No one wants to answer this question?
I am here to understand how this can be, can a scientist tell me how can both these co-exist?

Everything does indeed give in to entropy in the end. Every living being is reduced to its parts and simpler.

Evolution has run its course and continually been closed down by entropy. There have been many mass-extinctions in the past that have effectively erased evolution's progress. The most diverse period of life on this planet already ended (Cambrian Period).

I can see what you're going at, sort of a meta-physical question, as evolution is a biological process and entropy is a physical law.

If I build a Lego Starship, it is a process. Entropy does not make it impossible to build the starship, however it does have an effect once the ship is built. The ship will eventually break apart and decay.. The speed of the building process has more effect than the speed of the effect of entropy on the parts. Kind of the same with evolution.

[edit on 13-9-2007 by WeaponsOfMassDistraction]

Ah entropy. When I was a budding scientist I use to the entropy defense to my mom on why I wouldn't clean my room. Stating that disorder in the universe is always increasing there is no reason to clean my room, because it will only get dirty again.

Now to evolution. I would say there is a much stronger case that entropy helps evolution than hurts it. In dealing with ecosystem entropy is the measure of disorder in that system. No system is in a bubble, so randomness is always increasing. Without randomness, populations can be suceptible to things like genetic drift. Which will lead to extinction.

i think the real question here is do you truly believe that evolution is "progress"?

by progress i mean to elevate or to ascend beyond a lower form.

its a process(course) of biology changing form. entropy is that, a process of changing form.


tho it can not be proven, (but ill try)the highest form would have been the original, every mutation after wards was an attempt to hold on to the original plans(DNA). it can be seen as a trickle-down effect. and those forms that deviated to far from the original became threatened with extinction.

it could be said we humans are the lowest form of life on this planet. we must create technology in order to survive, we(as a whole) are unable to survive without the assistance of an external equalizer. to me thats very inefficient, most animals we are aware of have to consume multiple time its own weight just to sustain itself.

its as if life began to mcguyver it way through the ages.

happy huntings


[edit on 19/9/07 by Glyph_D]

The problem with the consideration of the second law of thermodynamics as it applies to the possibility of biological evolution lies in the understanding of the true nature of that law.

While the blanket statement that all systems will always generally trend towards greater entropy is absolutely true, there are two things which trip people up.

1. "System" refers to a closed system, or at least one that can be effectively termed a closed system. However I do not believe that this is the correct reason why evolution does not violate the second law. The true reason is the second point.

2. All systems GENERALLY trend towards more entropy, and every application of work results in a loss of useful energy. However, the application of energy can result in a LOCALIZED INCREASE in order and useful energy.

For example, say there are 10 joules of energy in the gas tank of your car. (That is a ridiculously low number, but I am trying to keep it simple.) You drive up a mountain until all of your gas is gone. Just for more easy numbers, say you lost 3 J of energy to wind resistance, rolling resistance, internal friction, and the like. You are left with 7 J of potential energy in a different form, possibly more useful to you than the chemical energy of the gasoline. Entropy just increased by 3J, but you now have 7J of potential energy that you could use to do something else.

This applies because biological organisms are constantly taking in energy in the form of food, using that energy to do the work (like going up the hill) of reproduction. Yes, they are always creating more entropy, but they also created more copies of themselves. So because the organisms are putting energy into reproduction, reproduction can actually result in a more "orderly" or "complex" organism. Note that evolution does not always trend towards more complex or better organisms, but this discussion proves that doing so does not go against the second law.

Randomness is always increasing, but not at every locality. This is why you can clean your room, as someone mentioned (i used the same excuse!) The food you excrete through defecation, the heat energy your body radiates, the air you disturb while moving, all of these things are increases in entropy. The clean room is a local decrease in entropy because of the expenditure of energy.

[edit on 19-9-2007 by Turbocramb]

Originally posted by Glyph_D
i think the real question here is do you truly believe that evolution is "progress"?

I think you may have the wrong idea about evolution. Evolution means "gets better and better adapted to its environment."

by progress i mean to elevate or to ascend beyond a lower form.

