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Entropy: A new world view
TECHNOLOGICAL
FORECASTING
AND SOCIAL CHANGE
20, 369-374
(1981)
Book Reviews Jeremy Rilkin and Ted Howard, Entropy: A New World View, Viking Press, New York, 1980, 305 pp. Johan Galtung, a Norwegian philosopher, has divided approaches to knowledge into four categories-Gallic, Nipponic, Saxonic, and Teutonic. The book Entropy fits into the Gallic tradition, in which theory illuminates facts, and all empirical observations not found in the clear bright beam of an elegant theory are regarded as irrelevant. In this, the book is not bashful: There is no way to escape the Entropy law. This supreme physical rule of the universe pervades every facet of our existence. Because everything is energy, and because energy is irrevocably moving along a one-way path from usable to nonusable forms, the Entropy law provides the framework for all human activity. (p. 241)
Indeed, according to this book, entropy explains all-history, the advance of institutional development, energy crises, ecotechnology, employment specialization, nomics, agriculture, transportation, urbanization, military expansion, the failure of education, health, third-world development, and religion. For each of these areas, a few pages of loosely organized statistics and contentions are offered in journalistic style to support the thesis that entropy provides the explanation. What is this magic stuff called “entropy”? There are many different definitions in the physical sciences, and considerable formal theory to show their equivalence. The book seems to have something different in mind, however, although it briefly defines entropy in the purely physical sense and gives an example: If we burn a piece of coal, the energy remains but is transformed into sulfur dioxide and other gases that then spread into space. While no energy is lost in the process, we know that we can never rebum that piece of coal and get the same work out of it. There is a term for this; it’s called entropy. (p. 34)
Although alchemy rather than entropy would be needed to explain energy being transformed into gases, somewhere hidden in this misleading statement is the germ of the entropy concept. Like Galtung’s Gallic observer, however, one would have to know the answer in advance to find it. No matter that the physical concept is muddled, for soon entropy is asked to explain much more than Maxwell’s demon. Entropy, as the book uses it, is very flexible in performing this task. In the case of cities, entropy explains that “Urban expansion means higher energy flows and mounting disorder” (p. 155). While in the history of education, entropy manages to explain the opposite: “. . each succeeding mental construct exhibited greater ordering, a higher energy flow-through, and, consequently, a greater dissipation of energy in the process” (p. 165). The book moves on to develop the entropy unit of value: “For example, most of us are now aware of what little value (entropy decrease) we receive from having x-rays done is more than outweighed by the long-range harm of radiation exposure (entropy increase)” (p. 176). And then to entropy as a universal prescription of what is good: @ K.R. Smith, 1981
370
BOOK REVIEWS
The Entropy Law answers the central question that every culture throughout history has to grapple with. How should human beings behave in the world? The ultimate moral imperative, then, is to waste as little energy as possible (p. 259).
