This week’s upcoming Time Magazine highlights:
If the basic rules of chemistry are any guide, life should not exist. Scientists showed in the 1950s that shooting an electric spark through a soup of chemicals — thus simulating lightning strikes on the primordial planet earth — could produce simple organic compounds. But complex, self-reproducing chemicals like dna? They shouldn’t have arisen in a trillion years. At an even deeper level, the second law of thermodynamics dictates that the universe should inexorably move toward disorganization. Cups of tea always cool off; they never spontaneously get hotter. Iron rusts, but rust never turns into iron.
5 responses so far ↓
Robert Cooper // June 15, 2008 at 2:40 am |
The second law of thermodynamics is very specific in its application: closed systems. The earth is not a closed system, it receives constant energy from the Sun. Certainly if you factor in the entropic nature of solar fusion, the solar system displays advancing entropy. However, entropy is a probabilistic value across a whole closed system.
Implying that the second law of thermodynamics forbids localized increases in energy or structure simply demonstrates that the author doesn’t know what he is talking about. Rust indeed turns to iron if you heat it with graphite; graphite becomes diamonds, and yes, cyanide and ammonia can form adenine when heated.
leanna jackson // June 16, 2008 at 10:04 pm |
maybe i’m unsmart, but reading that only made my heard hurt.
Drew // June 17, 2008 at 2:52 am |
What he’s saying is that a cup of tea might not spontaneously get hotter, but it sure will if you stick it in the microwave and give it some energy. Likewise rust will turn back into iron just fine, if you apply energy.
The Earth has got a very nice fancy source of energy that opposes the trend towards disorganization, called the Sun.
The “2nd law of thermodynamics” argument against evolution is silly, old, tired and well discredited, and those who use it display their ignorance of physics.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#thermo
compassioninpolitics // June 17, 2008 at 6:49 am |
@robert
fair enough. i wish this was an issue the time magazine had fleshed out.
@ leanna
I can understand your perspective leanna….the “we are finding complexity where we once thought we found simplicity….and simplicity where we once found complexity” seems to turn things upside down.
Robert Cooper // June 17, 2008 at 11:48 pm |
Honestly, Time’s science coverage is always really bad. That article really confuses the concepts of “Complex Systems”, “Systems Analytics” and “Nonlinear Systems” way too much.
You’d really be better served looking at the relevant Wikipedia articles, or better, go to Wolfram and surf around: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Chaos.html
It is a shame how bad science reporting in the mainstream press is. Even the NYT which used to have a good Tue science section is suffering from poorly educated science reported. The funny thing, maybe the best Science reporter I can recall in a big media outlet was Miles O’Brien at CNN. Then he got “promoted” to the morning show on CNN.