I don't think that has any meaning. Is a cockroach ascended or descended compared to a beetle? Which is the lower life form? If fossil cockroaches show up earlier than fossil modern starfish does that mean the modern starfish is ascended?

it could be said we humans are the lowest form of life on this planet.

So things that build stuff like termites and ants and all that are now lower life forms than butterflies or bacteria?

I don't follow your argument.

Originally posted by Indellkoffer
I don't follow your argument.

i can see you didnt follow.

what i said was> becuase life DOES NOT ascend, evolution is NOT a process of progress; or in other words it is compliant to entropy.

WE humans are the last link in a very long chain(relatively speaking, im sure there are other animals that have been through evolution far longer than humans). energy moves from a high form to a lower form, which is why i stated it could be said "we are the lowest lifeform"

what i was driving at was if you believe

Evolution means "gets better and better adapted to its environment."

then you would believe evolution violates entropy.

but i dont really think it works that nice and neat.

conveniently we dont have a record of all the failures that have taken place in the pursuit of "progress". trillions of life forms have died when their evolution didnt pan out, because its regulated by circumstances. which through my looking glass means its not progress at all, its just process. ultimately survival is based on luck. either your in the right place at the right time or your extincted.


like i said "i cant prove it, but ill try"


EDIT: forgot to mention that the reason we see "adaptation" is because those that survived inadvertently created a gene pool, that was able to exist in that environment.

its the illusion of evolution<---

i do believe in evolution, just not the way weve been spoon feed.

[edit on 23/9/07 by Glyph_D]

I would have thought it was a Macro Entropy versus Micro Development issue.

You can look at our society. It gets more complex in detail, but entropy still occurs. Resources are devoured. Complexity will only continue as long as there are resources to consume.

So it is with Life. Life is a short term complexity, but in the long term, the energy is used up, the Sun will die, everything will go quiet.

From the Big Bang to the Big Sleep.

isn't entropy, the ultimate deterioration of any (closed) system


evolution is thought to be a system or process, true enough,

but that system is stretched over 100s & 1000s of generations,
and the process of natural selection tells us that the system is
way diverse enough to not be thought of as a 'closed system'


just because biological life geneally needs heat, water & sunlight to flourish
those normal conditions do not categorize earth's life forms as existing in a 'closed system'.
... one could dance around the 'problem' in an endless debate

Scale defines if we live in a closed system or not and to what level entropy gets a hold on our destiny.

Imho, evolution will end mankind far before entropy ever has the chance.

If you look at an earth scale and assume we, the human race, will be around until the time the earth ends (be it catastrophic event or dying sun or some other yet unknown cause) and we haven't managed to colonize other bodies in our solar system, we live in a closed system. Eventually we will stop to exist, but by that time, the human race probably doesn't exist anymore anyway and is nothing more then a bunch of intelligent apes in history, to the top of the foodchain at that time..

If we look at a solar system level scale and assume, the human race, will be around until the time the sun dies, and we haven't figured out how to get of this rock or out of this solar system yet, you can consider it a closed system. Eventually we will stop to exist, but by that time, the human race probably doesn't exist anymore anyway and is nothing more then a bunch of intelligent apes in history, to the top of the foodchain at that time.

If we look at the universe scale and assume, we, the human race, will be around to withness the end of the universe, and we haven't figured out by that time if brane/multiverse/etc theory's are correct and haven't figured out how to either stop the end of our universe or migrate to another universe, you can consider it a closed system. Eventually we will stop to exist, but by that time, the human race probably doesn't exist anymore anyway and is nothing more then a bunch of intelligent apes in history, if even remembered, to the top of the foodchain at that time.

Entropy is functional on all scales and if it won't affect us on a scale we can imagine, there is always a larger scale on which it will.

The larger the scale, the higher the requirements imposed on us in knowledge and capabilities, to survive entropy.

But then still, you have to consider that with knowledge and capabilities and our physical adaptation to the situation we are in, evolution takes it toll too and by the time we are able to escape earth, sol, milky way and our universe, the human race will be nothing more to the earth originated creatures that take those steps then apes are to us.

