noe.com)
Tue, 12 Oct 1999 13:41:17 -0700

Susan Brassfield wrote:

>as far as life is concerned, more is required than just a decrease in
>entropy. However, I do recall hearing that there are very large storms on
>Venus. Storms, especially cyclonic whirlwinds represent a decrease in
>entropy.

Ah, it's entropy time again! This time around will someone be good enough
to explain the connection to morphological evolution? Why it makes a
difference whether Earth is a closed system or not? Or why the concept
has any meaning at all for biology, given that any system on any scale
can be broken up into subsystems that are open, within which there may
be either decrease or increase?

--Cliff Lundberg  ~  San Francisco  ~  cliff@noe.com