Evolution is change from a simple to a complex (ordered) form yet we live in a universe which is changing from a complex to a simpler (disordered) condition.
I wonder which one is going to win?

Most likely, our advances as a culture will begin to take over from evolution...Evolution is caused by natural selection, and since we are now altering our environment to suit ourselves, rather than the other way round, it's not impossible that we're going to remain unchanged from the state we're in now for many millions of years, unless a profound change takes place as a culture.

On a larger scale:

Since the universe itself is moving towards entropy I don't think evolution, in the way Seraphine described, can eventually win.

On the other hand, and I'm tredding on Homer's dangerous ground now, if you consider the universe being a product of a Big Bang, which eventually will result in a Big Crunch you could say that the universe would end up "in order", since it will be back in the state it was before the Big Bang.

However, reasoning that after the Big Crunch, another Big Bang is bound to take place the whole bit is moving towards entropy again.

I don't think there is a right answer to this question....



J6P, you sure know how to pick philosophical topics...


I like it...

Homer,
I agree with you to the end, for the most part, i too Believe in God. Though my beliefs will differ, being as i am Buddist-Christian. I think that God created the universe and he has guided almost everything. But the difference with humans is that we have a freewill. Animals live off of inate thoughts and actions, as for humans we have the choice to choose. I do not want to turn this into a debate on religion, but that is what it comes down to. Is God, or something guiding the universe, or is it Chaos?


-Doppelganger

Doppelganger, hello and welcome.
Interesting facets that you, Phantom, Seraphina and Homer added to this discussion. Although, as I told Homer a long while ago, I don't discuss religion but I don't consider talking about how God does things is really talking religion. Talking about who god is and if he really is, to me, that's religious talk and I won't respond to any discussion along those lines but how God works his wonders...now that's another story. I think that a loving God would enjoy watching His kids learn the secrets of creation.
With that said I'd like to submit: Would it be chaos(entropy) or control(evolution) if someone started a fire to clear a field for planting? Considering the fire will burn at its own discretion, the fire starter has "limited" control over direction, intensity and other variables of the burn but the scope is known in advance by the one who started it. To me this lands us right back to square one, controlled(evolution) - chaos(entropy) which one wins out on a cosmic scale? The mind reels

I know that most people in the world, dont know who really is there God.
Some, worships the Sun, Moon, Stars, Rocks, Beasts, Graven Images made by there hands, they worship there ancient prophets or most common right now is vises, luxurious things, cars, power , honor. All these things worship by various people around the world. If you worship the Almighty God, who is the creator of heaven and earth and all the universes, and creates human beings, and all things under his power. Then, you are on the right track to discover who you really are and your potential as sons and daughters of God the Father.

Just common sense, about Evolution thing, that we came from apes?
If that is your belief that we came from Apes, then, why aren't we evolved into apes?

Its because scientist studies it, then, we assume their theories or findings are right. What if they are wrong. Who's been decieved?

If you agree that you have mortal parents who loves you care for you and many times gives you gifts and the things that you need and ask and shelters you in their homes (sorry for those who dont have a caring nurturing parents)

Are you not even considering a real Father above who is watching you and knows all your thoughts, and give us rain when their is famine or fire in the land.
Who holds this earth in his power to act perfectly in its appointed rotation
who perfectly orchestrated the sun, moon, stars, planets, galaxies, universes, plants to grow, water, river, streams and even the wonders of your own body and the complexity and design of our brains, then, you worship or wonder those strange gods.

Innocence is not an excuse, if you love truth, you seek for it and when you found it you treasure it, its a part of our existence, no matter what twisted philosopies may come and go, if its the truth, it is the truth.

And the truth is.....There is only one and True God, and he is the Father of our spirits, we came from a pre-mortal world, we been nurtured and cared by our Loving Father in Heaven, then, since we dont have a body yet, we had to come down to this earth to gain experiences, have a body and gain more knowledge.

As we discover new things, we are seeking deep within our hearts where did we came from? Is Adam and Eve real? Or, did we came from APES?

