Question

In your biology career, you may come across people attempting to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to discredit the idea of evolution. Their argument goes something like this: The theory of evolution says that life evolved from smaller inorganic molecules to larger organic molecules to simple one-celled organisms to more complex multicellular organisms, moving towards more complexity and organization. But the Second Law of Thermodynamics says that entropy always increases, with everything moving towards increasing disorder. Therefore, if the Second Law is correct, then evolution is impossible. How would you respond to this argument

Answer 1

Evolutionary ideas do not contradict the thermodynamic laws, these ideas explain how descent with modification enables the organisms to have enhanced metabolic responses to fight against entropy

Explanation:

Organisms fight against entropy to maintain order within their cells and thus continue life. The debate about the association between the Second Law of Thermodynamics and evolutionary ideas emerged in 1900. During this period, it has been proposed that both ideas were contradictory, since evolution decreases entropy, while the second law states that systems increase entropy over time. However, the evolution does not contradict this law, because evolutionary ideas indicate the mode by which the organisms evolve to fight against entropy (for example, by enhancing enzymes responsible for protein degradation), while the Second Law of Thermodynamics literally states that the total amount of entropy of the whole system increases over time.