The New Intellectual Observer - A Prudent Inquiry

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1. No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300 000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

 

2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

 

3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the Earth - assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 1.25 kilometres per household, a total trip of 120.8 million kilometres, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 1040 kilometres per second, 3 000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on Earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 44 km per second -  a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 25 km per hour.

4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Leggo set (1 kg), the sleigh is carrying 321 000 tonnes, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 150 kg. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214 200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353 430 tonnes. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5. 353000 tonnes travelling at 1235 kilometres per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17 500 times greater than gravity. A 100 kg Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 1 961 370 kg of force.

In conclusion: if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I took the opportunity in a blog entitled "Missing Link" (September 2006) to have some fun at the expense of the then opposition leader, and perhaps though not intentionally at intelligent design proponents. What sparked were comments about the possible evolution of an individual person. If your belief is, as mine was at that time, that an individual cannot evolve, then please consider why you believe this before reading on.

 

If one observes a culture of single-celled bacteria, replicating when sufficient resources are present by direct cell division (one cell divides to become two), then mutations appear and under stress there is selective pressure. The bacterial culture is seen to evolve. In the human body cells are constantly being replaced in large numbers, and if this process was equivalent to bacterial replication, then it would follow that our tissues could evolve during our lifetime.

 

This outcome would be undesirable, as our tissues would become riddled with non-functioning mutant cells that may have a selective advantage over functioning cells. Scientists now believe that this is why some cells, such as epithelial tissue cells, take such an apparently lengthy and inefficient route to replication. Our bodies preserve a population of undifferentiated stem cells that divide to make transient amplifying cells (TACs). These TACs then divide several times, producing cells that are a little more developed into mature tissue cells. This process costs metabolic energy and so is not very efficient, but as the stem cells replicate only a little, there is less chance of mutations. Even if the TACs do mutate, which they may, they aren't copying themselves so evolution can't get started.

 

There is one example of a situation where this scheme may not operate. In the immune system, evolution is beneficial, as it introduces adaptations that fight previously encountered invaders. This may make the immune system more prone to cancers, for example leukaemia and lymphoma, cancers associated with the immune system. An understanding of these replication systems may help to further cancer research.

Newspapers, radio and television media daily report results of new "groundbreaking scientific research", but how do we know how reliable these sources are? Hopefully readers are aware that news media, in the fight for more customers, frequently quote inaccurate, misleading or premature judgements as "scientific conclusions". So where would one go for accurate information on current scientific issues of interest? You would probably reach out to a peer reviewed scientific journal. However, how do we know that these sources are any more reputable than a news media source?

The answer is given in the description above. The one characteristic of science that stands out as a defining property. Science assesses the validity and significance of new research through a process of peer review. Peer review intends to ensure that papers are valid, significant and original (Sense About Science, 2005). However, does this process always work?

Several authors (Freshwater, 2006; McCook, 2007; Schroter 2007) view concern about the limitations of peer review. These include the unfair rejection of good papers and acceptance of poor or inaccurate ones as a result of increased pressure on reviewers, and increased quantity of papers submitted (McCook, 2007). Even despite a lack of evidence of the effectiveness of peer review (McCook, 2007), most scientists hold peer review as "highly sacred" (Schroter, 2007), unusual in a field where nothing is ever accepted by "blind faith".

Taking peer review one step further, Nature conducted an open peer review trial in 2006, submitting manuscripts on a preprint server for open comments, in addition to the traditional peer review process. The Public Library of Science has just recently launched PLoS One which also encourages open comment on articles. In November 2006 Nature finished its trial, stating that "despite enthusiasm for the concept, open peer review was not widely popular, either among authors or by scientists invited to comment" (Nature, 2006).

Sense About Science has produced a guide to help people to query the status of science and research reported in the media, called "I Don't Know What to Believe: Making sense of science stories". It can be viewed at http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/PDF/ShortPeerReviewGuide.pdf. PLoS One is an open access electronic periodical that allows readers to comment on biological and medical papers published. It can be viewed at http://www.plosone.org.

References

Freshwater, D. (2006). Editors and Publishing: Integrity, Trust and Faith. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 13(1), 1-2.

McCook, A. (2007). Is Peer Review Broken? The Scientist, 20 (2), 26.

Nature Publishing. (2006). Peer Review Trial and Debate. Nature, 444(7115), xii.