And finally, it seems, to entropy as love itself: Love is not antientropic, as some would like us to believe. If love were antientropic, it would be a force in opposition to becoming, for the entropic flow and becoming go hand in hand. Rather, love is an act of supreme commitment to the unfolding process (p. 260). Although audacious, the book will not convince many readers of its theses. It will not convince the economists who will see it as the energy theory of value gone wild. It will not convince the sociologists who will see social entropism as less viable even than Social Darwinism. It will not convince the theologians who may view its “ultimate moral imperative” as a form of nihilism. It certainly won’t convince the physicists who will note that the second law of thermodynamics is notoriously difficult to apply and can lead to apparently contrary observations unless strict account is taken of the system boundaries. That local decreases in entropy can occur is quite consistent with the law, for example. Thus, whereas it is true that the entropy of the solar system is increasing, this is nearly irrelevant to human affairs for the next billion presidential elections. In a physical sense, massive entropy increases in the sun can more than account for maintaining constant or decreasing entropy on Earth. Furthermore, although there are many reasons to be wary of fusion power, the minuscule growth of Earth’s total entropy because of the fusion of a few tons of hydrogen from the ocean is not one of them. Thus, the strictly physical definition of entropy is not helpful in explaining what the book sees as the degeneration of the world. There may be another entropy, a psychic entropy or an entropy of intellect that may also be increasing. Surely, in light of at least some intellectual progress since the Stone Age, this type of entropy must have been decreasing throughout much of human history before beginning its postulated present increase. What, then, was the turning point? Was it the poisoning of Socrates, the fall of Rome, the horror of Hiroshima? No matter; the physicist will still be uncomfortable with the application of their strictly defined concept in the unquantifiable, unboundable, and untestable laboratory of human affairs. Another important group will be unhappy with this book-Galtung’s Saxonic knowledge-seekers. They expect theory to fit observations no matter how distorted, complicated, and particular the theory must become. The book is full of misleading statements and not a few errors of minor sorts. Let us name a few. Most observers do not believe that the polar icecap will melt in 75 years at any conceivable rate of CO2 release (p. 105). Most observers do not believe armed guards will be necessary around the clock for 250,000 year at nuclear waste sites (p. 110). Lithium may be as physically scarce as uranium but the energy potential of known reserves in fusion power plants is large enough to sustain human needs for centuries (p. 112). World fisheries production did not peak in 1970 (p. 115). The United States does not eat “more synthetic and artificial food than the real thing” (p. 132). Basic human needs for energy are much greater and of different quality than the minimum caloric dietary needs (p. 134). Mass cannot be used to measure area (p. 198). Solar devices and fusion power plants to not intrinsically require copper (pp. 112, 200). Photovoltaics are not “collectors that store sunlight in batteries for later use as electricity” (p. 201). The Saxonics will shudder at the cavalier way in which data and facts are treated. Unhappy, too, would be Mark Twain, who believed that only royalty, editors, and
BOOK REVIEWS
371
people with tapeworms should be allowed to employ the indefinite “we. ” Although it is difficult to avoid altogether, the book switches from we to we with alarming frequency-we, all the world’s people; we, the people of the United States; we, the experts; we, the authors and reader; we, the authors. Better the much maligned passive voice than the slippery “we.” Members of the final group that will be unhappy with the book, like this reviewer, will fear that in many respects the book is right. It will make them unhappy because it is SO slipshod and so polemical. It will make them nervous that it stretches to account for everything, ignores the uncertainties, and fails to apply Occam’s razor to so much. They will agree that the use of energy is the best index of environmental impact, but they will stop short of agreeing with Jacques Ellul and the book that the ill effects always at least match the benefits. They will agree heartily that human activities must be restructured to take physical realities into account, but they will question that the application of the entropy unit of value will achieve it. They may agree that Third World development and global redistribution of wealth are the most important social tasks facing humanity, but they will fail to see how the entropy worldview provides concrete guides to action, or even explanations of nonactions. They will surely wish that this book had come to them in draft for editing and review, for they would think that they could help remedy the occasional unnecessary errors and misstatements, the careless writing, and the convoluted logic. In its present form, it is an embarrassment to the cause, not least for its unrelenting righteousness. Perhaps most embarrassing for this group of potential friends of the entropy worldview are the book’s simplistic uses of the essential myths and strawmen of the environmental pessimists. Myths are as important as reality and often truer, but cannot be substituted for it. Harkening back to a simpler and better time in the past when brooks babbled clean, the air swept fresh, and humans were one with the world evokes a powerful image. The Pastoral Myth, however, is not verifiable any more than Teresias’s claim that women gain nine time more pleasure from love. Strawmen, like myths, can be efficient pedagogic tools. The exponential strawman in which growth rates in any physical quantity are extrapolated into the future is very compelling if used artfully. In