Order from Disorder

[sulphur]

what is moeity

 

[DNAunion]

sulfur: what is moeity

DNAunion: Moiety is basically a big word for "part" or "component".

Consider the last sentence of one of the quotes I posted earlier.

"The chiral purity of the building blocks of RNA, the sugar moiety, is crucial for their participation in the self-replication reactions and hence in the establishment of the RNA world.” (Noam Lahav, Biogenesis: Theories of Life’s Origins, Oxford University Press, 1999, p202)

DNAunion: Which of the three parts of a nucleotide is Lahav talking about that must have chiral purity? The sugar part - the sugar moiety.

 

[fin]

All this stuf about DNA and RNA is entirely too long and complicated to answer any sane question. The question was about something going from disorder to order. This is a question which is best answered by physics, not the intricate biology of previous posts.

There is a principle in science called entropy. To put it simply entropy states that in a closed system the disorder increases. However, the earth is not a closed system. There is an enormous amount of energy put into one part of the system (the earth). It is this energy that allows the order on earth to increase. Keep in mind that although the order on earth increases the total order of the entire system (earth, sun, etc.) decreases.

 

[sulphur]

Newbie someone will still start thrwing the first and seond laws of thermo dynamics at you.

 

[DNAunion]

fin: All this stuf about DNA and RNA is entirely too long and complicated to answer any sane question. The question was about something going from disorder to order. This is a question which is best answered by physics, not the intricate biology of previous posts.

DNAunion: No, not if the topic is the increase in order associated with the origin of life. Then physics alone is the wrong place to look - then it IS the realm of RNA, biochemistry, and organic chemistry in general that is most important.

If you want to talk about a simple increase in order - such as an ice crystal forming - then sure, talk physics. If you want to deal with something complex like life, then leave physics behind and talk biology/biochemistry/organic chemistry.

Now, what did the starter of this thread have in mind?

Souljah: How does the evolutionist explain the ordering of our biological systems, given that we started from star dust, or slime, or from whatever we are supposed to have originated?

DNAunion: Origin of life - not ice crystals.

fin: There is a principle in science called entropy. To put it simply entropy states that in a closed system the disorder increases.

DNAunion: I know you qualified your statement with, "To put it simply..", but I would like to make a nitpick or two.

First, entropy is not a principle, it is a measure of a system's degree of randomness or disorder. There is a principle that discusses changes in entropy, but that does not make entropy itself a principle.

Also, contrary to what your (admittedly "simply put") statement says, disorder CAN decrease in a closed or isolated system. That is, "pockets" of decreasing disorder can occur in an isolated system such as the Universe. If they couldn't, there wouldn't be any life and you couldn't develop from a single cell. It is the TOTAL disorder of an isolated system that must increase in every change the system undergoes.

fin: However, the earth is not a closed system. There is an enormous amount of energy put into one part of the system (the earth). It is this energy that allows the order on earth to increase.

DNAunion: Not in biology. For life to arise and to be sustained, it requires more than just an input of energy. Sufficient energy is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for life. A sufficient quantity of information is also required.

As one example, as I already pointed out, just throwing energy at activated nucleotides is much more likely to produce two different "INCORRECT" types of linkages between the nucleotides. A selective mechanism/catalyst of some kind is needed to get the "correct" 3',5'-links.

As another example, go out into the desert and stay there for a year without eating anything. What will happen? You will die and decompose long before the year is up. But why? There's plenty of energy from the sun striking your body, so surely there is enough energy to sustain your ordered state. True, but your genome does not possess the needed INFORMATION. You don't have genes for photosynthesis: the energy striking your body is USELESS without the information required to capture and properly use it.

It takes more than just throwing energy at matter to make or sustain life - information is also key.

 

[fin]

"disorder CAN decrease in a closed or isolated system"
I was speaking of the entire system.

"If you want to deal with something complex like life, then leave physics behind and talk biology/biochemistry/organic chemistry."
Biology followes the laws of physics. To understand biology it is necessary to have at least a rudamentary knowledge of physics.

Lastly, I was not trying to explain evolution or any other biological process, I was merely explaining that it is possible for part of a system to increase its order. Also my explanation was not ment to be complete; it was just a rough outline.

 

[sulphur]

Take away the sun and geothermal heating from the interior and what happens to any organism.I think there is room for plain physics and chemistry

 

[DNAunion]

DNAunion: Physics underpins all processes.  You could claim that ecology is physics because without the laws of physics there would be no ecology.  But that misplaces the explanation to too low of a level.  Everything follows the laws of physics but physics alone does not explain everything - there are emergent properties.

 

Going back to what you said...

 

Physics doesn't tell you how the energy from the sun or hydrothermal vents is captured and directed towards maintaining life. It is biology that explains this - those organisms have complex, genetically controlled biochemical pathways that harness the available energy towards performing useful, biologically relevant work: a lot of information is used to this. Life isn't just about the kind of simple "heat flow" or simple increases of order that related to physics: life is not just a cup of hot tea cooling off, or convection cells that arise spontaneously in a pot of boiling water, or ice crystals forming, or a mere heat engine. Life is a property of matter that is NOT explained by physics alone. 

 

[DNAunion]

DNAunion: No counter from anyone yet? I'm a bit disappointed. I have a challenge for anyone who believes I am wrong on this.

Explain the process of translation - a biological process - by using the terms, concepts, and laws of physics only.