Apologies to Steven Morris

My little piece on evolution and the second law of thermodynamics appeared in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Physics.  (Non-paywall version here.)  I wasn’t going to note that on the blog, since I’ve already written plenty about it before, but there’s one citation I wanted to include that didn’t make it in, so I figured I’d at least point it out here.

After the article had been accepted, Steven Morris pointed me to a piece he wrote back in 2005 for Reports of the National Center for Science Education that, like mine, quantitatively compares the entropy increase supplied by sunlight with the decrease required for evolution.  I was going to add a mention of this to my article when I got the proofs, but apparently AJP doesn’t do proofs for short notes like this, so I missed my chance. I figured I’d at least mention Morris’s piece here as a tiny mea culpa. 

To atone a bit further, I’m going to go send some money off to the NCSE.  This is an organization that fights for the teaching of evolution in US schools.  I used to give them money but haven’t for a while.  You should support them too.