this book, as too often elsewhere, the strawmen are too obvious to be convincing. The book also succumbs to what might be called the Environmentalists’ and Engineers’ Economic Error. A few members of these professions often seem to act as if economic growth were synonymous with growth in materials and energy use. To one profession, this assumption is the basis for arguing against economic growth, to the other it is a reason to secure the resources necessary for economic growth. This assumption is in error, although by how much is not clear, because economic growth can and does occur in sectors where resource use is minimal. Economics is a behavioral science, and if people come to value goods and services that are resource-unintensive, their incomes can still rise. This is not to say that such value changes will occur or that the present resource intensity of societies is sustainable, only that the linkage is not rigid. The most engrossing section of the book is the historical one, in which the authors develop themes from Richard Wilkinson’s Poverty and Progress (Praeger, 1973). The central idea is that the major technical innovations in history (agriculture, the switch from wood to coal, the steam engine) were the desperate acts of societies on the brink of disasters due to impending failure of existing methods. In this view, each new technology was the next best alternative, chosen only when the best alternative became no longer feasible. This implies that human life has gone downhill. It is a provocative argument, one
372
BOOK
REVIEWS
that could have been developed further in the book, for it is easy to think of exceptionsthe switch from coal to oil (and back) occurred long before physical limits to coal production had been reached, for example. Tom Cowan is reported to have said that all ways of categorizing human behavior work. Entropy is no different. To be different it would have not only to work well, but also to lead to action. It would have to provide a bridge from Weltan.srhuuung (“world view”) to Weltgeriit (“world tool”). This book is an extreme example of the growing energy Weltunschauung in public, academic, and political thinking. Someone has said that nowadays the sun never sets on energy conferences. Nor on energy ministries, it might have been added; both “popping up like mushrooms after the rain” in 1974. That energy is a powerful conceptual tool in the sciences is not in question. That it is a compelling concept in the realm of human affairs is manifestly obvious. What remains to be shown is that it leads to solutions to humanity’s dilemmas. Although both intriguing and maddening, this book does little to advance Entropy from Weltanschauung to Weltgeriit Kirk R. Smith Honolulu, Hawaii Receiwd
18 July IYXI
FORECASTING
AND SOCIAL CHANGE
20, 369-374
(1981)
Book Reviews Jeremy Rilkin and Ted Howard, Entropy: A New World View, Viking Press, New York, 1980, 305 pp. Johan Galtung, a Norwegian philosopher, has divided approaches to knowledge into four categories-Gallic, Nipponic, Saxonic, and Teutonic. The book Entropy fits into the Gallic tradition, in which theory illuminates facts, and all empirical observations not found in the clear bright beam of an elegant theory are regarded as irrelevant. In this, the book is not bashful: There is no way to escape the Entropy law. This supreme physical rule of the universe pervades every facet of our existence. Because everything is energy, and because energy is irrevocably moving along a one-way path from usable to nonusable forms, the Entropy law provides the framework for all human activity. (p. 241)
Indeed, according to this book, entropy explains all-history, the advance of institutional development, energy crises, ecotechnology, employment specialization, nomics, agriculture, transportation, urbanization, military expansion, the failure of education, health, third-world development, and religion. For each of these areas, a few pages of loosely organized statistics and contentions are offered in journalistic style to support the thesis that entropy provides the explanation. What is this magic stuff called “entropy”? There are many different definitions in the physical sciences, and considerable formal theory to show their equivalence. The book seems to have something different in mind, however, although it briefly defines entropy in the purely physical sense and gives an example: If we burn a piece of coal, the energy remains but is transformed into sulfur dioxide and other gases that then spread into space. While no energy is lost in the process, we know that we can never rebum that piece of coal and get the same work out of it. There is a term for this; it’s called entropy. (p. 34)
Although alchemy rather than entropy would be needed to explain energy being transformed into gases, somewhere hidden in this misleading statement is the germ of the entropy concept. Like Galtung’s Gallic observer, however, one would have to know the answer in advance to find it. No matter that the physical concept is muddled, for soon entropy is asked to explain much more than Maxwell’s demon. Entropy, as the book uses it, is very flexible in performing this task. In the case of cities, entropy explains that “Urban expansion means higher energy flows and mounting disorder” (p. 155). While in the history of education, entropy manages to explain the opposite: “. . each succeeding mental construct exhibited greater ordering, a higher energy flow-through, and, consequently, a greater dissipation of energy in the process” (p. 165). The book moves on to develop the entropy unit of value: “For example, most of us are now aware of what little value (entropy decrease) we receive from having x-rays done is more than outweighed by the long-range harm of radiation exposure (entropy increase)” (p. 176). And then to entropy as a universal prescription of what is good: @ K.R. Smith, 1981
370
BOOK REVIEWS
The Entropy Law answers the central question that every culture throughout history has to grapple with. How should human beings behave in the world? The ultimate moral imperative, then, is to waste as little energy as possible (p. 259).
