So what is Entropy?
To follow in the tradition of Maimonides. Entropy is NOT a tendency to disorder! I need to thank Joe Felsenstein for directing me to Frank L. Lambert’s insights on a previous thread probably best left alone. Here is a great site to elucidate Lambert’s insights:
http://entropysite.oxy.edu/
What about Evolution? Can complex systems arise naturally and spontaneously into higher tiers of complexity and order and opportunity—according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics— and all without divine intervention commonly described as Intelligent Design or Irreducible Complexity?
Sean Carroll has much to offer on this question:
Participants should refrain from arc-reflex boiler-plate diatribes echoing previously held opinion and first examine what Carroll has to say. Failure to do so will merit cyber-smack downs.
Hi Sal,
I hope the weekend is going well. Here the Sun decided to take a peek between the clouds, which put me into a great mood while it lasted (hiding again the son-of-a-bitch).
Anyway, here the one thing I’d like to question:
The decrease in entropy is associated with the the catalysts that build the chemicals (the amino-acids), by accelerating the reactions that lead to one of the possible chiral configurations. Building those molecules requires energy flow. Accelerating one reaction, rather than the other, requires energy flow. Putting a barrier between one possibility and the other, requires energy flow. There’s no point where you could say that energy flow is not involved. There’s no magic at any point. All goes according to the ways we understand energy to “behave.”
Of course not. That would put the stuff into way too generic terms, and who has the time for getting from such enormous generality to the details of biochemical reactions?
Subtle enough to not exists.
If you forget that there’s components associated with homochirality, other than the homochiral compound itself, then you’re bound to fall into the very same trap you’re warning creationists against. It’s not just the Gibbs energy of the amino-acids, but the Gibbs energy of many more reactions you just happened to ignore in your calculations.
This is not an entropy problem. It’s a problem with levels of analysis.
Enjoy your Sunday. (Sun-day? The sarcasm!)
Alan Fox,
Thanks Alan.
My titties are getting bigger. They span the horizon.
Props for at least trying. That’s more than Tom did. But no.
But I’m talking about Salvador and young earth creationists. 🙂
Why must energy go elsewhere? Did it get an eviction notice?
Sure they do. Don’t you think before you write? Hurricanes and pots of boiling water don’t reproduce.
Sure there is. Hurricanes and pots of boiling water don’t make use of enzymes.
I’m attempting to teach you something Tom… pay attention!
Nonsense.
Living systems control the “flow” of energy. It would be nonsensical to say that they control the flow of entropy.
You’re speaking of entropy as if it has causal powers. Entropy causes energy to do this or that. This displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of entropy. But thanks for trying. Maybe Tom and Rumraket can help you out. 🙂
Sure. Life began.
How much of it is pure nonsense?
“Al buen entendedor pocas palabras.”
Para el necio, no hay cantidad de palabras que baste.
Fixed it fer ya!
You don’t need to show off your inability to understand. You gave plenty of examples already.
There’s no law that prevents physicists from writing nonsense.
The Briefest History of Time: The History of Histories of Time and the Misconstrued Association between Entropy and Time
Read and learn Tom.
Mung,
Shawn has described a scenario where cause and effect don’t work in the sub atomic particle world. I would argue that he simply has not identified the cause of the effect he is observing and labeling a false cause as no cause.
Define life
I’m tempted to post an OP with a link to a bunch of YEC videos and demand that everyone watch them. Sean Carroll is a quack.
Who’s Shawn?
From where I sit, cause and effect, as conceptualizations of the workings of phenomena, are quite outdated and do not help us understand much any more. Because of the familiarity, they might be useful when taking shortcuts in some explanation or another. However, I think we should not try and elevate them from the somewhat useful concepts that they can be, into some kind of universal “feature” or “law” of nature. Cause/effect can be so ill defined, and are so ill definable, that almost anything can be deformed into being called a “cause” or an “effect,” rendering the discussion meaningless.
Lovely November day, not too cloudy here. Thank you for the well wishes. Hope you are well too. Weekend is going well so far.
