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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Creationist arguments, PART I
Message-ID: <1010@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 18:02:21 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.1010
Posted: Mon Feb 11 18:02:21 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 02:48:31 EST
References: <204@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA> <3570003@csd2.UUCP> <312@psivax.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
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> >On `The Living Planet' the other night, they mentioned colonies
> >of life which are totally unsupported by photosynthesis.
> >They live on the deep ocean floor, around ruptures in the earth's surface.
> >Bacteria live on the gases ejected, other life forms live on the bacteria,
> >and so on.

> 	You are I suppose talking about chemosynthetic bacteria.
> This is still an *open* system, that is it is getting its energy
> outside. In this case the source of energy is the heat differential
> between the surface of the Earth and its interior. Furthermore
> this sort of energy metabolism represents a *very* small portion
> of the total energy processed by living things, so it is of little
> significance in determining the application of the second law of
> thermodynamics to living systems.

Actually, this came up before in this discussion.  It was before net.origins
when this was being argued in net.misc.  The energy source in question is
the heat in the core of the Earth, which is supplied by the decay of
radioactive material.  I pointed out that these seafloor communities
are the only present example of terrestrial communities subsisting entirely
on nuclear energy.  To my chagrin someone else (I wish I could remember who)
pointed out that I was forgetting the families of employees of the nuclear
power industry.

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"Don't argue with a fool.      Ethan Vishniac
 Borrow his money."            {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                               Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas
                               Austin, Texas 78712