"A Mathematician's View of Evolution"

[drkitten]

For some reason, I've always thought that the 2nd law of thermodynamics was only applicable to THERMODYNAMICS. Maybe I'm just weird, but comparing evolution to a closed-loop heat engine seems just plain stupid.

It's not that stupid. Thermodynamics is key to understanding a lot of aspects of planetology. For example, why is Venus that much hotter than the Earth? (Venus is hotter than Mercury, for that matter!) For that matter, why is the Earth the temperature that it is? It should, by rights, be considerably colder, given its orbital position. Something is trapping solar energy somewhere, and presumably doing something with it....

What is stupid, of course, is the mis-application of thermodynamic theory. But you know what they say -- against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.

 

[Yllanes]

For some reason, I've always thought that the 2nd law of thermodynamics was only applicable to THERMODYNAMICS. Maybe I'm just weird, but comparing evolution to a closed-loop heat engine seems just plain stupid.

Thermodynamics is relevant to much more than closed-loop heat engines. The laws of thermodynamics are the most generally applicable ones in physics. They work everywhere, from microscopic quantum systems to black holes. There is not a single system, no matter how complex, that has been shown to break them. A system that broke the first (second) one would be called a perpetual motion machine of the first (second) kind. None have been found.

Of course, they suffer from much misuse, as is the fate of popular physics theories. The 'article' in question is not even wrong in its comments about thermodynamics.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Is anyone else disappointed that a mathematical publication would print an article with such a glaring error regarding thermodynamics. Isn't thermodynamics, essentially, a very mathematical science?

Steven

 

[Jeff Corey]

Is anyone else disappointed that a mathematical publication would print an article with such a glaring error regarding thermodynamics. Isn't thermodynamics, essentially, a very mathematical science?

Steven

The Mathematical Intelligencer publishes, among other things, humor.
Maybe it was a parody.

 

[Yllanes]

Is anyone else disappointed that a mathematical publication would print an article with such a glaring error regarding thermodynamics.

Yes, very. It should be noticed that this publication is not a very technical one, nor one of the prestigious journals where new research is published. But it is published by Springer, one of the mammoths of scientific publishing and it shouldn't harbour these crackpotish ideas.

Isn't thermodynamics, essentially, a very mathematical science?

As with all physics, once you have made your observations and established your postulates and approximations, problems are eventually reduced to mathematics. And the 2nd Law says something much more precise than 'disorder must increase'.

In any case, the laws of thermodynamics are sufficiently simple for any person with a minimal background to understand, at least at the level required to identify as nonsense what is written in that article.

 

[Yllanes]

The Mathematical Intelligencer publishes, among other things, humor.
Maybe it was a parody.

It doesn't look like a parody. Here is another one by the same author. In the conclusions

Science has been so successful in explaining natural phenomena that the modern scientist is convinced that it can explain everything, and anything that doesn't fit into this model is simply ignored. It doesn't matter that there were no natural causes before Nature came into existence, so he cannot hope to ever explain the sudden creation of time, space, matter and energy and our universe in the Big Bang. It doesn't matter that quantum mechanics is based on a "principle of indeterminacy"[...] he still insists nothing is beyond the reach of his science. When he discovers that all of the basic constants of physics[...] had to have almost exactly the values that they do have in order for any conceivable form of life to survive in our universe, he proposes the "anthropic principle"[...] When you ask him how a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause human consciousness to arise out of inanimate matter, he says, "human consciousness -- what's that?" And he talks about human evolution as if he were an outside observer[...] And when you ask how the four fundamental forces of Nature could rearrange the basic particles of Nature into libraries full of encyclopedias, science texts and novels, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs and keyboards and the Internet, he says, well, order can increase in an open system.

The development of life may have only violated one law of science, but that was the one Sir Arthur Eddington [Eddington 1929] called the "supreme" law of Nature, and it has violated that in a most spectacular way. At least that is my opinion, but perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps it only seems extremely improbable, but really isn't, that, under the right conditions, the influx of stellar energy into a planet could cause atoms to rearrange themselves into nuclear power plants and spaceships and computers. But one would think that at least this would be considered an open question, and those who argue that it really is extremely improbable, and thus contrary to the basic principle underlying the second law, would be given a measure of respect, and taken seriously by their colleagues, but we aren't.

And yet another one questioning whether God is good:

If God designed this world as a tourist resort where man could rest in comfort and ease, it is certainly a dismal failure. But I believe, with Savage, that man was created for greater things. That is why, I believe, this world presents us with such an inexhaustible array of puzzles [...] and why there are always new worlds to discover[...]

Why does God remain backstage, hidden from view, working behind the scenes while we act out our parts in the human drama? In all our debates about intelligent design, this question is always lurking just below the surface. If God is there, why doesn't He simply walk out onto the stage, and take on a more direct and visible role, clean up our act, and rid the world of pain and evil--and doubt. But our human drama would be turned into a divine puppet show, and it would cost us some of our greatest blessings: the regularity of natural law which makes our achievements meaningful; the free will which makes us more interesting than robots; the love which we can receive from and give to others; and even the opportunity to grow and develop through suffering. I must confess that I often wonder if the blessings are worth the terrible price, but God has chosen to create a world where both good and evil can flourish, rather than one where neither can exist. He has chosen to create a world of greatness and infamy, of love and hatred, and of joy and pain, rather than one of mindless robots or unfeeling puppets.

 

[Ziggurat]

Is anyone else disappointed that a mathematical publication would print an article with such a glaring error regarding thermodynamics. Isn't thermodynamics, essentially, a very mathematical science?