I don’t believe the decrease in entropy going from the racemic to homochiral state is so much associated with catalysts because catalysts imply there is a decrease in Gibbs free energy when the reaction takes place, whereas the reaction involves an increase in Gibbs free energy which is donated by chemicals releasing energy into the system. In living systems this energy is supplied by a metabolism.
Gibbs Free energy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_free_energy
One very nice way of stating Gibbs free energy is depicted below.
In any case, the Delta-G is increased by going in the homochiral state. This implies the Delta-S is decreased as discussed in the book link. The SPONTANEOUS direction of the reaction is toward the state of chemical equilibrium which is the racemic state (50% L-amino acids, 50% D-amino acids) much like 50% heads, 50% tails for fair coins. The entropy IN the system must be decreased by a change in chemical configuration to create homochirality, not a brute decrease in temperature such as happening by freezing a rat to death or letting heat dissipate from the Earth into space.
Energy is certainly available to make such reactions happen, but the machinery needed isn’t spontaneously available in general, it takes a statistically improbable set of circumstances.
Agreed, it’s a problem with the apparatus needed to make homochirality abundant. I was only pointing out the bass-akward way most creationists understand entropy. One has to work form the chemistry and physics of the system to see if there is or is not an entropy change and in which direction, it’s more complex than saying entropy must decrease, otherwise the dead frozen rat in a lower entropy state than a living adult human would still be alive.
That said, I was pointing out one case where the system entropy, the system of homochiral amino acids, is actually lower relative to the racemic system — all other factors being equal. That is the opposite situation with the dead frozen rat in a lower entropy state compared to the living human in the high entropy state.
Not at all.
Glen Davidson
Glen I was talking about the specific reaction going from racemic to homochiral, not the overall reaction where you have other chemicals involved in a metabolism supplying the energy where the overall Gibbs free energy change is negative. I was specifically talking about the Gibbs free energy change as described in the book link, which is positive going from racemic to homochiral.
It is typical in chemistry to have parts of a reaction have positive Gibbs free energy change at the cost of other reaction having a negative Gibbs free energy change, but the overall reaction having a net negative Gibbs free energy change.
For the reader’s benefit, I liked some of the example here discussing Gibbs free energy:
https://chem.libretexts.org/Core/Physical_and_Theoretical_Chemistry/Thermodynamics/State_Functions/Free_Energy/Gibbs_Free_Energy
Btw, Glen have you figured out yet that Si02 isn’t an organic compound. 🙂
Have you ever learned the slightest bit of honesty?
Guess not.
Glen Davidson
Cut back on the steroids
stcordova,
But amino-acids don’t go from racemic to homochiral within life forms Sal. The chirality is “ensured” by the biosynthesis route, which has everything to do with the whole “system,” including the catalysts. You should not try and infer an entropy problem, however subtle you might want it to sound, from the wrong situation.
(Of course, the going from racemic to homochiral can give you some idea, but other changes of energy should be taken into consideration before calling any of it an “entropy problem.” You know this. You talked about energy supplied by metabolism, so why then call any of it an entropy problem?)
Keep enjoying your day.
stcordova,
By the way, catalysts don’t change the Gibbs energy, they change the activation energy. The reactants have the very same difference in energy states whether there was a catalyst involved in the reaction or not.
{EDIT: Sorry, I misunderstood. You said that catalysts imply a decrease in Gibbs energy. Still Nope. Catalysts don’t imply that. They change the rate of reactions. It doesn’t matter if the changes in Gibbs energy are positive or negative. The difference in Gibbs energy determines the point of equilibrium of the reaction, the catalysts change the rate at which the equilibrium might be reached.}
stcordova,
Thanks for reminding me of Larry’s explanation regarding dodging the “disorder” equivocation with Entropy
I appreciate Larry preferring to avoid getting his B’ere Rabbit hands mired in that particular Tar baby. (I intend no cultural appropriation or ethnic slur)
I wish he hadn’t
Primum non nocere
Arieh Ben-Naim was mentioned a lot on a previous thread
I like his example of oil and water spontaneously separating into two phases as an example of “ordered” Entropy Change
Entropy,
I was not aware of this. The scientific method is based on cause and effect and so are all the papers I have researched in pub med which use knock out experiments to isolate cause. Modern industry is also based on cause and effect in order to improve process. From what perspective do you see it fading away?
