Entropy A measure of the disorder or unavailability of energy within a closed system. More entropy means less energy available for doing work. Search for Entropy Full Glossary

and a low state of entropy, given the second law? The answer, as Peacocke points out, is that living systems are open to their environment. By exchanging energy and matter with it they can decrease in entropy as long as there is an

the non-decrease of entropy in closed systems isolated from their environment. Examples include gas in a balloon, liquid cooling in a container, wood burning in a stove. Since all such phenomena moved from states of low to states of high

and so on, and thus entropy . It is then possible to ask whether the laws of thermodynamics are in some way a precondition for the possibility of the slow evolution of those capacities which, at least in humanity, emerge as full-blown

and dissipation of entropy (i.e., ‘dissipative systems’), and though, of course, the total entropy of the open system plus its environment obeyed the second law. Two final points: 1) Whether ‘entropy’ applies to the

against uncaring entropy , all have driven many humans to hope for intervention from above” (Michaud, 230). SETI critics such as Edward Regis show less empathy but make the same point, namely, what we see here is a secular hope for

, Genetic Mutation , Entropy , Hermeneutics , John Barrow , Paul Davies , Ontological , Fred Hoyle , Big Bang Cosmology , Bohr , Planck , Einstein Topic Index Next > Meyer on 'Intelligent Design'

, Genetic Mutation , Entropy , Hermeneutics , John Barrow , Paul Davies , Ontological , Fred Hoyle , Big Bang Cosmology , Bohr , Planck , Einstein Topic Index Next > Meyer on 'Intelligent Design'

a thermodynamic world where entropy reigns but order and novelty emerge spontaneously out of disorder and chaos. These and other ‘windows on the universe’ derived from contemporary physics and cosmology hint at the profound beauty,