In science, objections to human thermodynamics are the negative opinions or detractors, in the last two-hundred years, that have professed strong objections to the use of thermodynamics to model or understand the dynamics, processes, and or evolutions involved in the act of human life (human thermodynamics) or the use of terms such as energy or entropy, etc., in human chemistry. These individuals and points of view are listed below.

Goethe’s human affinities

See main: Goethe's human chemistry

In 1809, German polymath Johann Goethe, with an IQ = 210, 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 outline a theory of affinity reactions occurring between people (as if A, B, and C were humans), in a pre-determined way, in coded form, in his novella Elective Affinities. In 1810, Goethe's fellow author and neighbor Christoph Wieland sent a letter (which he suggested should be burned after it is read) to his close friend German philologist and archaeologist Karl Böttiger stating that: [1]

"To all rational readers, the use of the chemical theory is nonsense and childish fooling around."

Cooley and Mead
At the turn of the 20th century, supposedly, having been stimulated by the equilibrium and life theories of English philosopher Herbert Spencer and the reserve energy theories of American psychologist William James, American social psychologists Charles Cooley and George Mead questioned the validity of applying theories taken from the physical sciences to the activities of human beings. In particular, thermodynamic laws, they argued, did not appear to make sense of psychological realities. [10]

Freud's psychodynamics

See main: Psychodynamics

Throughout his career, British developmental psychologist John Bowlby was very outspoken against Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud’s, who was in possession of an IQ = 156, 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]


Samuelson
Ironically, one of the strongest objectors to the use of thermodynamics, particularly entropy, to understand human society and economics was American economist Paul Samuelson, winner the 1970 Nobel Prize in Economics, sole protegé of the American polymath Edwin Wilson, who had himself been the sole protegé of Yale's great physicist Willard Gibbs, the main founder of chemical thermodynamics. Samuelson was adamantly against any version of economic thermodynamics, in spite of the fact that he himself used Gibbs mathematics in his own work. Most famously, in his 1970 Nobel Lecture, after digging into a discussion on his reformulation of the Le Chatelier’s principle in economics, a principle based on Gibbsian thermodynamics, Samuelson told the audience that: [3]

“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.”

In another example, in 1972 he commented that: [4]

"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."

Likewise, at the 1989 Gibbs Symposium, organized to honour the memory of Gibbs on the 150th anniversary of his birth, Samuelson had become even more pessimistic on the use of thermodynamics in economics:

“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”.

Moreover, at the Symposium, he continues: [5]

“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.”

Rossini’s political thermodynamics

See main: Political thermodynamics

In 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
In the 1994 work The Collapse of Chaos, English zoologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart give a very derogatory and near elementary school view of thermodynamics, in general, and in the context of the complexity of life, attempt to argue that it is not relevant. [15] In particular, they define the second law simply as "disorder always increases", and comment that: [16]

“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.”

Beyond this, they tout out near anti-scientific advice such as:

“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.”

The go on to give nonsensical statements such as “the second law applies only to closed systems in thermodynamic equilibrium”, that the question of how the existence of life is consistent with the second law “is bogus”, that “the entropy of the universe does not [italics theirs] increase over time.” There basic message to biologists is that “we don’t need to grapple with thermodynamics [or] the molecular structures of chemicals” in order to understand life.

Thims' human chemistry and human thermodynamics
In 2007, Canadian chemist Stephen Lower considered the following statement, written by American chemical engineer Libb Thims:

"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..."

to be "crackpot", meaning it is something akin to an eccentric or lunatic notion, and listed it among a grouping of pseudoscience subjects. [8]

On March 16, 2008, Thims found out about the 22nd Annual Gibbs Conference on Biothermodynamics (October 4-7, 2008), at Southern Illinois University, and on a whim sent out a letter of interest to present (poster or lecture) on human thermodynamics to site organizer American biophysicist Michael Johnson, using EoHT.info as a reference. [13] Johnson then passed the email on to current year site organizers American biochemists Jannette Carey and John Correia. [14] On March 18, Carey emailed back to Thims that the program is focused on molecular thermodynamics and that the "program is already set" and Correia emailed back:


Ksenzhek
In 2007, Russian bioelectrochemist Octavian Ksenzhek put forward the argument that thermodynamics is applicable to economics, but that is reign in political affairs is not possible. According to Ksenzhek, in relation to the thermodynamics of the formation of unions: [9]

"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."

