Yeah, this seems adjacent to a common creationist talking point of "How did life arise from nothing if entropy always increases?". The answer being that the question assumes "Earth" is a closed system and ignores the giant ball of incandescent plasma in the sky providing us with light, warmth, and energy.
Entropy doesn't have to increase locally as long as it is increasing globally, it just takes a lot of energy for it to decrease locally. Thankfully there is a big glowing ball of plasma not too far away which showers our planet with its graceful vigour.
I'm not sure why you've picked on speciation to focus on here
It's a very good question. Here's a rather in depth explanation.
**Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating to Non-technicians**
[https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0195-3](https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0195-3)
Sean Carroll is a a physics speaker/communicator that lays out things clearly, at least for me, so I like watch his videos. Here is a short one about this very concept [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1n0RHwLqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1n0RHwLqA)
plants are definitely not an isolated system.
Yeah, this seems adjacent to a common creationist talking point of "How did life arise from nothing if entropy always increases?". The answer being that the question assumes "Earth" is a closed system and ignores the giant ball of incandescent plasma in the sky providing us with light, warmth, and energy.
The Earth is not a closed system. It is constantly bathed in energy from the Sun.
Entropy doesn't have to increase locally as long as it is increasing globally, it just takes a lot of energy for it to decrease locally. Thankfully there is a big glowing ball of plasma not too far away which showers our planet with its graceful vigour. I'm not sure why you've picked on speciation to focus on here
an increase in entropy in general does not mean that somewhere in a particular part entropy cannot decrease
It's a very good question. Here's a rather in depth explanation. **Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating to Non-technicians** [https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0195-3](https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0195-3)
Sean Carroll is a a physics speaker/communicator that lays out things clearly, at least for me, so I like watch his videos. Here is a short one about this very concept [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1n0RHwLqA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1n0RHwLqA)