Schroter, S. (2007). Response to Scientific Journals are "Faith Based": Is there a science behind peer review? Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 100(3), 117-118.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has dramatically altered how molecular studies are conducted and even the questions that can be asked. In addition to simplifying molecular tasks typically carried out with the use of recombinant DNA technology, PCR has allowed a range of advances from the identification of novel genes and pathogens to the quantisation of characterised nucleotide sequences (Erlich et al., 1991). PCR can provide insights into the intricacies of single cells as well as the evolution of species.

PCR is an in vitro technique for the amplification of a region of DNA which lies between two regions of known sequence. PCR amplification is achieved by using oligonucleotide primers (short, single stranded oligonucleotides which are complementary to the outer regions of known sequence). These serve as primers (a short sequence of nucleotides to “prime” the process, or get it started) for DNA polymerase, and the denaturated strands of the large DNA fragment serve as the template. This results in the synthesis of new DNA strands which are complementary to the parent template strands. These new strands have defined 5’ ends (the 5’ ends of the oligonucleotide primers), whereas the 3’ ends are potentially ambiguous in length (Campbell, Reece & Myers, 2006), since DNA replication proceeds in a 5’ to 3’ direction. The oligonucleotide directed synthesis of daughter DNA strands can be repeated if the new duplex is denatured (by heating) and additional primers are allowed to anneal (by cooling to an appropriate temperature). After each cycle the newly synthesised DNA strands serve as templates in the next cycle.

In nature, most organisms copy their DNA in the same way. The PCR simply mimics this natural process. When any cell divides, enzymes called polymerases make a copy of all the DNA in each chromosome. The first step in this process is to denature, or “unzip”, the two DNA chains of the double helix. As the two strands separate, DNA polymerase makes a copy using each strand as a template. To copy DNA, polymerase requires two other components: a supply of the four nucleotide bases and a primer as described above. A PCR vial contains all the necessary components for DNA duplication: a piece of DNA, large quantities of the four nucleotides, large quantities of the primer sequence, and DNA polymerase (Campbell, Reece & Myers, 2006).

The initial denaturation of the template, separating the two DNA chains in the double helix, is accomplished at 75 – 90 º C (Bethesda, 1992). However, the primers cannot bind to the DNA strands at such a high temperature. The vial is thus cooled to 55 º C (Bethesda, 1992). At this temperature, the primers bind or “anneal” to the ends of the DNA strands. Primer annealing temperature is an important parameter in the success of the PCR experiment. The annealing temperature is characteristic for each oligonucleotide. It is a function of the length and base composition of the primer as well as the ionic strength of the reaction buffer. Estimates of the annealing temperature can be calculated in several different ways. These calculated annealing temperatures are a starting point for the PCR experiment, but ideal annealing temperatures are determined experimentally. The final step of the reaction is to make a complete copy of the templates. Since the Taq polymerase used in PCR works best around 75 º C (the temperature of the hot springs where the bacterium in which it occurs naturally was discovered), the temperature of the vial is raised. The length of time of the primer extension steps can be increased if the region of DNA to be amplified is long, however, for the majority of PCR experiments an extension time of 2 minutes is sufficient to get complete extension. The number of cycles is usually between 25 and 35. More cycles mean a greater yield of product, however, with increasing number of cycles the greater the probability of generating various artifacts (eg. mispriming products). It is unusual to find procedures which have more than 40 cycles.

PCR was invented in 1985 by Kary Mullis. The original method of PCR used the Klenow fragment of E. coli DNA polymerase I. This enzyme, however, denatures at temperatures lower than required to denature most template duplexes. Thus, after each cycle, fresh enzyme had to be added to the reaction. This was quite tedious. In addition to this problem with the enzyme, the samples had to be moved from one temperature bath to another to allow the individual steps of denaturation, annealing and polymerization (which all required different temperatures). This was pretty tedious too. Thus, two main advances allowed the process to be automated. The use of thermostable DNA polymerases, which resisted denaturation (inactivation) at high temperatures means that an initial aliquot of polymerase could last throughout the numerous cycles of the protocol. The first thermostable DNA polymerase to be used was isolated from the bacterium Thermus aquaticus. It was isolated from a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. In addition, the development of temperature baths which could shift their temperatures up and down rapidly and in an automated programmed manner. These are known as thermal cyclers or PCR machines. The thermal cycling parameters are critical to a successful PCR experiment. The important steps in each cycle are denaturation of the template, annealing of the primers and extension of the primers. The Taq polymerase begins by adding nucleotides to the primer and eventually makes a complementary copy of the template. This completes one PCR cycle. The three steps in the polymerase chain reaction take less than two minutes (Bethesda, 1992). After 30 cycles, 1 billion copies of a single piece of DNA can be produced.