Any way you look at it mankind will most definitely cease to exist at one point, we might be predecessors of the next big thing, but we will not be around forever, either entropy gets us or evolution makes us just a step to the new levels.

Originally posted by Glyph_D

Originally posted by Indellkoffer
I don't follow your argument.

i can see you didnt follow.

what i said was> becuase life DOES NOT ascend, evolution is NOT a process of progress; or in other words it is compliant to entropy.

Ah... you didn't follow MY argument. Mine was that evolution doesn't follow entropy unless you talk about species declining and vanishing.

what i was driving at was if you believe

Evolution means "gets better and better adapted to its environment."

then you would believe evolution violates entropy.

That's the official definition of biololgical evolution. That's what Darwin was saying -- that species either become better and better adapted to their environment or they die off.

conveniently we dont have a record of all the failures that have taken place in the pursuit of "progress". trillions of life forms have died when their evolution didnt pan out, because its regulated by circumstances.

I like to go to museums, and I look at lots of fossils. I see lots of failed lifeforms and variations in those fossils. There's lots of evolutionary dead ends that show up, and I understand (I also buy books at museum bookstores) that for every fossil specimen they show, there's hundreds more species that aren't shown because they don't have the room.

which through my looking glass means its not progress at all, its just process. ultimately survival is based on luck. either your in the right place at the right time or your extincted.

Luck doesn't cause migrations.

i do believe in evolution, just not the way weve been spoon feed.

I agree that you were taught the wrong information -- what they should have taught was what others here are saying: evolution is based on adaptation.

(I think the school systems must have de-evolved! This was simple junior high school stuff back in my day!)

[edit on 24-9-2007 by Indellkoffer]

Originally posted by Indellkoffer
Ah... you didn't follow MY argument. Mine was that evolution doesn't follow entropy unless you talk about species declining and vanishing.

yeah i got that, thats why i quoted you

becuase you believe in evolution under a "progressive" light, you can not say entropy dictates it. if you did you would have a failure of understanding of both evolution and entropy. you simply misunderstand evolution.

That's the official definition of biololgical evolution. That's what Darwin was saying -- that species either become better and better adapted to their environment or they die off.

wrong.. Darwin promoted natural selection; a process of chance, defined and regulated by nature. you have heard of the Galapagos islands right? thats where Darwin gathered the meat of his position, he saw that change took place and there was no rhyme or reason to that change(other that freedom versus restraint).


the adaptation you speak of "should not" be seen as a process of finding a way, but only a process of branching out. those that survive, survived becuase mother nature showed mercy. those that didnt got the shaft.

i know it looks like the survivors were more intelligent but the truth is they just got lucky.

it is very possible(and highly probable) that the most intelligent lifeform to ever walk this earth died, becuase nature rocked their world. not becuase they were an inferior creature, but only becuase they were unlucky.

Luck doesn't cause migrations.

lol your going to base your intire thesis on "migration defys entropy". thats an improper application of negentropic events.

but luck does cuase migration, without the prior luck of existence they would not have the option of travel. and it is luck that nature does not intervene with the migratory patterns. or better yet it is nature that dictates the patterns them selves(all luck).

(I think the school systems must have de-evolved! This was simple junior high school stuff back in my day!)

maybe you should check back in becuase your mistaken(only by a small margin), what you believe is NOT what is taught in schools, either your teacher was a propagandist or you didnt listen(i vote the ladder).

[edit on 24/9/07 by Glyph_D]

Ummm this may be off topic but hypothetically, if the big bang theory is correct the universe is simpily a sustained reaction. Meaning all energy came from this central point and expanded. Yes this also opens questions of what started the reaction but I'm not going into that, who knows. But staying constant with this theory the universe will eventually turn to nothingness then begin the same reaction again. If this is true Entropy is a very likely possibility, and a very common process in the universe. Although I believe since every galaxy is a tree branch off the original reaction that our system reacts independently from the whole of the universe. Meaning evolution will continue to happen until the entire system implodes. I'd like some feedback this was right outta my head, thanks.