Steven

Depends on your approach. Statistical mechanics is VERY much a mathematical science - in fact, it's much more math than science. But stat mech was a later development than what's sometimes refered to as classical thermodynamics, which (while being fairly mathematical, as most physics is) still takes observed physical properties of systems (especially gasses, where much of the work started) as the base line rather than the math itself. The two are compatible, the main difference is the path you take to reach various conclusions.

I personally much prefer the stat mech approach. But whoever wrote this clearly doesn't understand either approach.

 

[RenaissanceBiker]

A mathematician using physics to debunk a biological theory? Next we'll have a chef using art to debunk a musical technique.

 

[thaiboxerken]

It's not that stupid. Thermodynamics is key to understanding a lot of aspects of planetology.

Yea, but those systems you've talked about are a sort of heat engine. I think my point is that laws thermodynamics only apply to functions of heat, work and energy. It has nothing to do with biological evolution.

 

[joobz]

Is anyone else disappointed that a mathematical publication would print an article with such a glaring error regarding thermodynamics. Isn't thermodynamics, essentially, a very mathematical science?

Steven

Thermo is first and for most a logical view of the world in the way that energy moves. The math is just a natural product of this logical view. Originally, it was based entirely off of emperical observations. The equations of state are still more empirical than "first principles".

It's why you have some people who teach the course from 4 primary postulates instead of just the zeroth, first and second laws.

In any event, most mistakes made in using thermo can be attributed to poorly defining the "system" being studied. That's usually when you get law violations. This can be easily seen in the Maxwell's Demon example.

The part I find really cool is the newer thoery in thermo, "contructal theroy" by A Bejan. I've only starting reading into it, but it seems provides some cool very ideas that at first blush seems extremely logical. I'm far from fully emersed in the idea yet. But what i get so far is that by merging the concept of entropy minimization combined with heat/fluid flow you can predict the "complex patterns" in nature (e.g, trees...)

 

[Jekyll]

Yea, but those systems you've talked about are a sort of heat engine. I think my point is that laws thermodynamics only apply to functions of heat, work and energy. It has nothing to do with biological evolution.

That's not quite true. The creationist argument does explain how we can be sure that nothing will evolve without an energy source/sink nearby.

It just tells us nothing about earth.

 

[KingMerv00]

Tai,

I've don't think you've ever just come out and said it so I will ask directly.

Do you or do you not believe that biological evolution happened on the planet Earth?

Edit: I mean "macroevolution".

 

[Ziggurat]

Yea, but those systems you've talked about are a sort of heat engine. I think my point is that laws thermodynamics only apply to functions of heat, work and energy. It has nothing to do with biological evolution.

Not exactly. Thermodynamics applies to pretty much everything, or it is wrong.

One of the logical mistake being made here by those saying evolution contradicts thermodynamics is that evolution is somehow unique in this respect. But it isn't. The arguments used regarding why evolution violates thermodynamics also apply to the growth of a single, non-evolving organism. Which means that either their arguments are wrong (which is actually the case) or they've proven that thermodynamics is wrong (since we know quite plainly that individual organisms do grow). But under no circumstance can their argument disprove evolution.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I really don't see the connection between evolution and thermodynamics. The 2nd law of thermodynamics simply doesn't refer to biological evolution. It's an observation of thermodynamics. Laws really don't apply to subjects outside of the specific observations of that law.

 

[Yllanes]

I really don't see the connection between evolution and thermodynamics. The 2nd law of thermodynamics simply doesn't refer to biological evolution. It's an observation of thermodynamics. Laws really don't apply to subjects outside of the specific observations of that law.

So biological systems don't have energy or temperature and don't interchange heat and work?

Thermodynamics applies to everything.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Can you tie thermodynamics to evolution? I really don't see a connection between entropy and natural selection.

 

[Yllanes]

Can you tie thermodynamics to evolution? I really don't see a connection between entropy and natural selection.

I'm not saying that thermodynamics determines natural selection, in the sense that knowing thermodynamics (or physics in general, for that matter) is not enough to predict or explain everything that goes on with evolution.

What some of us are saying is that the laws of thermodynamics are present in every single process that takes place in the universe, at whatever scale. What's more, you can even check that it works correctly in complex systems such as organisms. Other fundamental physical laws are supposedly working always, but they are too difficult to manage to help describe a complex system.

 

[CapelDodger]

I just want to note that the number of improbable things that can happen in 4 billion years is surprisingly high.

As an instance, you posting those exact words at the exact time that you did. A prediction of that from 4 billion years ago would be seriously impressive. A prediction of the general tenor of your response would be unremarkable, given T'ai Chi's post, but the exact words? Even that would be spooky.

That's the point, really. Life as we know it, Jim, is damn' unlikely, but life is not.

 

[joobz]

I'm not saying that thermodynamics determines natural selection, in the sense that knowing thermodynamics (or physics in general, for that matter) is not enough to predict or explain everything that goes on with evolution.

What some of us are saying is that the laws of thermodynamics are present in every single process that takes place in the universe, at whatever scale.

Tru Dat.

thermo just says that energy can be changed from one form to another and that in the process expect some losses. Seems like a simple thing, and it is. But it was an idea that engineers fought hard to get the scientifict community to accept it.

Thermodynamics doesn't ever really say how exactly a process works. it just says if it can happen and what the final states should look like. thermodynamics tells us life and natural selection can happen, but it doesn't say how.

 

[gnome]

This interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics, if accurate, would not only make evolution impossible, it would make all life impossible, the full grown plant is more complex than the seed.

Right, so since science obviously is contradicting itself here, science is wrong and Goddidit.