> Just this morning I was reading _The Road Less Traveled_ by M. Scott Peck.
> He says that physical evolution appears to violate the second law of
> thermodynamics, namely that left to themselves natural processes will
> degenerate to a state of entropy, or complete lack of differentiation at
> the lowest energy level. He goes on to posit God as the basis for this,
> but I'm looking for a more satisfying answer. Can anyone explain how
> evolution works? I'm not talking about the process of mutation and
> natural selection; I'm wondering about why the second law of
> thermodynamics, as Peck expressed it, doesn't seem to operate. What is at
> work and how does it operate? How do natural systems emerge and increase
> in their complexity?
The 2nd law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy in a closed
system never decreases, is nice and applicable when one is talking about
an engine cycle... but it is based on the major assumption that: the
system is closed. In other words, there is no energy exchange with the
environment.
A living system which is closed is in a profound state of equilibrium --
namely, it is dead.
Living systems, by definition then open systems, exchange energy with the
environment and at a *local* level entropy decreases when such energy is
transformed into order via the process of self-organization. (Relative to
your prompt, then, "God" would seem to be a fan of complex adaptive
systems.) In a social system, energy takes the form of information.
Prigogine and Stenger's book "Order out of Chaos" explains this
phenomenon; Kelly's book "Out of Control" contains a number of excellent
examples of self-organizing, emergent systems.
-- .............................................................................. Spoils to the packager, rarely the inventor .............................................................................. Kevin Dooley...U Minnesota...Industrial Engineering...kdooley@maroon.tc.umn.edu New address! : http://www.me.umn.edu:70/1/home/kdooley