Talk:Entropy
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Tsumetai (talk | contribs) at 15:54, March 13, 2007. It may differ significantly from current revision.
Most creationists have rejected the simpler forms of the second law of thermodynamics thing. --John 00:39, 5 March 2007 (EST)
I'm not a young earth creationist, but isn't this one of the things on Answers in Genesis's list of "arguments that should not be used"? MountainDew 00:41, 5 March 2007 (EST)
I don't like the label "creationist", but I find the entropy argument very persuasive. Maybe it depends on how the argument is presented, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics is fundamental and never, ever violated.--Aschlafly 00:52, 5 March 2007 (EST)
- MountainDew, in a word yes. The argument is actually one of the most painfully flawed of all creationist arguments- the 2nd law as a statement of entropy levels only applies to closed systems and the Earth (where evolution is occuring) is not a closed system. Furthermore, it isn't even clear that evolution decreases the local level of entropy anyways. JoshuaZ 00:55, 5 March 2007 (EST)
- On the contrary, 2nd law is indeed violated on the quantum scale, and even on the macro scale if you wait a very long time. Tsumetai 11:38, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
- But for most, if not all, systems, that would be a meaninglessly long time for a noticeable violation. I'm not sure that the concept of entropy is actually applicable on the quantum scale (whatever that may mean ;-). Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity and hence is only meaningful for large assemblies of particles. PaulB 11:46, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
- Yes, the timescales are almost inconceivable on any noticeable scale.
- Entropy can certainly be formulated in QM terms, though. For that matter, large assemblies of particles can still be quantum-mechanical in nature; consider the difference between Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics in stat mech. Tsumetai 11:54, 13 March 2007 (EDT)