Moriarty
In April 23 2009, Irish physicist Philip Moriarty, a professor at the University of Nottingham, 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 to gas molecules; you cannot say that a particular arrangement of students has a thermodynamic entropy.”

Moriarty and Thims also engaged in an online debate during Sept. 2009. Moriarty's objections to Thims' human thermodynamics "thesis" are detailed in that debate (during which Moriarty repeatedly describes human thermodynamics as nonsensical pseudoscience). During the debate Moriarty summarised Thims' views as follows:





References
1. Wieland, Christoph Martin. (1810). "Letter to Karl August Böttiger" July 16. Weimar. Quoted from Tantillo 2001, pg. 9-10.
2. Bowlby, John (1969). Attachment and Loss: Vol I, 2nd Ed. (pgs. 20). Basic Books.
3. Samuelson, Paul. (1970). “Maximum Principles in Analytical Economics”, Nobel Lecture, December 11.
4. Samuelson, Paul. (1972). The Collected Scientific Papers (pg. 450). Vol. 3, ed. R. Merton. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
5. Caldi, D. G. and Mostow, George D. (1989). Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium, May 15-17, (section: Gibbs in economics, by Paul Samuelson, pgs. 255-68). American Mathematical Society.
6. (a) Rossini, F.D. (1971). Chem. Eng. News., April 5, 49 (14): 50-53, American Chemical Society. (Priestly Medal Address)
(b) Leonard, Harold, E. (2006). “Chemical Thermodynamics in the Real World.” Letters, Journal of Chemical Education, (83) 39, Jan, No. 1. pg. 39.
7. (a) Leonard, Harold, E. (2006). “Chemical Thermodynamics in the Real World.” Letters, Journal of Chemical Education, (83) 39, Jan, No. 1. pg. 39.
(b) Wójcik, John F. (2006). ‘A Response to Chemical Thermodynamics in the Real World.’ J. Chem. Educ. (83) 39.
(c) Silverstein, Todd, P. (2006). “State Functions vs. State Governments”, Journal of Chemical Education, Jun. (83): 847, Letters.
8. (a) Lower, Stephen. (2007). “List of Flim-flam, Pseudoscience, and Nonsense”, Online listings.
(b) In regards to conflict of interest in the case of Lower, a point to note is that he is religiously predisposed or biased, e.g. one of his favorite websites is the Scary Bible Quotes site. This is a common factor to look for behind a person's motives to objecting to a science of "human chemistry".
9. Ksenzhek, Octavian S. (2007). Money: Virtual Energy - Economy through the Prism of Thermodynamics, (pg. 118). Universal Publishers.
10. Russett, Cynthia E. (1991). Sexual Science (pgs. 162-63; also: entropy, pg. 128). Harvard University Press.
13. (a) Annual Gibbs Conference on Biological Thermodynamics – Gibbs Society.
(b) Michael L. Johnson (faculty) – University of Virginia.
14. Jannette Carey (faculty) – Princeton University.
(b) John Correia (faculty) – University of Mississippi Medical Center.
15. (a) Cohen, Jack and Stewart, Ian. (1994). The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World (thermodynamics, pg. 249-52, 254, 257, 264, 326). Viking.
(c) The Collapse of Chaos – Wikipedia.
16. Clark, Robert P. (1997). The Global Imperative: an Interpretive History of the Spread of Humankind (pg. 6). Westview Press.

External links
● Human thermodynamics: science or pseudoscience? - IoHT, Chicago.
● Comments on human thermodynamics – IoHT, Chicago.