{"id":45,"date":"2009-06-11T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/06\/evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics.html"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:16:29","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:16:29","slug":"evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/06\/evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics.html","title":{"rendered":"Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image-question23-large.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/202\/import\/image-question23-large.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: center\" height=\"244\" width=\"570\" \/><\/span> <i>&#8220;In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><\/i>How, then, can evolution claim that the complexity of species is increasing?&nbsp; Doesn&#8217;t this movement towards order violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics?<\/p>\n<p>Such an argument is actually based on a misunderstanding of the law.&nbsp; The Second Law applies only to isolated systems, ones where there is no outside energy source.&nbsp; Thus, while the entire universe &#8212; an isolated system with no net energy gain &#8212; is moving towards disorder, parts of the universe may be influenced by outside energy sources.&nbsp; Evolution looks specifically at the Earth &#8212; a system that is gaining energy from the sun.&nbsp; Because of this input of energy, the progression of living organisms towards order is not a contradiction of the Second Law, because the Earth is not an isolated system.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, no one has ever successfully applied the Second Law to complex systems like living organisms, which themselves are more a collection of subsystems working together than a simple isolated system.&nbsp; The fact is that there are numerous examples of order arising from disorder in the natural world.<\/p>\n<p>For more on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and how it relates to evolution, be sure to check out <a href=\"http:\/\/biologos.org\/questions\/evolution-and-the-second-law\/\">&#8220;Does thermodynamics disprove evolution?&#8221;<\/a> in the Questions section at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biologos.org\/\">www.biologos.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.&#8221; How, then, can evolution claim that the complexity of species is increasing?&nbsp; Doesn&#8217;t this movement towards order violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Such an argument is actually based on a misunderstanding of the law.&nbsp; The Second Law&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics - Science and the Sacred<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/06\/evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics - Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.&#8221; How, then, can evolution claim that the complexity of species is increasing?&nbsp; Doesn&#8217;t this movement towards order violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics? Such an argument is actually based on a misunderstanding of the law.&nbsp; The Second Law&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/06\/evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-11T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-19T13:16:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/files\/import\/image-question23-large.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The BioLogos Foundation\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics - Science and the Sacred","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/06\/evolution-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics - Science and the Sacred","og_description":"&#8220;In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.&#8221; How, then, can evolution claim that the complexity of species is increasing?&nbsp; Doesn&#8217;t this movement towards order violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics? 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