"Living organisms obviously embody arrangements of matter into complex structures. They transform chemicals and, in an orderly fashion, transport and store them in purposeful ways" ...
Eric D. Schneider
is an interdisciplinary scientist whose thirty-year research program has been
a synthesis of physics and biology at a most fundamental level. Specifically
he studies the intersection of energy flow and thermodynamics with life.
What he has found is that life is one of a continuum of processes that produce order
from disorder. Highly organized nonliving physical and chemical systems
are ordered by energy and chemical gradients. Life like these inanimate systems
import high quality energy and give off low grade energy and are able to
build structure, organization and biotic processes from this difference.
The origin of life, the development of ecosystems, the direction seen in
evolution and an insight into economic systems emerge from this paradigm.
Eric resides in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in
western Montana.
