THE THERMODYNAMICS OF LIFE
The second law is especially applicable when we investigate living organisms. Here we will see how living organisms maintain themselves in a state of low entropy to stay alive.
We have already discovered the dividing line between the simple and the complex, at the outer limit of what random action can do. We now know why complex structures cannot arise when natural selection is constrained to small changes. Our investigation used thermodynamics, as transformed into information theory, to conclude that Darwinism is inadequate to explain the presence of the rich variety of biological structures on Earth. This finding is negative, that is, it doesn’t say positively how we should modify Darwinism to produce an adequate explanation. In the second part of this chapter we will discuss the role of negative findings in advancing science.
We have already discovered the dividing line between the simple and the complex, at the outer limit of what random action can do. We now know why complex structures cannot arise when natural selection is constrained to small changes. Our investigation used thermodynamics, as transformed into information theory, to conclude that Darwinism is inadequate to explain the presence of the rich variety of biological structures on Earth. This finding is negative, that is, it doesn’t say positively how we should modify Darwinism to produce an adequate explanation. In the second part of this chapter we will discuss the role of negative findings in advancing science.
