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To: Agamemnon
Thermodynamically speaking things proceed from higher levels of order to lower, in the one-way direction from order to disorder. That too is observable fact, codified as a basic Law of Science. Evidence of "speciation" proceding from an identified previous parental order is merely a derivative of that prior order, and cannot be equal to the parent as a matter of order. Implicit with this point then is that speciation is of a more random nature than is the parent, hence, by definition it is of a lower state of order than the parent.

Your use of thermodynamics is inappropriate and incorrect. You are discussing entropy in the context of information theory, not in the context of thermodynamics (which is essentially transaction theory). There is nothing in information theory that requires a tendency towards entropy or away from it. Either one can happen with equal probability. In thermodynamics, you can increase order and reduce entropy in an open system if you have an external enthalpy gradient. The earth is a blatantly obvious example of such a system and biology therefore breaks no rules of thermodynamics. If what you believed was true, diamonds could neither exist nor be manufactured.

Repeating the same dead argument over and over doesn't make it true.

272 posted on 02/04/2002 3:36:04 PM PST by tortoise
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To: PatrickHenry
Placemarker.
273 posted on 02/04/2002 3:47:20 PM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: tortoise
Implicit with this point then is that speciation is of a more random nature than is the parent, hence, by definition it is of a lower state of order than the parent.

Gee, tortoise, I forgot to whom you were responding, and who is also the author of the italicized comment.

The comment takes me back to basic college biology and the spirogyra ( not the musical jazz-fusion group, but a pond dwelling micro-organism of the plant kingdom) a strain of which can surivive within a water temperature range of, for example, between 32 and 40 degrees F. In this pond there is another form of spirogyra which survives well in the temp. range of 60 to 80 degrees F. The two strains, as you can see, each favor their own seasons of the year.

But, life changes and the weather pattern changed to include a much wider, non-seasonally-related variation, and the normally asexual spirogyra began to breed with one another.

The offspring of these parents adapted well to variation between 32 and 80 degrees F.

Whoever responded to you with that comment certainly doesn't appreciate "Hybrid Vigor," a phenomenon exhibited only by living, sexually reproductive organisms.

The laws of Thermodynamics are violated by life forms, a manifestation which virtually defines life--and, by another name: Negative Entropy.

Entropy is the tendency for reactive systems to reach equillibrium and, hence, become stable and intert. Negative entropy is the amazing "life force" that resists entropy and requires, among other things, exogenous energy supply and the ability to use it. Once either one gives way...then the laws of thermodynamics do most certainly apply.

277 posted on 02/04/2002 4:03:40 PM PST by Rudder
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