Cells and entropy

What is not explained by the theory?

 

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@spider --

At the moment nothing that we know of, but apparently Wellwisher doesn't think so despite all of the explanations we give.

 

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Whoa nice back peddling! When you said, "Life, as an entity (not its impact) goes in the opposite direction", you didn't really mean opposite. Great...

That is absurd, no one said anything of the sort! Offspring may be more or less efficient than their parents, regardless over the lifetime of the organisim it will increase the entropy of the universe.

The bottom line here is that you a incorrectly looking at systems as being closed that are not closed - so you come up with the wrong conclusions. The earth has and incredible amount of energy being pumped into it from the sun - about 150,000,000,000,000,000 joules/sec. All of the that energy is reradiated into space. There are several ways to store that energy for short periods of time - life is one of these ways to store that energy.

Life does not reverse entropy. Evolution certainly does not violate entropy.

 

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If the lipids were to disperse, this would increase the entropy of the lipids; disorder. The surface tension in the water helps to keep the membrane together maintaining lower lipid entropy. This is made stronger via the van der Waals forces between lipids.

This works similar to a bead of oil in water. The hydrogen bonding within water, is a fairly strong bond, which helps to lower energy within water. Water in contact with oil or lipids cannot hydrogen bond to the oils or lipids as efficiently, thereby creating potential in the water. To lower this hydrogen bonding potential we need to minimize the surface area of the oil/lipid that is in contact with the water. This keeps the membrane squished together.

The membrane uses phospholipids. The phosphate group is what is called kosmotropic. This helps create order in water, thereby lowering the hydrogen bonding potential within the water at the membrane surface. The phosphate, by lowering the aqueous potential at the lipid interface takes some of the pressure off the lipids. The lipids stay together in the membrane, but this is a little looser because of the phosphates. This looseness allows water to freely diffuse through the membrane with surface tension preventing the membrane lipids from being pushed permanently apart. It is flexible designed needed for life.

 

Oh Great and Almighty Atheismo! Please stop Wellwisher and his "entropy crusade", I will be forever in your debt.

 

I think your explanation might have some problem in explaining cells which are 10 to 20 centimeter in size .
Xenophyophores are the largest examples known, at roughly 4 inches.[3]

Valonia ventricosa.

Valonia ventricosa, with a diameter of 1 to 4 centimeters it is one of the largest single-celled organism
Syringammina fragilissima, is among the largest known protozoans at a maximum 20 centimetres in diameter.

U believe to hold a body of that size you might need some covalent bonds

 

Huge cell membrans could be assited with scaffolding proteins which are held together with hydrogen bonds. I was sticking to lipids so as to not get too complicated.

Entropy seems to bother certain people, because they may not be familar with the concept being applied to biology, in the sense of the life decreasing entropy. To make this easier to see, there is an equation in chemistry called Gibb's free energy equation.

In this equation G = H -TS, where G is the Gibbs free energy, H is enthalpy, T is temperature, and S is entropy. In chemical systems, as long as the free energy direction is favorable, entropy can decrease as long as the enthalpy is able to compensate.

For example, if we had oil (lipids) and water in a jar. I will shake them vigorously until they blend. This will boost system entropy since both water and oil are within the entire volume; emulsion. If we let it sit, the entropy will start to decrease until the oil and water form two layers. The reason is the Gibbs free energy is favorable and decreasing during the phase separation, due to the enthalpy decreasing via the formation of hydrogen bonds and van der Waals bonds.

Although physics speaks in terms of energy of the universe decreasing and entropy increasing, in chemistry it is often one of the other following that rule of thumb, and not always both at the same time. Since life is composed of organics in water, life is essentially an oil and water system where the enthalpy of hydrogen bonding in water is often more powerful than the organic entropy in many circumstances. Organic things like the membrane come together to lower the free energy even if this lowers entropy.

Getting back to the membrane, cation pumping in the membrane lowers the entropy of sodium and potassium ions by segregating them. According to the Gibbs free energy equation, this can happen, but it will need sufficient enthalpy change for this to occur. This is done via ATP and enzymes. This low entropy induction, due to the favorable Gibbs free energy, now means the entire membrane has lost net entropy. This gives us a lower entropy boundary condition for the entire cell.

But since entropy still wishes to increase in our universe, this bounday is loaded with entropy potential. The Gibbs free energy equation can also work the other way, using this free energy potential to increase entropy to drive reactions and situations where the enthalpy is not favorabable. This helps transport things like water through lipids; surface tension.

 

And why are we letting an engineer with only a minimal knowledge of evolutionary theory(or biology for that matter) sidetrack this thread about evolution?

 

Yet you haven't explained why the gas heated up in this one case.
What's the word for someone who makes statements that are diametrically opposite from the reality?

You obviously weren't much of an engineer either then.

 

The surface tension within water will be the highest at hydrophobic interfaces. Polar groups tend to lower the surface tension since they can hydrogen bond with water. The surface tension in water is connected to disruption of hydrogen bonding.

