This paper was written by E. D. Schneider and J. J. Kay and published in 1994. The title provides a clear view of the focus of the paper. One of the many interesting things about this paper is that the authors make this case regarding life and the second law without utilizing the concept of entropy. They note that at the time the paper was written, the concept of entropy was only rigorously defined for systems in equilibrium; it was not defined for systems far from equilibrium. To avoid the use of entropy, Schneider and Kay take the restated laws of thermodynamics of Hatsopoulos, Keenan, and Kestin and extend them so that in nonequilibrium regions processes and systems can be described in terms of gradients maintaining systems away from equilibrium. They interpret the restated second as mandating that as systems are moved away from equilibrium, they will take advantage of all means available to them to resist externally applied gradients, by degrading them. They “suggest that life exists on earth as another means of dissipating the solar-induced gradient and, as such, is a manifestation of the restated second law” (p. 36).
The authors argue that Lotka’s (39) suggestion that living systems will maximize their energy flow and Odum’s [40] maximum power principle for ecosystems, …are “subsumed and explained by our theory” (p. 38-39). They write, “Lotka [39] and Odum and Pinkerton [40] have suggested that those biological systems that survive are those that develop the most power inflow and use it to best meet their needs for survival. Our work would propose that a better description of these “power laws” would be that biological systems develop in a manner as to increase their degradation rate, and that biological growth, ecosystem development and evolution represent the development of new dissipative pathways” (p. 46). They do not go into any more detail about how their description is “better.” We are left to conclude that their description is better because it explains the relation between the evolution of life and the second law.
The abstract states: “We examine the thermodynamic evolution of various evolving systems, from primitive physical systems to complex living systems, and conclude that they involve similar processes which are phenomenological manifestations of the second law of thermodynamics. We take there formulated second law of thermodynamics of Hatsopoulos, Keenan, and Kestin and extend it to nonequilibrium regions, where nonequilibrium is described in terms of gradients maintaining systems at some distance away from equilibrium.
The reformulated second law suggests that as systems are moved away from equilibrium they will take advantage of all available means to resist externally applied gradients. When highly ordered complex systems emerge, they develop and grow at the expense of increasing the disorder at higher levels in the system’s hierarchy. We note that this behavior appears universally in physical and chemical systems. We present a paradigm that provides for a thermodynamically consistent explanation of why there is life, including the origin of life, biological growth, the development of ecosystems, and patterns of biological evolution observed in the fossil record.
We illustrate the use of this paradigm through a discussion of ecosystem development. We argue that as ecosystems grow and develop, they should increase their total dissipation, develop more complex structures with more energy flow, increase their cycling activity, develop greater diversity, and generate more hierarchical levels, all to abet energy degradation. Species that survive in ecosystems are those that funnel energy into their own production and reproduction and contribute to autocatalytic processes which increase the total dissipation of the ecosystem. In short, ecosystems develop in ways that systematically increase their ability to degrade the incoming solar energy. We believe that our thermodynamic paradigm makes it possible for the study of ecosystems to be developed from a descriptive science to predictive science founded on the most basic principle of physics.”
E. D. Schneider and J. J. Kay. 1994. Life as a manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Mathl. Comput. Modelling Vol. 19, No. 6-8, pp. 25-48.
(39) A. Lotka. Contribution to the energetics of evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. (1922), pp. 148-154
(40) H.T. Odum, R.C. Pinkerton. Time’s speed regulator. Ami. Sci., 43 (1955), pp. 321-343
E. D. Schneider and J. J. Kay