You Choose...........

Did you walk like an ape? think like an ape? eat like an ape?

If the world is made of Big Bang Theory and Just Exist just like that and theres no creator of all this things.

Then, who do you think build or manufacture your computer screen right now?

If an object exist.....it has a creator who assemble it and fashioned it the way it intends to be, not by some kind of chaos or pop!

Open heart and mind is a must and with good works to understand the mystery of God and who he is and what does he does and what are his creations.
And who are we and what is our ultimate potential would be?
After death....will there be no more??? Or even more???
Adventures to come......

Now, go and do the right thing and keep on searching for the truth.

Maybe, it's so structured, so organized that it only appears to be chaotic to us limited humans.

Maybe there's another whole universe that mirrors ours, forming a cosmic syncopated dance that to us only seems like random chaos.

Maybe what seems like chaos is a carefully crafted machine working as intended.

From my point of view, evolution will prevail since it's born out of chaos. The positive entropy of the universe is still hard to prove since planets form out of gas which in nature is an evolutionary process. Basically it could as well be perfectly cyclic, think of suns and supernovae. A sun is a collapse cloud of gas that ignites under its own mass (evolution, natural ordering), and then a supernovae is star that explodes under its own mass given a certain mass threshold (transforming in black hole according to some, transforming in something unknown for some others) which is typically a chaotic transformation (less ordered).
So your question seems hard to answer but there's one more clue we could use: the expansion of the universe and the Hubble constant. Unfortunately we are unsure of the exact value of the Hubble constant, so we cannot really tell if the universe is going to expand to infinitely or not. If the universe was going to expand infinitely, it would end-up being cold thus organised (no molecular activity thus no entropy), if the universe is cyclic, then the entropy/evolution is cyclic too.

TheLight

As a thermal engineer I guess I have an authority on this subject

The problem lies in the wrong understanding of entropy. The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that entropy of a closed system undergoing an irreversible process always increase. So we have two keywords here.

1. Closed system.
By definition, a system is closed if there is no energy or mass transfer between the system boundary. Evolution is a process on earth, which is not a closed system. Thus evolution is not restricted by this law. This is a well known fact, and I can confirm that there is a portion in any air conditioner unit where entropy actually decreases.

2. Irreversible process.
It does not have anything to do with evolution, but I point it up as it is another common misunderstanding of entropy. If a closed system is not doing anything, or undergoing a reversible process, then the entropy of the system remains constant. Perpetual motion is possible, but limited to constant entropy processes, such as current flowing in superconductor loop. It is not possible to extract energy from such a loop without increasing entropy.

Thus evolution and entropy can happen at the same time.

Entropy is not a decrease. It is a property of material, just like temperature or color. The 2nd law states that entropy must always increases, while in evolution entropy actually decreases. This topic is actually about 2nd law vs evolution, not entropy vs evolution. As I said earlier, evolution is OK as the earth is not a closed system.

Regarding 2nd law

Entropy only occurs in a closed system
Evolution is not a closed system
case closed

Does entropy only occur in a closed system, or is it only proovable in a closed system? PsychicPenguin makes some excellent points, but from a philosophical perspective can we not assume, at some level, the universe is a kind of closed system and that the entropy of the universe is increasing? Isn’t there evidence for this? Just because we can only prove entropy in closed systems with irreversible reactions, doesn’t mean that it’s not a law pervading the universe. Clearly, the energy influx from the sun gives the means for life to evolve and flourish, but I wonder if this is like the activation energy needed in a chemical reaction which ultimately releases more energy and disorder. Organized life may be a mechanism to facilitate the second law of thermodynamics?

Energy in the universe becomes scattered over time and if something gets scattered it becomes disorganised. This can be described as entropy of the universe increasing.

So the overall entropy of the universe is increasing, organised stars and galaxies will eventually die and the energy will be thinnly spread in a disorganised way.

