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To: Donald Rumsfeld Fan
The law is much more general than that.

I have to spend $6000 this month on lowering my house's entrophy. Dry rot.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a law of physics that requires that the entropy of system cannot decrease unless the entropy of its environment increases by a greater amount. That is all it states.

Please name a process required by evolution would cause a decrease of entropy in a closed system not compensated for by an increase in the entropy of its surroundings, because I am at loss to think of one or find one.

If you disagree that this is what the 2nd Law states, please direct me to a reliable physics source that explains other generalizable consequences of the 2nd Law, because I am not aware of any, nor can I find any on my own.

208 posted on 07/14/2007 7:13:47 PM PDT by ok_now ((Huh?))
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To: ok_now

But, But, the sun shining on it should keep it from rotting, since the sun prevents entropy.


209 posted on 07/14/2007 7:19:40 PM PDT by balch3
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To: ok_now

Welcome to FR. You join today and hop on a crevo thread for your first and only post? What was your previous screenname?


211 posted on 07/14/2007 7:54:54 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: ok_now
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a law of physics that requires that the entropy of system cannot decrease unless the entropy of its environment increases by a greater amount. That is all it states.

In a narrow sense that is true. But it has broader implications.

My example was of an "open system". If one were to decrease the total entropy of a system (my rotting house for example) it must allow for a piercing of the closed system from time to time in-order to bring in directed energy from outside the system. Thus my house is a closed system only if I encase it in a vacuum chamber and never perform maintenance on it.

The second law as it relates to evolution is that life systems require directed energy from outside to survive. Otherwise they tend to maximum entropy. Thus it can't be closed and survive indefinitely.

A herd of cows in a closed system will eventually decompose into random atoms.

But with an injection of directed energy from outside the system, the herd can be renewed.

The thing missing from some of the ToE arguments regarding the second law, is that it can't explain how life can develop without directed energy (energy guided by information) in a closed universe. Without significant "hand waving".

The only quasi logical explanation is had when one assumes the parallel and/or infinite universe hypothesis. Then a case for evolution sans an intelligent prime mover gains a fig leaf of plausibility.

217 posted on 07/14/2007 8:44:01 PM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan (NY Times: "fake but accurate")
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