Date: Wed, 1 May 96 09:28:43 GMT
Subject: Re: entropy and evolution



> 
> >>> Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>  4/30/96, 03:46am >>>
> Hmm. I'm not an expert, as you may have guessed.
> Nor was it central to my argument, which was that different laws are
> required to explain different levels of phenemona. 
> 
> Lisa:  That is not an argument, it is an assertion, a claim, a
> conclusion perhaps, but not an argument.  I know you agree with me
> [_you_ said so this time] about the need to get concrete and
> specific, and I'd like to see us do that.

Concretely, the internal combustion engine obeys the laws of physics and
chemistry. But the laws of physics and chemistry don't explain traffic jams.
Concretely, while each individual cell obeys the laws of organic chemistry,
this doesn't explain why cuckoos sing like they do.

> 
> Adam:  You certainly wouldn't want to try and explain evolution in
> terms of entropy, even if they don't contradict.
> 
> Lisa: Not completely "explain", but getting this part right seems an
> important part of the picture to me.  More broadly, and specifically,
> the uses of energy throughout each living body and in every chemical
> reaction that takes place inside a cell, the idea of the "energy
> budget" or balance within each organism, these all make sense only in
> the light of both evolution and the laws of thermodynamics.
> 

Yes, and such factors can be very important. For instance, our brains
consume too much energy for our relatively small guts to keep going
without the aid of cooking. We can use energy calculations to make direct
connections between brain size and the level of culture.

> Adam:  Nor, in general, would I be at all surprised to see laws at
> one level contradicted by laws at another, even if one level was made
> up of many interactions at the other.
> 
> Lisa:  I would!  And you should be too.  I'd love you to take a case
> and show me how that happens, or could possibly happen.  
> 

Shit ! I knew as I was typing that, that someone would challenge me like 
this.

I think the law of entropy itself is a good example. It is a law which
talks about order and predictability of large numbers of small things
which themselves move in a random and unpredicable pattern.

Quantity becomes quality, and the randomness is negated.

>
> Adam:  So, I don't think it invalidates the laws of either evolution
> or entropy if evolution were found to contradict the law of entropy. 
> 
> Lisa:  It would, but it doesn't.
> 
> Adam:  And when you have calculated the amount of energy leaving the
> sun and arriving at the earth, and compared this to the change in
> entropy, let me know. And while you're  at it, show me a closed
> system.
> 
> Lisa:  Hey, it was one of Rahul's points that living systems are
> never closed, I thought.  So what's with the cheap shot?  Do you
> think that Rahul and I are wrong, and that evolution _does_ "violate
> the law of entropy" ? 

Yes, I think I do. 
There is a tendency to organisation and complexity.

Adam.

PS. Defoe refers to Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, a truly
isolated individual who i) only exists in Defoe's imagination and
ii) reflected all the capitalist prejudices of his creator anyway.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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