Dave Birren asks:
>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?
I'm not sure I have it right, but what I believe is that right now in the
universe, more energy is pouring into places like the earth, driving more
rather than less complexity. Entropy is about energy balancing out
everywhere. Right now there is a kind of imbalance, with our planet (and
many others) having all the energy needed to move evolution forward. I
suspect growth and aging are an example of entropy at work. The human
system has the capability of taking in and maintaining its wholeness for
about + or - 4 score years, and then it begins to break down. You can't
beat entropy, you can only stall it. Complexity and increasing levels of
order, however, are what could be called examples of "negative entropy."
Jeremy Rifkind wrote a book entitled _Entropy_ several years ago that
dealt with such issues.
-- John Woods jwoods@execpc.com