See main: Goethe's human chemistryIn 1809, German polymath Johann Goethe used Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman's 1775 chemical affinity theory, where single displacement reactions, such as:
are characterized as affinity reactions, subject to affinity table formulation (precursor to free energy tables), the force of which is quantified via chemical affinity or elective affinity preferences, which, in modern terms, is known as the change in Gibbs free energy ΔG, as shown by the following expression, where A is affinity:
“To all rational readers, the use of the chemical theory is nonsense and childish fooling around.”
Wieland, to note, objected owing to the "radicalness of his Christianity" as he commented.
See main: PsychodynamicsThroughout his career, British developmental psychologist John Bowlby (shown adjacent) was very outspoken against Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud’s use and application of thermodynamics in psychology in his development of, what Bowlby calls, Freud’s “psychical energy model”, otherwise known as psychodynamics. In fact, Bowlby devoted the entire first chapter, titled “Point of View”, of his monumental three-volume Attachment series treatise, towards an effort to discredit Freud in his use of physics terms, such as energy, entropy, force, pressure, or inertia, as in "principle of inertia", etc., in psychology. To cite one example, at the end of this first chapter, published in 1969, Bowlby states: [2]
“There is nothing more pathetic than to have an economist or a retired engineer try to force analogies between concepts of physics and the concept of economics … how many dreary papers have I had to referee in which the author is looking for something that corresponds to entropy or to one or another form of energy.”
“The sign of a half-baked speculator in the social sciences is his search for something in the social system that corresponds to the physicist's notion of entropy.”
“As will become apparent, I have limited tolerance for the perpetual attempts to fabricate for economics concepts of ‘entropy’ imported from the physical sciences or constructed by analogy to Clausius-Boltzmann magnitudes”.
“The monthly mail still brings grandiose schemes to replace the dollar as a unit of value by energy or entropy units. Superficial knowledge of thermodynamics, brought into contact with ignorance of economics, cannot even in the presence of the catalyst of noble intentions beget stable equilibrium of useful products. This is not a tautology, merely a finding of fifty-five years of reading the morning mail.”
See main: Rossini debate; see also: Political thermodynamicsIn 1971, American chemical thermodynamicist Frederick Rossini argued that governments are regulated by the laws of chemical thermodynamics. In particular, during one part of his Priestley Medal address, used the combined law of thermodynamics to understand the paradox between freedom and security in social life. [6] This lecture, 35-years later, in 2006, came to spark quite a debate between Americans chemist Harold Leonard, physical chemist John Wójcik, and chemist Todd Silverstein. [7] To cite one opinion in this debate, voiced by Wójcik:
“Worst of all, there is some danger that chemical thermodynamics will have ascribed to it a power that it simply does not have, namely, the power to explain the human condition.”
Cohen and Stewart“Thermodynamics is a horrible trap for the unwary. It works beautifully in its original context, heat engines. In most other areas it is usually no more than a metaphor, one that has often been stretched far beyond its breaking point.”
“If the laws of thermodynamics seem to conflict with the evidence of your senses, believe your senses and take a long hard look at thermodynamics.”
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| Irish physicist Philip Moriarty explaining (see: Moriarty-Thims debate) in his 2009 (60 Symbols) YouTube video that ordered arrangements of students (right) can be thought of as being in a low entropy state, and that dispersed arrangements of students (left) can be thought of as being in a high entropy state, but that he cautions that this is only a "metaphor" and that in reality, in his own words, “you cannot say that a particular arrangement of students has a thermodynamic entropy.” |
See main: Moriarty-Thims debateOn 23 April 2009, Irish physicist Philip Moriarty (shown adjacent), a professor of thermal physics for six years, contributed to a video on the symbol “S” on the University of Nottingham's SixtySymbols YouTube channel. On April 30, unaware of Moriarty's video, American chemical engineer Libb Thims made a similar video entitled “What is Entropy?. Shortly thereafter, Thims came across Moriarty’s video and ended up commenting on many points in the video, e.g. Moriarty’s comment that “the concept [of the symbol S (as discussed in the context of the video)] was developed by a guy named Ludwig Boltzmann”, etc. Moriarty responded to these comments at the YouTube channel and went on to criticise strongly the applications of chemistry, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics to human activity (including romantic liaisons), posting up a followup video three months later, stating the following view:
“Concepts of entropy apply [only] to gas molecules; you cannot say that a particular arrangement of students has a thermodynamic entropy.”
“Thims’ laughable central premise is as follows [in Moriarty’s view]: ‘well, a human is made of lots of atoms. Therefore a human is just a big molecule. Big molecules will behave just like small molecules. Therefore I can apply all thermodynamic principles to human ‘molecules’.”
“The presentation of love viewed as a human chemical reaction (Mx + Fy → MxFy) between two human molecules is good for a laugh, but not much else.”
“Human chemistry is the study of reactions between individuals who are viewed as chemical species and with the energy, entropy, and work that quantify these processes. In modern human chemistry, people are viewed as chemical species, or specifically human molecules, A or B, and processes such as marriage or divorce are viewed as chemical reactions between individuals...”
“Apart from economic reasons for joining or not joining societies into huge unions, a significant role may also be played by political considerations ... this aspect, however, is beyond the scope of a thermodynamic approach.”
"Is this [a] joke?"Correia, of coincidence, is a graduate of Villanova University, a Roman Catholic university (meaning Christian-values centric), similar to same as Wojcik (who taught physical chemistry there), meaning that four of the "objectors" on this page (Wieland, Wojcik, Lower, and Correia) are objecting because the premise that chemical thermodynamics governs human activity conflicts with Christianity.
In 2010, Ian Forrester, in comment to English computer scientist Tim Lambert, defined American chemical engineer Libb Thims as "more of a crank than complete whack job Nasif Nahle" as follows: [17]
“Yes Nasif Nahle is a complete whack job. I did a little bit of searching and found that he has one English paper listed by Google Scholar. It is published in a 'journal' called Journal of Human Thermodynamics. It contains such gems as: 'On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat and Occupation', 'Facial Vibration Imaging Technology and Quantification of Thermodynamic States of Individuals', 'Coriolis Force and Asymmetry in Chemical-Biological Evolution', and 'Human Thermodynamics and Business Efficiency'. The journal is run by someone called Libb Thims who is even more of a crank than NN.”
In 2013, Polish physicist Krzysztof Kulakowski, noted for his 2008 sociophysics article “Sociophysics: an Astriding Science”, focused on asking if the second law of thermodynamics can be useful in the social sciences”, commented the following to American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims in query about if he would be interested in being on the JHT review board: [19]“I would accept it willingly, but the problem is that I deeply do not believe that thermodynamics can be fruitful in solving social sciences, where I work.”
