I think in a way Orac answered your question, but I'm not sure that you would have caught on to what he is saying. He sometimes gets to thinking in bottom up terms and he can leave others behind. He starts with the quantum effects that drive everything except gravity. He is right in one way. At the bottom of everything is physics. Chemistry is just a very complex system of interactions at the quantum level. And of course life is just a very complex system of chemical reactions.
First question: What is negentropy? Is it a proper scientific word? I think Orac questioned that.
If you mean negative entropy then there is a relatively simple answer. There is no negative entropy in life. The concept of entropy tells us that a system always moves from a more organized state to a less organized state. For example if you have a perfectly insulated box full of air the molecules of air will tend to have the same (average) velocity. The molecules could all at once move to one side of the box, but the chances of that happening during the full lifetime of the universe (past and present) is negligible.
When we look at any form of life we find that molecules are assembled into very structured forms. This can look like negative entropy. But life is not an isolated system like the completely insulated box of air. Life is part of a very large system, and in the creation of all those highly structured forms of life we find that there is more energy used in he construction of those complex forms than is contained in the forms. So the construction of those forms results in an increase in entropy.
If you must use the word negentropy then you should realize that it doesn't happen.
Bill Gill