Biologists are not physical chemists, so you may not understand what I wrote based on a biology education, Hercules. Don't confuse your own lack of understanding with my ability to understand.

If you look phospholipids, and removed the phosphate, the lipids would phase separate like oil and water. Once you add the phosphate group, this will alter the water and lipid interface, lowering the surface tension. The phosphate group is kosmotropic meaning it creates order within water. This order lowers the energy within the aqueous surface interface, allowing the lipids to behave differently within the water; lipid bi-layer instead of bead of oil.

The DNA also uses phosphate to create order in water, thereby lowering the surface tension that would exist if there were just bases and sugar of DNA. To minimize energy we will still need to bury the bases, with the phosphate helping to lower surface energy, so the DNA does not have to bead up. It works similar to bi-layer versus bead of lipid oil, so the DNA is an easier template.

The order within the water, created by phosphate, is continuous with the ordered water that hydrogen bonds with the bases within the major and minor grooves of the DNA double helix. These are specific to each base and continuous to the phosphate order via water. The result is a surface finger print in the water.

The problem is that when biology they teach about the DNA double helix, it never mention the water that is part of the double helix. It tends to create the impression the DNA is only made of organics. If you leave the water out of your theories, these theories will always be half baked. The reality of water plus DNA will seem strange when place near this half truth.

The DNA becomes active only if there is sufficient bonded water.

 

The change of entropy, within the structured water on the DNA, provides free energy for enzyme binding, with certain base sequences providing favorable water surfaces for particular enzymes.

If the enzyme was to try and attach randomly, it cannot get the same amount of free energy out of the water entropy just anywhere on the DNA. Once it hits the sweet spot, the free energy is very favorable to complex binding.

 

Darwin uses the concept of natural selection, which is a consistent principle for evolution, which is a function of many factors. The question becomes what is the basis for this consistency principle called natural selection?

Natural selection can not be random. If it was random, natural selection change the selection, constantly. Consistency means under similar circumstances, the result should be close but never always different like random. Ironically, random is an important part of modern evolutionary theory, which is inconsistent with this consistency principle laid down by Darwin. This always bothered me.

The question again is, what is the basis for the consistency of natural selection? It can't be due to the spirit of mother nature or that would make evolution a type of religion. Science needs explanations using basic principles of chemistry and physics which underly complex biological states in flux to create consistent choice under given parameters.

One way to answer the question, is natural selection is another way of saying living efficiency under a given set of circumstances. If circumstances change, what defines efficiency might also change. If it is hot, thin fur is more efficient for maintaining body systems. If it is cold, thick fur is more efficient for maintaining body systems. Natural selection will pick the most efficient more often than not.

Efficiency is not random, but requires a sense of consistent order which makes the best use of resources. In engineering, lack of efficiency is connected to entropy. To make the most efficient choice would mean natural selection moves in the direction of lowering entropy; most efficient in terms of environment and bio-systems. An eco-system is very efficent and defines lower entropy compared to a disrupted eco-system that is out of steady state; inefficienct.

The next question becomes if natural selection is based on efficiency under a given set of conditions, and higher efficiency means the lowest entropy choice, what is the basis for this push toward lowered entropy? It can't be genetic, since genetic change is assume to be random. This means inefficient and higher entropy. This goes in the wrong direction relative to efficency. This means the genetics are secondary. There needs to be a stronger push that can achieve efficiency even when the DNA is making things less efficient via random change.

There is one possible, yet simple explanation, connected to water. One way to visualize this is consider water and oil, which we will shake. The shaking will increase system entropy and disorder. If we let it settle, two phases will appear. We can shake this again and again, the system will continue to lower entropy to form the same two phase order. The consistent loss of system entropy is due to the strong hydrogen bonding forces within the water, which reach lowest free energy,when the entropy of the oil is lowered.

Since life is composed of water and organics, we have this basic oil and water analogies throughout life at all levels, with the hydrogen bonding of water trying to lower the entropy of the organics, so the water can minimize free energy. The result is a steady push of the organic of life dissolved in water into order and efficiency.

 

The vaccines are man-made, thereby allowing humans to depart from natural selection. Natural selection contains no such artifical additives but lets nature take its own course. What humans have selected is human selection and not natural selection. Evolution created a lifeform that could separate itself from natural selection. The bible gives Adam the breath of life so he could become a living soul who can deviate from natural selection. I look at that symbolically as showing where natural selection stopped with respect to one of its species.

 

Agreed. Assuming the environment stays constant, natural selection is quite predictable. In an environment with lots of natural light, having eyes is an advantage - and always will be.

The "random" part has to do with genetic mutations, not with natural selection. If both were random evolution would never produce anything consistent. If neither were random nothing new would ever evolve.

 

Natural selection involves the probability of survival as a function of the requirements of the organism, as the availability of those requirements change over time.

Those probabilities involve both random and deterministic causes. For example, the probability that a fox can survive in America has random effects of nature, competition of the species, etc. Then humans arrive with guns and bulldozers, and all the probability curves are bent into new shapesm, leading to the decimation of the species.

