Imagine that you are talking with one of your friends. He states that evolution has actually violated the second law of thermodynamics because complex living organisms are more ordered than the nucleic acids, amino acids, and other molecules that compose them. Why doesn't evolution contradict the second law of thermodynamics?
a. Because evolution takes place over millions of years, the loss of entropy is negligible and thus the laws of thermodynamics are not violated.
b. Evolution is a biological process, and biological processes do not have to conform to the laws of physics.
c. Evolution doesn't affect entropy, as living organisms eventually die and become "disordered."
d. Even though evolution may decrease the entropy of living organisms, it increases the entropy of the Earth (or the universe) as organisms release heat.
e. Evolution actually does violate the second law of thermodynamics, and has been problematic for scientists.
Ans: d. Even though evolution may decrease the entropy of living organisms, it increases the entropy of the Earth (or the universe) as organisms release heat.
You might also like to view...
Bacterial Strain A divides every 30 minutes. If you require at least 4 billion cells to perform an experiment, how many hours will you need to incubate a culture tube inoculated with a single cell of Bacteria A to get enough material to perform your experiment?
A. 8 B. 2 C. 16 D. 32 E. 4
The extrachromosomal piece of DNA that can replicate itself and often carries virulence genes is known as
A. Episome B. Plasmid C. Nucleoid D. F pilus
How did the rice genome project influence other genome projects?
A. It was the first genome sequenced, so it proved it could be done. B. It sped up the analysis of the human genome, since rice has even more genes. C. It sped up the genome analysis of other cereal crops, due to synteny. D. It helped analysis of all genomes, since it was the basis of the ENCODE algorithms.
Oligotrophic lakes have:
A) clear water with high production. B) high nutrient levels and high production by phytoplankton. C) the largest numbers and diversity of organisms. D) clear water with low nutrient levels. E) low oxygen concentrations in the summer.