And finally, it seems, to entropy as love itself: Love is not antientropic, as some would like us to believe. If love were antientropic, it would be a force in opposition to becoming, for the entropic flow and becoming go hand in hand. Rather, love is an act of supreme commitment to the unfolding process (p. 260). Although audacious, the book will not convince many readers of its theses. It will not convince the economists who will see it as the energy theory of value gone wild. It will not convince the sociologists who will see social entropism as less viable even than Social Darwinism. It will not convince the theologians who may view its “ultimate moral imperative” as a form of nihilism. It certainly won’t convince the physicists who will note that the second law of thermodynamics is notoriously difficult to apply and can lead to apparently contrary observations unless strict account is taken of the system boundaries. That local decreases in entropy can occur is quite consistent with the law, for example. Thus, whereas it is true that the entropy of the solar system is increasing, this is nearly irrelevant to human affairs for the next billion presidential elections. In a physical sense, massive entropy increases in the sun can more than account for maintaining constant or decreasing entropy on Earth. Furthermore, although there are many reasons to be wary of fusion power, the minuscule growth of Earth’s total entropy because of the fusion of a few tons of hydrogen from the ocean is not one of them. Thus, the strictly physical definition of entropy is not helpful in explaining what the book sees as the degeneration of the world. There may be another entropy, a psychic entropy or an entropy of intellect that may also be increasing. Surely, in light of at least some intellectual progress since the Stone Age, this type of entropy must have been decreasing throughout much of human history before beginning its postulated present increase. What, then, was the turning point? Was it the poisoning of Socrates, the fall of Rome, the horror of Hiroshima? No matter; the physicist will still be uncomfortable with the application of their strictly defined concept in the unquantifiable, unboundable, and untestable laboratory of human affairs. Another important group will be unhappy with this book-Galtung’s Saxonic knowledge-seekers. They expect theory to fit observations no matter how distorted, complicated, and particular the theory must become. The book is full of misleading statements and not a few errors of minor sorts. Let us name a few. Most observers do not believe that the polar icecap will melt in 75 years at any conceivable rate of CO2 release (p. 105). Most observers do not believe armed guards will be necessary around the clock for 250,000 year at nuclear waste sites (p. 110). Lithium may be as physically scarce as uranium but the energy potential of known reserves in fusion power plants is large enough to sustain human needs for centuries (p. 112). World fisheries production did not peak in 1970 (p. 115). The United States does not eat “more synthetic and artificial food than the real thing” (p. 132). Basic human needs for energy are much greater and of different quality than the minimum caloric dietary needs (p. 134). Mass cannot be used to measure area (p. 198). Solar devices and fusion power plants to not intrinsically require copper (pp. 112, 200). Photovoltaics are not “collectors that store sunlight in batteries for later use as electricity” (p. 201). The Saxonics will shudder at the cavalier way in which data and facts are treated. Unhappy, too, would be Mark Twain, who believed that only royalty, editors, and
BOOK REVIEWS
371
people with tapeworms should be allowed to employ the indefinite “we. ” Although it is difficult to avoid altogether, the book switches from we to we with alarming frequency-we, all the world’s people; we, the people of the United States; we, the experts; we, the authors and reader; we, the authors. Better the much maligned passive voice than the slippery “we.” Members of the final group that will be unhappy with the book, like this reviewer, will fear that in many respects the book is right. It will make them unhappy because it is SO slipshod and so polemical. It will make them nervous that it stretches to account for everything, ignores the uncertainties, and fails to apply Occam’s razor to so much. They will agree that the use of energy is the best index of