Systems theory, thermodynamics and life: Integrated thinking across ecology, organization and biological evolution.

The Carbon-Based Evolutionary Theory (CBET)

“…In contrast, the three phases of the evolution of CBSs, namely chemical evolution, biological evolution, and social evolution, were usually investigated separately in previous theories, and few theories have explicitly interpreted the mechanisms of the evolution of CBSs from a panoramic view, although some significant efforts on this topic have been published [5,61]. Moreover, only one mechanism, such as natural selection in Darwin's theory [17], entropy dissipation into the surroundings in Schrödinger's negative entropy notion [3], self-organization in Prigogine's dissipative structure theory [4], the constructal law [61], the maximum entropy production principle [62], or the freeenergy principle [63], was proposed to explain the evolution of CBSs in previous theories or hypotheses. These one-mechanism theories cannot explicitly or comprehensively explain the evolution of CBSs.…”

“…The second law of thermodynamics, which states that heat can spontaneously flow from hotter to colder objects and not the reverse, can also be mathematically expressed as the entropy of isolated systems increasing over time. Since entropy is commonly assumed to be a measure of disorder and the entire universe can be considered as an isolated system, the law indicates that the universe tends to become more and more disordered, which contradicts evolution, a natural process characterized by an increase in orderliness [3,4,62,63]. Creationists (including some scientists) have exploited this perceived contradiction to argue for the existence of divine entities [2].…”

The Carbon-Based Evolutionary Theory (CBET)

“…In contrast, chemical evolution, biological evolution, and social evolution were usually investigated separately in previous theories, although there were a few exceptions [5,42,60]. Furthermore, only a single mechanism, such as natural selection in Darwin's theory [17], entropy dissipation into the surroundings in Schrödinger's negative entropy notion [3], self-organization in Prigogine's dissipative structure theory [4], the constructal law [60], the maximum entropy production principle [5,61], or the free-energy principle [62], has been proposed to explain the evolution of CBMs. These one-mechanism theories could not comprehensively explain the evolution of CBMs.…”

“…The second law of thermodynamics, which states that heat can spontaneously flow from hotter to colder objects and not the reverse, can also be mathematically expressed as the entropy of isolated systems increasing over time. Since entropy is commonly accepted to be a measure of disorder and the entire universe can be considered as an isolated system, the law indicates that the universe tends to become more and more disordered, which seemingly contradicts evolution [3,4,61,62,68], a natural process characterized by an increase in orderliness. Creationists (including some scientists) have exploited this perceived contradiction to argue for the existence of divine entities [2].…”

The Carbon-Based Evolutionary Theory (CBET)

“…In contrast, the three phases of the CBEP, namely chemical evolution, biological evolution, and social evolution, were usually investigated separately in previous theories, and few theories have explicitly interpreted the mechanisms of the CBEP from a panoramic view, although some significant efforts on this topic have been published [5,60]. Moreover, only one mechanism, such as natural selection in Darwin's theory [17], entropy dissipation into the surroundings in Schrödinger's negative entropy notion [3], selforganization in Prigogine's dissipative structure theory [4], the constructal law [60], the maximum entropy production principle [61], or the free-energy principle [62], was proposed to explain the CBEP in previous theories or hypotheses. These one-mechanism theories cannot explicitly or comprehensively explain the CBEP.…”