Markov chain: yes. However, you must consider the configuration states of alleles in a phase space in order to have stochastic (conditional) independence. I am obviously speaking very loosely in these posts.
Laws of Thermodyanics apply to all macroscopic systems. One thing that people don't understand is that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is not a fundamental law in the same sense that the 1st law is. The first law is just a restatement of the law of conservation of energy. As such, it is a statement about time translation invariance. This is a symmetry, like the conservation of electric charge, which we believe to be exact.
The 2nd law is fundamentally a statement about the number of microstates in a statistical configuration; it is not even about disorder,per se although there are many scientists who believe entropy is a "measure of disorder." Most of the time it is, but it really doesn't have to be unless you make a very expansive definition of what disorder is (essentially just claiming [dis]order is what entropy measures). What we call entropy does not manifest itself in either classical mechanics or quantum mechanics in the operation of basic laws; it appears to be an ergodic result. That is, something seen when very large numbers of configurations are averaged. Furthermore, the claim that entropy in macroscopic systems always increases only holds if the system encompasses the entire space-time region where energy is conserved. That was my point and this is the error made by those who argue evolution impossible on this basis. Your brain is decreasing the entropy along the neural connections necessary to "think a thought." If you confine the system to that pathway, there appears to be a 2nd law violation. But your brain is also creating waste heat much larger than the negative entropy change involved in thinking. When we include that heat, the total entropy change of the universe is positive, as required.
Draw a box around the earth, and you're creating a region in which entropy will not in the aggregate increase. Why? because there is a net flux of energy into that box from the sun. If you call that imaginary box a "system" it is not a system in which energy is conserved.
On God's side: OK. But keep in mind that ID and Young Earth Creationism are not the same thing, so you may need to define your God a bit more carefully before I'm willing to say I'm on your side. "Intelligent Design" in a generic sense is inoffensive to most atheist/agnostic scientists (at least those who are intellectually honest) and it's enthusasistically (and heterodoxically) embraced by most scientists who are believers--even those who are evolutionary biologists. Contrary to a claim made early in this thread, Young Earth Creationism is not only wrong scientifically, it's also well outside the mainstream of orthodox Judaism and Christianity. Many people refuse to acknowledge they are ID'ers because they're afraid it throws them into a cage with Young Earth Creationists.
I was a bit fast on the draw when I accused you of being hostile, I apologize.
Now, bear with me here as I try to get this straight.
configuration states of alleles in a phase space
Do you mean evolution? Having to do with humans?
I am obviously speaking very loosely in these posts.
I understand.
As such, it is a statement about time translation invariance. This is a symmetry, like the conservation of electric charge, which we believe to be exact.(my emphasis added)
Are you saying it isn't an arbitrary one dimensional classical system?
What we call entropy does not manifest itself in either classical mechanics or quantum mechanics in the operation of basic laws; it appears to be an ergodic result.
I've been getting a crash course in that.
That was my point and this is the error made by those who argue evolution impossible on this basis. Your brain is decreasing the entropy along the neural connections necessary to "think a thought." If you confine the system to that pathway, there appears to be a 2nd law violation. But your brain is also creating waste heat much larger than the negative entropy change involved in thinking. When we include that heat, the total entropy change of the universe is positive, as required.
Thank you for explaining it.
Draw a box around the earth, and you're creating a region in which entropy will not in the aggregate increase. Why? because there is a net flux of energy into that box from the sun. If you call that imaginary box a "system" it is not a system in which energy is conserved.
I understand that but that box is in an even larger box, the infinite universe.
I consider my God to be the one in The King James Bible.
I'm gonna have to teach my grandkids that when mawmaw is on the computer, it's her quiet time. lol Hard to keep a coherent thought in my head.