environmental impact, but they will stop short of agreeing with Jacques Ellul and the book that the ill effects always at least match the benefits. They will agree heartily that human activities must be restructured to take physical realities into account, but they will question that the application of the entropy unit of value will achieve it. They may agree that Third World development and global redistribution of wealth are the most important social tasks facing humanity, but they will fail to see how the entropy worldview provides concrete guides to action, or even explanations of nonactions. They will surely wish that this book had come to them in draft for editing and review, for they would think that they could help remedy the occasional unnecessary errors and misstatements, the careless writing, and the convoluted logic. In its present form, it is an embarrassment to the cause, not least for its unrelenting righteousness. Perhaps most embarrassing for this group of potential friends of the entropy worldview are the book’s simplistic uses of the essential myths and strawmen of the environmental pessimists. Myths are as important as reality and often truer, but cannot be substituted for it. Harkening back to a simpler and better time in the past when brooks babbled clean, the air swept fresh, and humans were one with the world evokes a powerful image. The Pastoral Myth, however, is not verifiable any more than Teresias’s claim that women gain nine time more pleasure from love. Strawmen, like myths, can be efficient pedagogic tools. The exponential strawman in which growth rates in any physical quantity are extrapolated into the future is very compelling if used artfully. In this book, as too often elsewhere, the strawmen are too obvious to be convincing. The book also succumbs to what might be called the Environmentalists’ and Engineers’ Economic Error. A few members of these professions often seem to act as if economic growth were synonymous with growth in materials and energy use. To one profession, this assumption is the basis for arguing against economic growth, to the other it is a reason to secure the resources necessary for economic growth. This assumption is in error, although by how much is not clear, because economic growth can and does occur in sectors where resource use is minimal. Economics is a behavioral science, and if people come to value goods and services that are resource-unintensive, their incomes can still rise. This is not to say that such value changes will occur or that the present resource intensity of societies is sustainable, only that the linkage is not rigid. The most engrossing section of the book is the historical one, in which the authors develop themes from Richard Wilkinson’s Poverty and Progress (Praeger, 1973). The central idea is that the major technical innovations in history (agriculture, the switch from wood to coal, the steam engine) were the desperate acts of societies on the brink of disasters due to impending failure of existing methods. In this view, each new technology was the next best alternative, chosen only when the best alternative became no longer feasible. This implies that human life has gone downhill. It is a provocative argument, one
372
BOOK
REVIEWS
that could have been developed further in the book, for it is easy to think of exceptionsthe switch from coal to oil (and back) occurred long before physical limits to coal production had been reached, for example. Tom Cowan is reported to have said that all ways of categorizing human behavior work. Entropy is no different. To be different it would have not only to work well, but also to lead to action. It would have to provide a bridge from Weltan.srhuuung (“world view”) to Weltgeriit (“world tool”). This book is an extreme example of the growing energy Weltunschauung in public, academic, and political thinking. Someone has said that nowadays the sun never sets on energy conferences. Nor on energy ministries, it might have been added; both “popping up like mushrooms after the rain” in 1974. That energy is a powerful conceptual tool in the sciences is not in question. That it is a compelling concept in the realm of human affairs is manifestly obvious. What remains to be shown is that it leads to solutions to humanity’s dilemmas. Although both intriguing and maddening, this book does little to advance Entropy from Weltanschauung to Weltgeriit Kirk R. Smith Honolulu, Hawaii Receiwd
18 July IYXI