EVOLUTION AND THERMODYNAMICS 



quently present the features of increasing order. A small fraction 

 of this tremendous dissipation suffices to maintain Hfe on the 

 earth by supplying the necessary amount of 'order,' but of 

 course only so long as the prodigal parent, in its own frantically 

 uneconomic way, is still able to afford the luxury of a planet 

 which is decked out with cloud and wind, rushing rivers and 

 foaming seas, and the gorgeous finery of flora and fauna and the 

 striving millions of mankind."^ 



Thus in this charming passage we are to visualise biological order 

 as identical with that order which thermodynamically is always 

 disappearing, the local increase being more than compensated for by 

 the decrease due to the cooling of the sun. Eddington, though more 

 uncertainly, adopts a like view, in his New Pathways in Science. 



"In using entropy as a signpost for time we must be careful 

 to treat a properly isolated system. Isolation is necessary because 

 a system can gain organisation by draining it from other con- 

 tiguous systems. Evolution shows us that more highly organised 

 systems develop as time goes on. This may be partly a question 

 of definition, for it does not follow that organisation from the 

 evolutionary point of view is to be reckoned according to the 

 same measure as organisation from the entropy point of view. 

 But in any case these highly developed systems may obtain their 

 'energy by a process of collection, not by creation. A human 

 being as he grof/s from past to future becomes more and more 

 highly organised — or so he fondly imagines. At first sight this 

 appears to contradict the signpost law that the later instant 

 corresponds to the greater disorganisation. But to apply the law 

 we must make an isolated system of him. If we prevent him 

 from acquiring organisation from external sources, if we cut off 

 his consumption of food and drink and air, he will before long 

 come to a state which everyone would recognise as a state of 

 extreme 'disorganisation.' "^ 



Here, then, are statements of the view that there is no essential 

 difference betw^een thermodynamic and biological order. No doubt 

 this IS the simpler of the two alternatives. 



Among the reflections which have led thinkers to support it is a 



^ E. Schrodinger, Science and the Human Temperament (London, 1935), p. 39, 

 ^ A. S. Eddington, New Pathways in Science (Cambridge, 1935), p. 56; see also 

 Nature, 193 1, 127, 448. 



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