Animate thermodynamics
A 1932 correspondence letter of Canadian philosopher W.E.M. Mitchell in which he points out seeming inconstancy between English theologian-philosopher William Inge's recent article, which argued that thermodynamics applies to animate nature as well as inanimate nature, and English biologist James Johnstone’s recent article, which concludes (incorrectly) that entropy is the inorganic world (non-carbon based) and decreasing in the organic world (carbon-based); which leaves the reader with the incorrigible view that time’s arrow (1928) points in both directions (↔). [4]
In thermodynamics, animate thermodynamics is the thermodynamical study of animate nature, i.e. animated systems, animate engines, animate matter, animate molecules, or animate bodies. The following is American protein thermodynamicist Donald Haynie's 2001 take on the thermodynamics of animate nature:

“The universality of the relationships of thermodynamics eliminates an “artificial” distinction between the animate and the inanimate, and thereby enables one to see the world as a single thing.”

This cogent statement, to clarify, is a view, according to Haynie, that only "some people" hold. [8]

Overview
The term "animate" is the physical sciences based replacement for the soft sciences based term "biological", which has no physical meaning, but only mythological meaning. The etymology of the two is outlined below: [5]

Animate (Greek anemos wind; Sanskrit aniti he breaths (1500BC))
Biological (Greek bios life (1400BC))

A related term is psyche, which derives also from a word meaning 'breath', and means something along the lines the 'source of animation'. [6]

In human chemistry, when the molecular formulas for animate structures, from bacteria to man, are calculated and studied, it becomes apparent that the core source of animation is found in animate bonding geometry of the carbon atom and in particular the hydrocarbon central nervous systems found in all so-called animated entities, which in turn become or are made animate owing to photon-electron interactions, a subject which has its roots in the 1913 Bohr model of the atom and the 1958 light-induced bending retinal molecule work of American biochemist George Wald.

The term 'life' and its corpus of associations, according to the 2009 defunct theory of life, has no physical basis. [1] The term animate, in the sense of a "structure that either moves and or has activity", should be used in place of the incorrigible term life and its derivatives (alive, living, etc.).

Thomson
Irish-born Scottish physicist William Thomson’s famous 1852 article "On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy", historically, has been the launching point on debates as to whether or not the second law applies to life or "animated creatures", as put it, a query to which Thomson answered, in a somewhat ambivalent way, that it "probably" applies: [9]

“Known facts with reference to the mechanics of animal and vegetable bodies, [there is] at present in the material world a universal tendency to the dissipation of mechanical energy [and] any restoration of mechanical energy, without more than an equivalent of dissipation, is impossible in inanimate material processes, and is probably never effected by means of organized matter, either endowed with vegetable life or subject to the will of an animated creature.”

This famous verbal statement of the second law, thus launched the debate on whether or not entropy (in Clausius terms), or dissipation (as Thomson viewed things), might relate to "vegetable life" or to the "will" of animated things; this thus seems to be the first usage of the term animate used in the context of thermodynamic formalism. [10]

Thomson’s 1902 article “Animal Thermostat”, on the apparent power of certain animals of producing cold under certain circumstances, in relation to the specific heat experiments of Adair Crawford (1748-1795), was referred to in 1907 (by someone) as the subject of “animate thermodynamics”, and thus seems to be the first coining of the term "animate thermodynamics". [7]

Animated heat engines
German physicist Gustave Hirn's 1868 Philosophical Implications of Thermodynamics was the first to address the question of applying thermodynamics to animals and people who he defined as "animate heat engines". An overview synopsis of his chapter two (French to English translation):

"Chapter two: Application of the mechanical theory of animate heat engines. - Sources of vital heat. - Similarity of the organization Areas live with our engines. - Positive and negative work to be alive. - The first proposal of thermodynamics apply to these beings as our engines. - Details on the physiological functions of animated motors. - In what parts of the body is consumes heat as much as to work."

Hirn's section on "positive and negative work to be alive" seems to the most fruitful in that he seems to be utilizing Rudolf Clausius' definition of positive work and negative work to explain human motion, whereby in the end the notion of "alive" becomes displaced as an unnecessary term.

20th century views
In his 1920 The Animate and Inanimate, American polymath-prodigy William Sidis outlined a crude entropy reversal theory of human animate existence.

