This article was written by Iris Fry and published in 1995. She further developed these ideas in a book, Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview, which was published in 2000. In the paper, she argues that what she calls the “thermodynamic school” of evolution provides a “law-governed” view of the “continuous nature of evolution” that is better able to explain the origin of life on earth. She does not argue that scientists have succeeded in providing such an explanation; she argues that the scientists in the “thermodynamic school” have outlined an approach that appears to be more promising. Since she published her essay, other scientists in the “thermodynamic school” have made progress on the issue (see, for example, Michaelian & Manuel, 2011). She refers to Lotka’s research (1995, p. 228), but she focuses her attention on the work of Lawrence J. Henderson (1878-1942) and Jeffery S. Wicken (1942-2002). She does not refer to the maximum power principle or the maximum entropy production principle; her argument supports the general approach of the thermodynamic school of evolution. However, the maximum power principle and the maximum entropy production principle are products of this school, in the sense that scientists that developed these principles view evolution from a thermodynamic perspective. These principles contribute to the “law-governed” view of the “continuous nature of evolution,” and, as a result, they also putting scientists in a better position to explain the origin of life.
The abstract of her paper states: “The recently suggested reformulation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, based on the thermodynamics of self‐organizing processes, has strong philosophical implications. My claim is that the main philosophical merit of the thermodynamic approach, made especially clear in J.S. Wicken’s work, is its insistence on the law‐governed, continuous nature of evolution. I attempt to substantiate this claim following a historical analysis of beginning‐of‐the‐century ideas on evolution and matter‐life relationship, in particular, the fitness‐of‐the‐environment‐for‐life theory of the Harvard physiologist L.J. Henderson. In addition, I point to an epistemological common ground underlying the studies of the “thermodynamics school” and other currently active research groups focusing on the emergence and evolution of biological organization.”
Fry, I. 1995. Evolution in Thermodynamic Perspective: A Historical and Philosophical Angle. Zygon 30/2: 227- 248.
_____. 2000. Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview. Rutgers University Press.
Michaelian, K., Manuel, O.“Entropy Production and the Origin of Life”, Journal of Modern Physics 2/6 (2011): 595-601.