But within this overall increase in entropy, there are systems in which entropy is not increasing. For example your body is constantly taking in energy and organising it into useful ways. This is what keeps you alive and stops your molecules disorganising. Reproduction means life is self-continuing. With a limitless amount of energy it could last forever, so life is a system in which entropy is not increasing.

So clearly evolution is entirely possible because evolution takes place within the life system where entropy is not increasing.

THE FUNDAMENTAL OXYMORON OF THERMODYNAMICS

The absurdity that entropy always increases would not hold "the supreme position among the laws of Nature" (A. Eddington, 1935) if Clausius had not deduced it gloriously from the fundamental oxymoron of thermodynamics:

THE FUNDAMENTAL OXYMORON OF THERMODYNAMICS: Any irreversible process is reversible; that is, any irreversible process can be closed by a reversible process to become a cycle.

Any textbook author who relishes deducing the supreme absurdity should initially introduce the fundamental oxymoron:

Peter Atkins, Physical Chemistry, 5th ed., p. 127: "Let the original change in the entropy of the system when the process of interest occurs be dS (this is the change we want to measure). The process need not be reversible, but we suppose that we can find a path that joins the same initial and final states and which is reversible."

For 140 years (Clausius deduced the supreme absurdity in 1865) the fundamental oxymoron of thermodynamics has been questioned once:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000313/ p.39: "A more important objection, it seems to me, is that Clausius bases his conclusion that the entropy increases in a nicht umkehrbar [irreversible] process on the assumption that such a process can be closed by an umkehrbar [reversible] process to become a cycle. This is essential for the definition of the entropy difference between the initial and final states. But the assumption is far from obvious for a system more complex than an ideal gas, or for states far from equilibrium, or for processes other than the simple exchange of heat and work."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com

Evolution is not necessarily a progression from simple to complex. There is no inherit direction to evolution. Many species actually evolve into simpler, more streamlined and efficient forms. It is about adaptability, not complexity. Movement toward complexity in evolution is an illusion referred to as the "left wall phenomena" which basically observes that there is no where to go but toward complexity if you start very simple. However, complex organisms may evolve into simpler forms if they are more adapted than prior complex forms. This is observed repeatedly in the world.

^ It's nice to see that somone understands.

Wow, what a fascinating discussion. I didn't know what entropy was until now. I really had to research it, it's difficult to understand when it isn't put into simple terms. Especially since I took mainly life sciences through school/college, and not any calculus or physical science. That sh** is hard to understand!
But here's why. We are putting formulas and terms to the universe and it's processes. How is it that we deem our definition of "entropy" as the absolute best way of describing it? I think it's funny how we are discussing religion and entropy in the same topic. Religion says that one thing created the universe. Science says that one thing created the universe. In fact, when you look at the reasoning for both disciplines it's basically the same. The only difference is science says that "science" creates and maintains everything whereas religion says, "god" creates and maintains everything. Can't we all just agree that stuff is hjappening and working and it has been working for a long long time? Why do we need to try so hard to figure it all out?
Evolution is just a small part of a huge universal (as in the universe) system we know nothing about. It isn't god, it isn't science. It's reality. And science is never going to explain how these properties came about. Where does entropy come from? Can we explain how god created entropy? or evolution? someone who is a creationist will say god just creates everything and keeps everything going. it's so easy for them to explain anything. ask them any question, the answer will be "god did it". and ask a scientist anything and they will say, "Science does it". Hahaahaaha. I feel like a pinprick in this universe, a tiny insignificant bundle of energy that i don't understand. But I don't even care how anything scientifically works. We will never figure it all out. Were constantly rewriting everything we think we know about this universe.
Heck, for all we know, DNA is an intelligent being and every generation it makes it knows what it's doing. Maybe all of our DNA all over the world, every living and unliving being is connected by this DNA. Maybe that's what God is. Maybe he's just in DNA, or is DNA and it decides where a species is going. No I don't think DNA is intelligent. As you can see, we don't really know how the universe works, so lets just leave it be. It works right? If it not broke, dont fix it?