Natural selection reduces complexity by only selecting a fraction of the starting units.
You appear to have the capacity to to speak as a scientist, and you claim to have the training. I do not dispute any of that since, obviously, I don't know you. But what you are saying makes no sense. If you were interested in communicating scientifically, it seem to me you would start out by explaining what you mean by "reduces complexity". What language is that? Perhaps your training occurred at a time or place when evolution was not available in the curriculum. But it's available to you through a million sources right here on the web. Why do you refuse to use the common language of scientists when addressing topics in science? Let's face it, the world is full of charlatans and pranksters who make all kinds of claims. I don't have anything to go by except your own words. If you are indeed a chemical engineer, then I am inclined to think this is a game. Why do you avoid the actual definition of natural selection, which has nothing to do with "reducing complexity" and everything to do with the struggle for survival and the promotion of traits best adapted to a niche? Speak to this, and you might convince me. Until then, I have nothing else to go on except the possible scenario that this is just a gag.
Do the math to see if after natural selection there is more or less.
What math? First you need a system diagram. You need to account for energy transport. How do you propose to draw a diagram of evolution that represents a bounded thermodynamic system, in which we account for all the energy exchanges? These will have numbers, in Joules, and the amounts not accounted for are attributed to entropy. That's when the math comes in, when there's something to actually tally. Until you have done that, your claim is nothing more than an invention. Doesn't it bother you that you can't produce numbers that add up to a Joule value for entropy? Similarly, your assertions about randomness, without ever making reference to statistics, or why you think something is causal or deterministic or not, lead me to believe that you are bluffing.
This reduction reflects loss of entropy via natural selection.
Refer to your last statement: "Do the math", and when you have numbers, then we can go over them. in fact, I think the whole world would love to see that. It would be a monumental feat to do that.
This is permissible, but requires another layer increasing entropy, so the second law is not violated.
The second law was violated the moment you discovered you were unable to diagram the thermodynamic system, draw its boundaries, account for energy transferred, and arrive at a number that equals the amount of entropy you say is associated with evolution.
Loss of entropy, like natural selection, is not the spontaneous direction of entropy.
You have no earthly idea what direction entropy has taken because you have no system.
It will not happen on its own. Natural selection is an effect.
Where is the dictionary definition of "natural selection" in your discussion? Why are you refusing to speak the commonly accepted language of science? The term "natural selection" only has meaning by reference to nature, that is, to a niche that carves out a specific set of traits that will be favored. Do you notice I never once mentioned any terminology from thermodynamics in that statement? Guess why? Because it has nothing to do with thermodynamics! That's not to say you couldn't begin, case by case, to construct models of natural selection, accounting for all the energetic interactions that occur, then diagram the system, including the system boundary, then enumerate all the energy exchanges, and evaluate the entropy in numerically, in Joules. Certainly that is hypothetically possible to do. But you haven't even begun to do that. You're just claiming that entropy reversed
because you say so. Guess what - even if it turned out to be true, your disregard for treating this - the living world's biggest reason for doing what it does - without even a grain of analysis, leaves you out in the cold. So this goes nowhere.
Natural selection can and does happen, as Darwin witnessed, only because entropy is increasing elsewhere.
It's the other way around. Natural selection is
observed as the cause for mutations to succeed, and for new species to therefore arise. Again, you are avoiding the English language.
This is the cause, for the natural selection effect.
Wrong again, look up the meaning of natural selection. It's not an effect, but a cause. Evolution is the effect.
Let me change this around a little, and instead of a bunch of animals, say we had a bunch of rocks. Which rock will natural selection choose? This sounds silly, but is quite profound. Natural selection will not choose rocks. Natural selection is not concerned with rocks but life.
Silly is the wrong ballpark. It's absurd. Once again, you're either pretending not to know the definition of natural selection, or you just refuse to acknowledge what it is. In either case, you're so far off base, there is nothing on the table to analyze. It's all sytrofoam. And besides, natural selection affects speciation in ALL life forms, and not animals alone.
The entropy needed for the natural selection effect is within life itself.
You have no system, no energy audit, therefore entropy is not even on the table. And the energy needed to sustain life is not within life itself, I'm sure you know that, and are reminded of it every time you get hungry. This is precisely why your attempts to characterize total energy are wrong. This is why you need a system boundary. You need to account for ALL the energy to conserve it under the first law, before you can even get to the second law. Life requires nutrients, water (and often sunlight) and it requires gas exchange (and some life forms have other energy requirements). But you haven't accounted for any of those. So you can't declare what is or is not lost to entropy.
Natural selection is an effect, that is not spontaneous in terms of entropy, but rather stems from life, which increases entropy.
The absence of water that makes it impossible for fish to survive on land is not an effect, but a cause, by which fish evolved primitive lungs and primative appendages, and climbed out of the water, and natural selection is the cause, not the effect, that those primitive forms evolved into amphibians. Again, you will notice I never once mentioned anything about thermodynamics, since it is not relevant to the discussion of natural selection. And also note, the absence of water on dry land does not "stem from life" as you would have us believe. But clearly, life on land stems from the fact that dry land is not submerged below water.
If we freeze life, start with dead animals or rocks, natural selection does not come into the picture. It is only when life appears, does natural selection appear.
Really? So the dry land appeared only after primitive fish poked their heads up and said "Let there be land"? How insane is that?
Life can generate a lot of entropy with natural selection, by defining lowering entropy, an effect derived from this high entropy cause.
False, and utterly bogus, for all the above reasons.
If we had a herd of animals competing in the mating olympics, natural selection is made possible because life is in motion. If they also decide to postpone and sit it out, there is no natural selection that day, and the entropy stays high for another day. Tomorrow life competes and entropy is lowered. But this can only occur if we have entropy increasing via life.
Absurd.
Maybe before insulting you can show us where natural selection comes from, if my logic is off.
I think I've answered that, but if you haven't understood me, just Google "natural selection", "niche" and "entropy". That should cover all the bases. By the way, natural selection wasn't "born" so it doesn't have a creator, it doesn't "come from" anywhere. It's an observed cause for something else to be born:
species. Until you acquire a working definition of natural selection, you have no basis for making claims against the prevailing science, and the prevailing explanation of biological phenomena, namely, evolution.