ebrown_p wrote:
Some species now fly although their ancestors didn't fly.
Some species now don't fly although their ancestors did.
.
Yea! Like Penguins. Their ancestors were so sleek and smooth but penguins can't fly AND they look silly.
NickFun wrote:ebrown_p wrote:Some species now fly although their ancestors didn't fly.
Some species now don't fly although their ancestors did.
Yea! Like Penguins. Their ancestors were so sleek and smooth but penguins can't fly AND they look silly.
They don't look silly underwater. Watch some video of penguins underwater sometime--that's where they fly.
Can't top a swimming sloth, I'm sure...
Perhaps not for silliness . . . but penguins underwater are cool . . .
I know what that feels like. I'm a Bob Dylan fan.
Evolution certainly seems to progress towards "the more complex" but complexity does not necessarily equate to "advancement".
Interestingly the view from physics and cosmology accounts for the "direction of time" in terms of the second law of thermodynamic...."systems tend to maximum disorder". This seems at first reading to be a contradiction to evolutionary "complexity" but writers such as Greene indicate there is a "trade-off" between order in living systems and disorder in their surrounding environment such that disorder tends to win on balance....so perhaps destruction of the planet is inevitable !
That's all very well fresco but the scientific consensus as I understand it is 4,500 years or maybe 4,500 billion years before that happens. I forget which figure is currently fashionable.
What's going to win the feature race on Saturday?
Has anybody yet noted the problem that "progress" implies values, and values are not features of extrahuman nature? The value "progress" exists only as a product of human mentation.
Not sure if that applies in terms of "progress toward a predictable outcome," as the question has been restated/revised/rewhatever...
Fresco,
The second law of thermodynamics most certainly does not say that "systems tend to maximum disorder".
It is easy to prove that this isn't true...
A container of water is a thermodynamic system. Leave it outside on a cold day and watch it turn from disordered water to ice; an ordered structurce with a regular crystal lattice.
The second law of thermodynamics has very little to do with evolution. If you want to get technical about it... the second law of thermodynamics would explain why evolution would not happen if there were no Sun. But since the sun does exist... it is completely irrelevant.
Patiodog, you're right. Progress (in the neutral sense of movement) toward a goal is the question. I read in comments about the development of "complexity" implications of value. My bad.
Understandable. The anthropomorphism in these arguments usually does progress (ha!) to the point that complexity is "good" and simplicity is "bad."
ebrown_p
In your ice example I think you are confusing closed systems and open systems. My point is illustrated in this excerpt from the Wikpedia article on evolution.
It is claimed that evolution, by increasing complexity without supernatural intervention, violates the second law of thermodynamics. This law posits that in an idealised isolated system, entropy will tend to increase or stay the same. Entropy is a measure of the amount of energy in a physical system which cannot be used to do mechanical work, and in statistical thermodynamics it is envisioned as a measure of the statistical "disorder" at a microstate level.
The claim ignores the fact that biological systems are not isolated systems. The Sun provides a large amount of energy to the Earth, and this flow of heat results in huge increases in entropy, when compared with decreases associated with decreasing the disorder of biological systems.
In fact, the flow of matter and energy through open systems allows self-organization enabling an increase in complexity without guidance or management. Examples include mineral crystals and snowflakes. Life inherently involves open systems, not isolated systems, as all organisms exchange energy and matter with their environment, and similarly the Earth receives energy from the Sun and emits energy back into space.
Spendius,
Just for you....if evolution has no goal it will be decided by a penalty shoot out !
ebrown wrote-
Quote:The second law of thermodynamics has very little to do with evolution. If you want to get technical about it... the second law of thermodynamics would explain why evolution would not happen if there were no Sun. But since the sun does exist... it is completely irrelevant
Is that a justification for a religion based on sun worship?
What % of the sun's energy reaches the earth and what happens to the rest of it. Is it reasonable to ask why evolution is not taking place where the energy from the sun that doesn't reach the earth is getting to and what other things are irrelevant because they also exist. And are some things relevant that don't exist.
No irony intended.
If evolution truly had a goal, it would almost certainly have arrived there millions of years ago, instead of meandering and stalling and just now arriving at the murderous present time.
Fresco,
I am not confusing open systems and closed system. My ice example (and my comment about the sun) was simply making the point that the Earth is not a closed system.
The wikipedia excerpt you posted is exactly right (and it is saying exactly the same thing that I am saying).
Evolution (as it occured on Earth) is not contradicted by the second law of thermodynamics.
Spendius,
No this is not a justification (nor a prohibition for that matter) on sun worship.
Look. The Second law of thermodynamics is a mathematical law which is well defined.
If you took a Thermodynamics course... you would learn to calculate entropy which is not calculated as "disorder" (which is a ill-defined philophical term). You would calculate entropy by finding the amount of heat that crosses the border of a system based on Temperature.
You would then apply the second law of thermodynamics which says that in a closed system... the rate of change of entropy does not increase.
This law was developed by people who were interested in making machines (this started in the age of the steam engine) more efficient and wanted to calculate what the theoretical perfect machine can do. The second law does explain mathematically that you can't have a perpetual motion machine.
My point is this. The second law of thermodynamics is a scientific rule defined by a mathematical equation. It has nothing to do with philosophy (any more than any other math equation based on a measured scientific law).
It certainly has nothing to say about whether life evolved (or didn't evolve) on Earth.
ebrown_p wrote:You would then apply the second law of thermodynamics which says that in a closed system... the rate of change of entropy does not increase.
Is the Universe a "closed system"?
Maybe the superhuman has come and gone.
material girl wrote:Maybe the superhuman has come and gone.
A good point. Neitzsche is dead . . . God told me . . .
No.
He's still in his infancy.
You've all been reading too many news outflows.
