RWP: You have again confused the second law with one of Newton's laws, in this case the law of universal gravitation. The second law says nothing about the direction of motion of the albatross.
The reason the "creationist appeal to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to refute evolution" keeps resurfacing around here is because those of you on the evolution side only answer half the question - the thermodynamic part.
Of course, nothing violates a physical law. But that is only half the answer, it does not satisfy and that is what the whole albatross thought experiment brings to the table.
On a previous sidebar nasamn777 used the refrigerator metaphor - I just transmuted it to the biological realm using betty boop's thought experiment.
If you want to put the issue to "bed" you need to answer the whole question, to wit:
Living organisms emerge and survive despite the surrounding thermodynamic entropy of non-life – they act willfully (i.e. the will to live, want to live or struggle to survive).
What is it about the living organism - which does not exist in a dead organism or in non-life - that causes it to translate the will to live to the molecular machinery which then obeys the thermodynamic (and all other) physical laws?
It's quite obvious in the living albatross flying away while the dead bird drops along with the 12 lb cannonball. But the will to live is also evident in bacteria, amoeba and so on.
Looking even deeper into the subject is the autonomy and semiosis that arises in biological life – which tends to increase, functionalize, complexify (by whichever flavor your prefer) and actualize to the purpose of satisfying “the will to live”.
As long as the evolutionists only answer half of the question, the whole argument will continue to resurface.
For Lurkers:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Even so, the theory cannot suggest an origin (abiogenesis or biogenesis) for information (successful communication) much less the "will to live". But that is outside the domain of the "theory of evolution".
But at least these information theories - if only you would accept them - would get us past that particular argument by answering the whole question.
The reason I don't get excited about information theories is that I don't see the need for them in evolution. Regardless of what causes variation in genomes, the information about what is needed to survive and reproduce is contained in the transaction that comprises selection.
Your discussion of the complexities reminds me of all the psychobabble surrounding gambling addiction. It is true that people differ in their innate susceptability to addiction, but the actual process is the same in humans, rats, pigeons and other mammals. The design of gambling games and machines is a science, and a very simple one.
Biological evolution changes the frequency of alleles by the mechanism of natural selection. Behavioral reinforcement changes the frequency of associative responses. Same mathematics; different physical implementation; different time frame.
Evolution is no longer bound by the study of fossils, or even by the study of living things. It can be modeled in software, and it can be demonstrated that mutation and selection can produce complex structures. It is pretty clear that we do not understand it well enough to model the complexity of life, but we are beginners at this.
It may be that the universe is tuned to produce evolving systems. That would be cool, but selection is not a predictable phenomenon from our perspective, and it is not possible to anticipate how allele changes will be greeted by the world at large.
Very well put, Alamo-Girl! Living systems must "go against the grain," must counter the natural pull towards equilibrium. This is not a random process, rather it gives every indication of being an informed, or information-based process. And as Paul Davies has pointed out, "The laws of physics…are algorithmically very simple; they contain relatively little information. Consequently they cannot on their own be responsible for creating informational macromolecules…life cannot be ‘written into’ the laws of physics….Life works its magic not by bowing to the directionality of chemistry, but by circumventing what is chemically and thermodynamically ‘natural’. Of course, organisms must comply with the laws of physics and chemistry, but these laws are only incidental to biology.” [Bolds added]
I don't know why it is, but it seems many people have difficulty recognizing this.
Thank you so much for your excellent post!
It does not then obey thermodynamic laws. At all times, in all stages of development, it obeys thermodynamic laws.
It's quite obvious in the living albatross flying away while the dead bird drops along with the 12 lb cannonball. But the will to live is also evident in bacteria, amoeba and so on.
The hypothetical 'will to live' sounds quite Nietzschean. So where in the bacterium is the 'will to live' located?
By the way, the 'panspermia' link which you continually post is quite confused. Boltzmann's constant is not mysterious at all, it's just the constant that relates our scale of temperature to our scale of energy.