It’s not just at TSZ that will people discard cause and effect and yet still claim to be “doing science.”
Hi Entropy
I think too many present are missing the subtlety of the point you are attempting to drive home, especially when language is constrained by teleological metaphors
I am reminded of a tribe in Papua New Guinea who employed the same word for “soul” and “voice”
Some hapless elderly lady was buried alive because she had lost her voice. Her dramatic gesticulations could not prevent the continuation of her own funeral
Wittgenstein had much to offer on how language conscribes thought processes
Even today, devout creationists defer to Aristotle’s four levels of causation
I can guess who your angry opponent was… perchance he had a career in Medicine?
Mung,
I am interested how science is done without it.
This reminds me of a very perplexed Biology instructor in a Seventh Day Adventist college
He was excited by a YEC champion who came up with a novel idea
Amino Acids of animals frozen in the tundra undergo slow racemification
He was determined to prove these frozen animals could not have existed more than 6000 years ago
Actually his racemification analysis proved very accurate, but he was chagrined to prove his calculations coincided with textbook orthodoxy
I cannot provide details, my narration constitutes hearsay and I never lingered long enough to find out if the instructor I befriended eventually left the church
Entropy = Natural Kantian?
Thanks for the reminder.
I was hoping to focus debate on the necessary connection between evolution and Entropy for decidly ulterior motives… as Mung surmised I intend to cobble a condensed précis into something a High School student could understand
Then you will need to decide whether to teach entropy as something mysterious in which no one know what “entropy” is, or as something understandable. If it’s the latter, you’ll want to avoid Salvador.
Ben-Naim teaches entropy from the point of view of information theory, a view which has a respected history in statistical thermodynamics. For high school students you might want to start with one of the following:
Discover Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: A Playful Way of Discovering a Law of Nature
Information, Entropy, Life and the Universe: What We Know and What We Do Not Know
Did it surprise you to find out that I accept universal common descent?
Would it surprise you to find out that I don’t think entropy is a barrier to evolution?
You and John Harshman both seem to be mired in the past. If you can’t find a young earth creationist to argue with you’ve got nothing to offer.
Entropy, like natural selection, is probabilistic. Entropy does not say that improbable things cannot happen. Entropy does prohibit improbable things from happening.
At one point I had a great quote from Schrodinger about this but haven’t been able to find it again. =P
No it’s not. It’s based on relationships that you can describe as “cause/effect” if you feel like an old greek philosopher, or just describe as relationships, probabilities, etc, if you don’t feel like that. We don’t use those terms much though. They tend introduce more confusion than help in our understanding of phenomena.
That you can call that “cause” only demonstrates my point. You can call anything a “cause” or an “effect,” but that’s just because you like that wording, not because the concepts are any more helpful than no such wording at all.
We want to figure out relationships, interactions, potential outcomes from one set of events or another. We can call those “cause,” we can call those others “effects,” but the point is that the concepts are not necessary in order to understand our experiments and reach conclusions.
I’d bet that industry cares about the improvement of the product much more than about whether we’re conceptualizing their processes as causes and effects, or as probability distributions with variables that may influence each other back and forth, feedbacks, loops, etc.
I only learned cause / effect in school as part of the philosophy of the greeks, never to talk about such thing again. Sure, sometimes we may talk in those terms, but we don’t mistake them for the way reality works. We understand they’re concepts that may be helpful at times, not so helpful at other times.
The only place I’ve heard of them as if they were the top of the cream in philosophical thinking is in Christian apologetics, which is not really the best context to learn philosophy, let alone philosophy of science.
I didn’t say catalysts change the Gibbs free energy, their ability to move the reaction IMPLIES the Gibbs free energy change is negative (in addition to the activation energy being lowered). So you criticized something I didn’t say.
I know. I told you that I mistook what you said, which is why I added the second part, which is pertinent to what you meant.