This is your interpretation, not the one of Science. Natural selection is not a dithering function of uncertainty. It is a tendency to select out the inferior traits of a population based on changing stresses to that population.

To alleviate your concern, I suggest rereading the meaning of natural selection

No, Science needs natural selection to explain the observed phenomena.

Whether the creature lives or dies rests on how well adapted it is to all of the conditions. Efficiency has the meaning attached to a specific problem. The question is, will the adaptation survive the complex set of parameters? The question of fur efficiency may relate to the demand for fur (cold) vs. the cost (nutrients). based on diet alone, animals may allocate energy to more fur in the cold seasons, then shed it warm seasons. Every organism is in a continuous state of negotiating supply and demand for every agent of doom using all available resources to survive.

The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. This does not correspond to Natural Selection, since it is neither a system nor noes it have any of the attributes relevant to a system.

It would be more relevant to determine the entropy of heat exchange across an animal's fur vs. the entropy across scales. But this will not lead you anywhere towards arguing against Natural Selection. It will just confirm what you already know, that the adaptations fit the induced stress.

The closest connection I can think of with what you are saying and Natural Selection might be abiogenesis. Using your argument, I would posit that first cells succeeded based on their ability to exploit the hydrogen bond and other energy sources provided in the methane-ammonia environment from which they arose.

To assume that the law of entropy contradicts evolution is incorrect, all laws are conserved in Natural Selection, and, in fact, are the underlying causes for life and evolution in the first place.

 

No, I was trying to explain the vaccine science insofar as its ability to respond to evolving microbes. To say you place your life in the hands of the lord who abhors Darwin, is to deny that the flu shot you just took was a windfall of Darwin's discoveries.

 

In chemistry, the Gibbs free energy G of a chemical system is related to entropy by the equation, G= H - TS, where H is enthalpy , T is temperature and S is entropy. Enthalpy is the total energy within a thermodynamic system. Since system energy attempts to lower, if the enthalpy in the system is stronger than the entropy, at any given temperature, the free energy is favorable for the entropy to decrease. In a crystal, the enthalpy associated with the formation of the crystal bonds dominates the original atomic entropy, causing entropy to decrease. This is less common in physics but very common in chemistry.

Life is composed of water and organics. The Gibbs free energy in this system is dominated by the enthalpy associated with the hydrogen bonding of water. This enthalpy will induce the entropy of the organics to decrease over time to lower the total free energy. This is the steady push for natural selection and evolution, including abiogenesis, since abiogenesis was also organics in water. If we used another solvent, you would lose the push of the hydrogen bonding of water and the process would be much slower.

One way to see how evolution means lowering entropy is to look at the internal components of the cells, such as enzymes, in terms of nano machines. We are looking at the machine/enzyme and not what it does. What it does can increase entropy. The machine analogy is being used since entropy in engineering is based on the lost or irretreviable energy due to machine inefficiencies.

The question becomes, do the cellular (machine) efficiencies of biological systems during evolution, get better or worse over time. Better efficiencies in these bio-nano machines, means machine entropy decreases over time. According to Gibbs free energy this would have needed a consistent source of enthalpy to be able to lower the entropy consistently over time. Water is the prime choice. But there are also other sources of enthalpy like ATP. This is the future but I need to respect the past until it fades aways.

 

If you ever saw a forest that was invaded by Gypsy moth caterpillars, in large numbers they can defoliate a large section of a local forest. Changing into moths would have two uses. It will take the pressure off the local forest and help the slow caterpillars migrate to new feeding grounds; another local forest.

There are also butterflies that migrate. They go where the weather suits their clothes (like in the song). The change from caterpillar to butterfly makes this possible. If they did not change, they would die in the cold.

These are reasonable humanistic explanations, but like most evolutionary explanations they never address the physical chemical dynamics that logically lead to these results. This is why evolution is still stuck in its 19th century subjective past, using the subjective magic of random and humanistic explanations to address the harder questions without actually having to say anything. I can sing "coom by yah", like anyone else, but I need more than that.

The real reason for the transition is energy and entropy. The caterpillar is a slow eating machine. This combination causes it to gain energy value (grows and stores energy) with this molecular energy storage and body growth lowering entropy. It appears that the caterpillar exceeds a practical limit of energy gaining and entropy lowering, causing a reaction that will lower energy and increase entropy. The butterfly reflects this transition; higher energy burn and more degrees of freedom. One could compare energy and entropy to infer this if you want.

A similar explanation might also explain the Cambric explosion. All you would need is an ancient bio-state that could lower entropy too much, while storing a lot of energy. The result will be a strong push to increase entropy and lower energy. The result would be huge diversity. The result will not be animals coming out of cocoons, but rather very stronger stimulus on the DNA.

 

Not again. Geeze, this whole attempt at trying to link entropy to evolution has failed everytime you have tried, so when do you admitt defeat and try something else?