Mark Hughes, Director of the National Centre for Human Genome Research at the National Institutes of Health, has been quoted as saying that “PCR is the most important new scientific technology to come along in the last hundred years” (Powledge, 2004). With medical research and clinical medicine already profiting from PCR in the areas of infectious disease detection and mutation and gene variation detection, this process has very quickly become an essential tool for improving human health and human life.

 

REFERENCES

Bethesda, M.D. (1992). New Tools for Tomorrow’s Health Research. Department of Health and Human Services

Campbell, N., Reece, J., & Meyers, N. (2006). Biology. Pearson Education Australia

Earlich, H., Gelfand, D., Sninsky, J. (1991). Recent Advances in the Polymerase Chain Reaction. Science 252 ;5013 pp. 1643-1651

Powledge, T. (2004). The Polymerase Chain Reaction. Physiol Educ 28 p 44

The words “science” and “technology” are used freely in literature and everyday communication, but rarely are these terms defined. Does this suggest that an author can write about “science” and “technology” without explaining what he or she means by these terms? Are the words familiar to and well understood by the majority of people today? The answer: probably not. Most people probably believe that they know what the words “science” and “technology” mean, but chances are they have an imperfect or incomplete understanding of these common words. In trying to understand the social and ethical implications of “science” and “technology”, then, this might be a considerable problem.

So who really cares anyway? Agencies that back research are not going to supply money for “scientific” research to just any kind of activity. There has to be something about the research that makes it “scientific”. The term “science” refers to much more than “an organised collection of facts” or some similar simplified dictionary definition (Newton, 1987). A well-informed citizen today really ought to know what it is that science attempts to do, what methods it uses, the assumptions under which it operates, what its limitations are, how it decides if something is “true” and how the goals and methods of science differ from those of theology, art and other non-scientific activities. Science students should experience, in the first few lessons of their course, the most critical elements about the nature of science. This is not “The Scientific Method” so widely presented in textbooks, but far more important is for students to learn that science is tentative, uncertain, cannot solve every type of problem and deals mainly with attempts to explain natural phenomena in natural terms. They must realise that science does this by trying to disprove or invalidate possible solutions, not prove them (Flammer, 2006b). If a possible solution (hypothesis) is valid, certain observations can be expected in nature, or certain results can be expected from an experiment. These discriminating challenges are only possible with natural explanations. They do not work with supernatural solutions, where anything is possible. By definition, such “miracles” operate outside of natural laws, so nothing is reliably predictable. Consequently, testing any supernatural hypothesis will always be indeterminate, therefore pointless (Flammer, 2006b). Primarily for this reason, science can never consider, or evaluate the validity of supernatural explanations for any phenomenon.

Some of the most dramatic battles in the history of civilisation have been those between science and religion. The attempts by the early Christian Church to destroy Greek learning; the prohibition by the early Catholic church of anatomical studies; the arrest, censure and silencing of Galileo by the Inquisition; the conflicts that arose in the late eighteenth century between physicians and churchmen over the practice of vaccination. These are only a few of the examples that might be cited. The response of church leaders to Darwin’s two books – The Origin of Species and Descent of Man – was anger and outrage. The notions of organic evolution were profoundly at variance with the church’s teachings about the history of the world. It was clear that Darwin and the Bible could not both be correct. The ideas Darwin suggested struck at the most fundamental tenets of Christian teaching. In the long run, science won this battle, as it is almost certain to do in controversies over the description of natural phenomena. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there was hardly a biologist in the world who had not recognised the theory of evolution as one of the most powerful biological concepts ever developed (Newton, 1987). Today there are few biologists who would not agree with that statement. Surveys reveal that many in our society have an inadequate and inaccurate understanding of evolution (Alters & Alters, 2001; cited in Flammer, 2006a). Much of this can be traced directly to popular misconceptions about the nature of science. This, in turn, can be linked to misrepresentation by those opposed to evolution (Flammer, 2006a). Steps must be taken to correct this; otherwise we may all lose many of the potential benefits that can come from a more scientifically literate society.

