BIOLOGICAL ORDER AND ENTROPY 



simple inorganic compounds. The organic molecules then assembled 

 on some substrate such as colloidal clay, and an organic gel endowed 

 with catalytic properties eventually appeared. As a result of a large 

 number of experiments, the catalytic "metabolizing" gel gave rise 

 to something able to reproduce itself. This was the first organism, 

 certainly very different from any current living being. The first 

 organism in turn started performing experiments, producing new 

 and better organisms that outgrew the original prototype. As a 

 result, a large number of species were selected, which today consti- 

 tute the livincr world. 



The present biological order includes the historical experience 

 of the organism acquired during its evolution. x'Vnd it is because 

 it includes evolution that it is so highly improbable. Everything 

 unfit has been eliminated. A large number of experiments, at the 

 same time structural and functional, have been performed. They 

 necessarily correspond to an increase of entropy. The organization 

 of the actually living systems has been acquired at the expense of an 

 increase of entropy. This increase should be taken into account in 

 any calculation of the negative entropy of the organism. 



Let us consider again the equation 



( Organism )i + food — >-( organism )2 + waste + heat 



The structural negentropy N, due to the production of two 

 organisms out of one, has doubled at the expense of an increase 

 of entropy S, due to the degradation of energy. Is AiV smaller or 

 larger than AS? In other A\ords, has the over-all entropy decreased 

 or increased? The system organism plus food might be visualized as 

 a closed system but certainly not as an isolated system. When an 

 organism metabolizes, heat is excreted, and as a result the entropy 

 of the surrounding world is increased. The living system considered 

 on a world-^\•ide scale cannot contradict the second principle, despite 

 the fact that it contains and reproduces structural negative entropv^ 

 and a very remarkable functional order. 



The Source of Orderliness 



In his remarkable book What Is Life, Schrodinger states that 

 everything that is going on in nature means an increase of entropy 



[95] 



