Looking Out To Sea

Creationists seem to expend extraordinary effort “proving” that evolutionary theory contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. I had thought this was the beginning and end of the thermodynamics/bad science link. It seems I was wrong.

I’ve noticed it a lot recently in obesity discussions. It appears, stated very succinctly, in a comment on Feministing:

It is silly to say that all you have to do to get thin is to eat right or exercise well. This is not a bloody thermodynamics problem.

Unfortunately for the commenter, this is a thermodynamics problem. If you expend less energy than you take in then the surplus must go somewhere. Some will disappear with inefficiencies and some will be excreted, but a lot will just hang around. You can’t magic it out of the way by appeals to ‘metabolism’ or ‘biology’ or ‘genetics’. Really. Because if you could, it would mean fat people would be perpetual motion machines: the extra weight is “free energy”!

Anyone who claims they can’t change their weight is living under some seriously embedded delusions. There is nothing special or unique about the human body. It doesn’t conform to any grand plan unaffected by your environment. If you eat less you get thin; if you eat more you get fat.

If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are ANOREXICS + SUMOS??