The situation I was alluding to was the origin of life where the entropy of a racemic mix of amino acids must be decreased according to the Gibbs free energy formula if the amino acids become homochiral. A similar issue will exist for other macro molecules like DNAs. But it doesn’t stop there. There is spontaneous hydrolysis and any other host of reactions where the Gibbs free energy change is negative (therefore favorable) toward a state of disorganization rather than something living.
These challenges would be there for the early life forms or any pre-cursors thereof. No origin of life, no evolution.
It’s a biochemistry problem that actually needs an entropy decrease but for the right reasons (like change in chemical structure) not just loss of heat into the open system of space. Entropy increasing in the universe doesn’t solve these kinds of local problems where local entropy decrease is needed because it is associated with creation of chemical structures that are in a precarious quasi equilibrium like life. This isn’t so much a 2nd law issue as much as what is the chemical expectation of products given certain reactants.
I already said, creationists shouldn’t use the entropy argument, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t situations where an entropy decrease isn’t important. Universally and on a net basis entropy must increase for life to exist, however, there are local pockets where entropy must decrease due to change in structure. That’s not the same sort of local entropy decrease when the open system of the Earth dumps heat into the cold of space. The Earth dumping entropy into space doesn’t decrease the sort of entropy in small chemical systems needed to make life from a primordial soup. The Earth can dump all sorts of entropy into space, it won’t result in the formation of homochiral amino acid peptides spontaneously (and induce the appropriate entropy decrease).
But who cares about equilibrium states!
But we don’t know what the situation was Sal. Even then, if the situation was one where racemic mixtures existed. Then, you should easily understand that a change of entropy from racemic to homochiral, in absolute isolation, is but an exercise of your imagination. You know very well that anywhere and anyhow life might have started, it was not with racemic amino-acids absolutely isolated from any potential context that might connect energy flows. The most your analyses can do, is predict that if life’s origin involved racemic mixtures, it did so in contexts with connected energy flows. But infer a subtle entropy problem? Sorry, but no.
Tom asked:
It is an abstract entity that is hard for humans to relate to.
We can conceptualize physical quantities like position, length, mass, weight, acceleration, velocity, temperature, charge, heat, etc. But we can’t really conceptualize entropy very well except maybe in mathematical terms.
Clausius called entropy transformation energy. Energy can be measured in Joules. If we divide the energy flowing out of a system at a given temperature by the temperature, we have an instantaneous amount of entropy flowing through the system boundary. So the closest thing we can say is that it is a transformation energy. Hence the Clausius definition of infinitesimal change of entropy:
dS = dQ/T
Boltzman (and really Planck) gave an alternate definition in terms of microstates:
S = ln W
where W (omega) is the number of position/momentum microstates (or in some cases energy microstates). This is even more abstract and difficult to compute. Hardly anyone actually counts the astronomically large number of microstates! So the Clausius version is the one used a lot in every day practice. Boltzmann was very useful for being able to relate macro measurements of entropy in the lab to micro events at the atomic level. The classic example is Pauling’s study of ice.
I know! And even then they do so inconsistently, depending on what they want their conclusions to be. Even the “professional” philosophers among them are like that.
No. Not that guy. That guy responds with anger to each and every comment against his diatribe, no matter if he understood the point or not. I also doubt that guy would understand the point I was making at all (if we’re thinking about the same guy with a career in Medicine).
I’m not trying to be combative here, just a scholarly discussion. You strike me as a scholar….
So to back up a bit, I view a homochiral peptide to be in a lower entropy state than that same peptide after it is racemized (like after a creature dies and perhaps not totally decayed or eaten and thousands of years pass). Is that a wrong or right characterization of the states of entropy (all other things equal, like say temperature and pressure).
I’m not trying to be combative either (but I might sound as if I am). I’m just trying to not get too far from the point I was questioning. The reason I’ve continued our exchange is that I understood that you’re trying to have a scholarly discussion.
It’s right. (I hope you’re not going to tell me that the cadaver in the same as whatever the situation where life might have originated.)