From numerous surveys, much of the public is clearly ill informed about those important features of science, which are seldom adequately presented in textbooks (Flammer, 2006a). They include the realm of science, its limits, rules, social context, values and assumptions (Lederman & Lederman 2004; cited in Flammer, 2006a). The public should be aware that science can only deal with natural phenomena, that science is inherently tentative, often biased and neither fair nor democratic. Beliefs or opinions alone don’t count. It should be known too that science can be done well or it can be done poorly. Most of the resistance to science in general, and evolution in particular, is built upon public misperceptions about these aspects of science. As a result, many people are easily deceived by a number of pseudoscience belief systems that claim to be scientific, but ignore the rules of science. Both ID and “creation science” are excellent examples of pseudoscience. In some ways, these controversies seem fruitless, naïve and absurd. It’s evident that the “truth systems” of religion and of science are simply different. In religion, truth is revealed from a supreme being to some intermediary. People believe that truth by faith. They don’t ask the intermediary to submit his or her truth to a committee of peers for testing and confirmation. Once revealed, religious truth is usually regarded as absolute and eternal. In science, an idea is considered true only after it has survived a great many tests over a long period of time by many individuals. The criterion for truth in science is pragmatic: a statement about the world is true if it works. If a scientific “truth” no longer works well in describing the natural world, it is no longer “true”.

“Science” and “technology” are often used in the same breath, so do they mean the same thing? Definitely not! When scientists talk about “science”, they are probably referring to the thing more properly known as pure research. This research is done primarily for the sake of finding out more about the natural world. It aims at furthering our understanding of how the universe is made up and how it operates. “Technology”, on the other hand, refers to the use of scientific research in order to solve a particular practical problem. Understanding what science and technology are about should be a priority in education systems. This understanding, however, requires much more than simply knowing definitions for these terms.

 

REFERENCES

Flammer, L (2006a). The Evolution Solution: Teaching Evolution Without Conflict. The American Biology Teacher Online Publication March 2006

Flammer, L (2006b). The Importance of Teaching the Nature of Science. The American Biology Teacher 68:4 pp 197-198

Newton, D (1987). Science and Social Issues. Hawker, Brownlow Education.

ABSTRACT

Many creationists and proponents of intelligent design feel threatened by the scientific theory of evolution, and will use any type of reason to attempt to sway public opinion, whether their reasoning is accurate or not. One such claim is that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (that energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy) prevents the process of evolution (that species evolve through natural selection). This claim is incorrect, and is based on a lack of understanding of both concepts. The link between thermodynamics and evolution has been studied in depth, and never to the detriment of evolution. Many scientists have proposed statements linking evolution and thermodynamics as a Fourth Law of Thermodynamics.

 

THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS

The science of evolution is concerned with understanding the properties of populations of living matter in so far as they are regulated by changes in generation time (Demetrius, 2000). Many fundamentalist Christians see the theory of evolution as a threat to their faith, evidently because it is not explicitly included in Genesis. The science of thermodynamics is concerned with understanding the properties of inanimate matter in so far as they are determined by changes in temperature (Demetrius, 2000). Most disquieting are the misleading statements about thermodynamics and chemistry that some creationist spokespeople have made. The laws of thermodynamics have an important impact on many fields, so these will be briefly described first. They describe the specifics for the transport of heat and work in thermodynamic processes.

The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics states that if object A is in thermal equilibrium with object C, and object B is separately in thermal equilibrium with object C, then objects A and B will be in thermal equilibrium if they are placed in thermal contact (Walker, 2004). So if two thermodynamic systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other. The Zeroth Law asserts that thermal equilibrium, viewed as a binary relation (having two variables), is an equivalence relation (being equal in value).

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the change in a system’s internal energy, ΔU, is related to the heat Q and the work W as follows: ΔU = Q – W (Walker, 2004). Thus in any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant. This is the law of conservation of energy, stating that in a closed system energy cannot be created or destroyed. The First Law clarifies the nature of energy as a stored quantity, independent of system history (i.e. Energy is a state function).

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that when objects of different temperatures are brought into thermal contact, the spontaneous flow of heat that results is always from the high temperature object to the low temperature object. Spontaneous heat flow never proceeds in the reverse direction (Walker, 2004). Energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that it is impossible to lower the temperature of an object to absolute zero in a finite number of steps (Walker, 2004). This is because as the temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant.