In his 1946 article "Life and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" English physical chemist and noted chemical thermodynamicist John Butler outlined Thomson's view of the second law, a view which he summarized by stating that Thomson "expressly excluded the operations of animate agencies" from the second law, which is not exactly correct; but also discussed the recent views on thermodynamics and life expressed by Gilbert Lewis (1926) and Erwin Schrodinger (1944). [10]

In 1954, Belgian-born English thermodynamicist Alfred Ubbelohde, in his section 'Thermodynamics and Life', stated that the word ‘life’ should be re-termed ‘animate matter’. Specifically, he states: [2]

“Animate matter [is] termed ‘life’ for short.”

Therefore, what Ubbelohde is implying is that what was formerly called life thermodynamics (1920s-50s), then biological thermodynamics (1960s-70s), then biothermodynamics (1980s-90s), should in modern times be referred to as “animate matter thermodynamics” or animate thermodynamics in short.

In 1997, Swedish physical chemist Sture Nordholm, in his “In Defense of Thermodynamics: an Animate Analogy”, was the first to use the specific term ‘animate thermodynamics’, used in the context of thermodynamics applied to human behavior, wherein he used the Planck entropy relation and the Helmholtz free energy equations to argue that thermodynamics, in its generality, once thought only applicable to inanimate matter, is also applicable to the animate world and animate matter, specifically being applicable to human behavior. Nordholm coins the term in an end exercises, questions, and discussion section, specifically question three on political thermodynamics:

“Discuss the political systems dictatorship and democracy from the point of view of the proposed rules of human behavior. Which system of government is most in tune with animate thermodynamics? How might the level of education in a society influence the choice of system of government?”

Nordholm correctly defines, albeit implicitly, the human to be a type of animate matter.

Branches
Animate thermodynamics, itself, is a branch of thermodynamics, whereas and some of the branches of animate thermodynamics include:

● Action thermodynamics
● Biochemical thermodynamics
● Biological thermodynamics
● Drug-receptor thermodynamics		● Ecological thermodynamics
● Hierarchical thermodynamics
● Human thermodynamics
● Life thermodynamics (defunct)		● Limnological thermodynamics
● Neurothermodynamics
● Pharmaceutical thermodynamics
● Protein thermodynamics

References
1. (a) Thims, Libb. (2007). Human Chemistry (Volume One) (life: difficulties on term, pgs. 130-31). Morrisville, NC: LuLu.
(b) Thims, Libb. (2009). “Letter: Life a Defunct Scientific Theory”, Journal of Human Thermodynamics, Vol. 5, pgs. 20-21.
(c) Brooks, Michael. (2008). 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: the Most Baffling
Scientific Mysteries of Our Time (ch. 5: “Life: Are You More Than Just a Bag of Chemicals”, pgs. 69-82). Double Day.
2. Ubbelohde, Alfred René. (1954). Man and Energy ... Illustrated, (Section: XIII: Thermodynamics and Life, pg. 183-200, Section: XIV: Thermodynamic Laws and Cognition, pg. 201-09). London: Hutchinson's Scientific & Technical Publications.
3. Nordholm, Sture. (1997). “In Defense of Thermodynamics: an Animate Analogy” (abstract), Journal of Chemical Education, 74(3): 273.
4. Mitchell, W.E.M. (1932). “Correspondence”, Philosophy, 7(28): 502.
5. (a) Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
(b) List of languages by first written accounts – Wikipedia.
6. Egyptian consciousness – ConsciousEntities.com.
7. Anon. (1907). “The Late Lord Kelvin” (pg. 847), Engineering, Volume 84.
8. (a) Haynie, Donald. (2008). Biological Thermodynamics (pg. 330). Cambridge University Press.
(b) Haynie, Donald. (2001). Biological Thermodynamics (animate, pgs. 297, 316). Cambridge University Press.
9. Thomson, William. (1852). "On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy" (Google Books) (URL), Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for April 19, 1852, also Philosophical Magazine, Oct. 1852, also Mathematical and Physical Papers, vol. i, art. 59, pp. 511.
10. Butler, John A.V. (1946). "Life and the Second Law of Thermodynamics" (abs), Nature, 158: 153-154.

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