 

EVOLUTION AND THE SECOND LAW

The Second Law of Thermodynamics was described above as a statement of the fact that energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy. The Second Law asserts that in irreversible processes there is a uni-directional increase in thermodynamic entropy, a measure of the degree of uncertainty in the thermal energy state of a randomly chosen particle in the aggregate (Demetrius, 2000). Some Creationists, in a hasty attempt to justify their faith, conclude that this law being true prevents the evolution of increasingly complex organisms, since spontaneous processes apparently serve only to produce disorder. This claim is not correct. Although by the Second Law the total entropy in a closed system will not decrease, this does not prevent increasing order. Firstly, the Earth is not a closed system as defined by thermodynamics. More importantly, entropy is not the same as disorder. Sometimes the two correspond, but sometimes order increases as entropy increases (Aranda-Espinoza et. al, 1999; Kestenbaum, 1998). Entropy can even be used to produce order (Han and Craighead, 2000; Kestenbaum, 1998). It is argued that the order produced within cells as they grow and divide is more than compensated for by the disorder they create in their surroundings in the course of growth and division. According to Albert Lehninger (1993), “living organisms preserve their internal order by taking from their surroundings free energy, in the form of nutrients or sunlight, and returning to their surroundings an equal amount of energy as heat and entropy”.

Much of the confusion surrounding thermodynamics and evolution is the result of a misunderstanding of the term entropy. Traditionally, entropy has been defined as a measure of energy dispersal, of “mixing” or “spreading out”. Some ambiguity lies within that statement. Entropy measures the spontaneous dispersal of energy, not matter, at a specific temperature. A recently developed educational approach avoids ambiguous terms and describes such spreading out of energy as dispersal, which leads to loss of the differentials required for work even though the total energy remains constant in accordance with the First Law of Thermodynamics above. Thus one could say that energy spontaneously disperses from being localised to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so (Lambert, 2002). Physical chemist Peter Atkins (1984), for example, who previously wrote of dispersal leading to a disordered state, now writes that “spontaneous changes are always accompanied by a dispersal of energy”, and has discarded disorder as a definition. Taking all of the above into consideration, entropy could be defined as follows: Entropy is a state function that can be understood as a measure of the amount of free energy in a physical system that cannot be used to do thermodynamic work. The SI unit of entropy is the “joule per Kelvin” (J.K^-1). This would appear however to present another discrepancy. Free energy is defined as the ability to do work. Thus free energy incapable of doing work doesn’t make an acceptable definition. Perhaps there is sufficient reason to review these definitions.

Much writing and research has been devoted to the relationship between thermodynamic entropy and the evolution of life. Connections between evolution and entropy have been studied in depth, and never to the detriment of evolution (Demetrius, 2000). Several scientists have proposed that evolution and the origin of life is driven by entropy (McShea, 1998). Some see the information content of organisms subject to diversification according to the Second Law (Brooks and Wiley, 1988), so organisms diversify to fill empty niches much as a gas expands to fill an empty container. Others propose that highly ordered complex systems energy and evolve to dissipate energy (and increase overall entropy) more efficiently (Schneider and Kay, 1994). Sometimes entropy can be a force for organisation. Physicists have recently rediscovered this strange phenomenon, in which an increase in entropy in one part of a system forces another part into greater order. Engineers are awakening to the possibility of harnessing the force of entropy to build ordered structures. The fact that ordering force can push on membranes has rekindled speculation that living cells might take advantage of this little-known trick of physics (Kestenbaum, 1998).

The same argument that entropy disallows spontaneous order could be made about the formation of complex molecules from their more random atomic components. When analysing the chemistry we find the chemical potential energy (the enthalpy of formation) that is bound in most of the 20 000 000 known kinds of molecules is less than that in their elements. Thus, energetically, the Second Law says that the majority of compounds now known could spontaneously form from the corresponding elements. Energetically, the Second Law of Thermodynamics favours the formation of the majority of all known complex and ordered chemical compounds directly from their simpler elements. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the Second Law does not dictate the decrease of ordered structure. It only demands a “spreading out” of energy when such ordered compounds are formed spontaneously.

Directionality theory, a mathematical model of evolutionary entropy, is a non-equilibrium extension of the principle of a uni-directional increase of thermodynamic entropy. Directionality in evolutionary theory is characterised by the observation that species in any phyletic lineage are in general better adapted to the local environment than the ones they replaced (Demetrius, 2000). Adaptation is the result of a gradual dynamic process which arises from the continual production of new variation, and competition between the new variants and the incumbent types for the existing resources. Directionality in populations of replicating organisms can be described in terms of an increase in evolutionary entropy in populations with bonded growth. Evolutionary entropy is a statistical quantity: it is a measure of the uncertainty in the age of the mother of a randomly chosen newborn in a population of replicating organisms (Demetrius, 2000). Thus the increase in the statistical evolutionary entropy under bounded growth constraints have both strong explanatory and predictive properties and contributes a unifying principle for understanding the patterns generated by mutation and natural selection over evolutionary time.

 

TENTATIVE FOURTH LAW

It was pointed out by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1886 (cited in Lotka, 1922) that the fundamental object of contention in the life-struggle in the evolution of the organic world is “available energy”. In accord with this observation is the principle that, in the struggle for existence, the advantage must go to those organisms whose energy capturing devices are most efficient in directing available energy into channels favourable to the preservation of the species. Since then many scientists have postulated potential Fourth Laws of Thermodynamics, the majority of which are attempts to directly apply thermodynamics to evolution. Most Fourth Law statements, however, are at this point in time speculative and far from agreed upon.

The concept of “Maximum Power” has been proposed as the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics. This was tentatively proposed first by Alfred J. Lotka (1922). It was subsequently developed further by Howard T. Odum in collaboration with Richard C. Pinkerton. The Odum/Pinkerton approach was to apply Ohm’s law, and the associated maximum power theorem (a result in electrical power systems), to ecological systems. In this was they used the concept of maximum power as a principle which quantitatively describes the law of biological evolution. The concept of maximum power can therefore be defined as the maximum rate of useful energy transformation. To clarify, the maximum power principle can be stated: During self-organisation, system designs develop and prevail that maximise power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency (Odum, 1995). This statement is equal to the statement of natural selection. Odum had previously (1963) stated “It seems to this author appropriate to unite the biological and physical traditions by giving the Darwinian principle of natural selection the citation as the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics, since it is the controlling principle in rate of heat generation and efficiency settings in irreversible biological processes.”

 

CONCLUSION

So we can conclude that it is incorrect to state that the Second Law of Thermodynamics prevents evolution. It has been shown that it is not appropriate to apply the law in this way, as the Earth is not a closed system. This incorrect claim is also based on (or perhaps relies on) a misunderstanding of the term “entropy”, especially when it is used in conjunction with the words “random” or “disorder”. To claim that a spontaneous increase in order is impossible is ridiculous. Evolution complies completely with the laws of thermodynamics, and many scientists have made statements of that fact. Many of these have been proposed as Fourth Laws of Thermodynamics, most notably the principle of maximum power efficiency. Whether or not the principle of maximum power efficiency can be considered the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics is moot. It may not be necessary to formalise this concept in this way with increased general understanding, beginning with teaching techniques that avoid ambiguity.

 

REFERENCES

Aranda-Espinoza, H., Chen, Y., Dan, N., Lubenski, T.C., Nelson, P., Ramos, L., & Weitz, D.A. (1999). Electrostatic repulsion of positively charged vesicles and negatively charged objects. Science, 285: 394-397.

Atkins, Peter (1984). The Second Law. Scientific American Library.

Demetrius, Lloyd (2000). Thermodynamics and Evolution. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 206(1): 1-16.

Han, J. & Craighead, H.G. (2000). Separation of long DNA molecules in microfabricated entropic trap array. Science, 288: 1026-1029.

Kestenbaum, David (1998). Gentle force of entropy bridges disciplines. Science, 279: 1849.

Lambert, Frank L. (2002). Disorder: a cracked cutch for supporting entropy discussions. JCE, 79: 187.

Lehninger, Albert (1993). Principles of Biochemistry, 2^nd Ed. Worth Publishers.

Lotka, A.J. (1922). Contribution to the energetics of evolution. Proc Natl Acad Sci, 8: 151-154.

McShea, Daniel W. (1998). Possible largest-scale trends in organismal evolution: eight live hypotheses. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 29: 293-318.

Odum, H.T. (1963). Limits of remote ecosystems containing man. The American Biology Teacher, 25(6): 429-443.

Odum, H.T. (1995). “Self-organisation and maximum empower”, in C.A.S. Hall (ed.) Maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum, Colorado University Press, Colorado.

Schneider, Erik D. and Kay, James J. (1994). Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 19(6-8): 25-48.

Walker, J.S. (2004). Physics. Prentice-Hall.

I read this the other day and thought it was interesting, and although its presence here is meant mostly for a bit of fun, it presents some interesting results:

“The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.”

From Applied Optics vol. 11, 1872, cited in Jay Newstead hypo-space.spaces.live.com

Brent