The quantum law of all action causing the second law of thermodynamics also lets evolution select from unlikely combinations because everything that can occur eventually does, but what drives evolution isn’t probability but stability. It is unlikely that two extreme light rays will meet exactly head-on but when it did, the matter result was stable. A very unlikely event created it so matter exists because it was stable not probable. The quantum law that destroys order also finds unlikely combinations that survive. A lead atom is 82 protons, 125 neutrons and 82 electrons that shouldn’t naturally combine, but they did, and the reason is evolution. Lead, with a half-life of millions of years, is an order that exists not because it is probable but because it is stable.
The quantum law of all action underlies both evolution and devolution, so one can’t have one without the other. They work differently, as devolution creates the probable and evolution creates the possible, but both have the same quantum cause. The second law generally decreases order but evolution locally increases it, as when an electron and a proton form a hydrogen atom, they move together instead of both being free, so system order has increased. While the fridge needs a constant energy input to stay colder than its surroundings, the order of an atom doesn’t need a constant energy supply. When matter entities combine into a new stable entity, order increases permanently.
Hydrogen evolving into higher elements is an anti-entropy process that shouldn’t be common because the second law requires energy to create order, but it is. It occurs constantly in all the stars we see and led to the evolution of higher elements. Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms then combined into stable water molecules leading eventually to the self-replicating proteins that allowed primitive cells to evolve. The evolution of matter opposes the second law of thermodynamics by constantly increasing order in a way that doesn’t require any further energy.
Evolution didn’t stop there, as over time, primitive archaea and bacteria cells combined into the modern cells (Lane, 2015) that led to plants, animals and us. The evolution of life was a new combination that did need an energy input to survive but because it reproduces, it is also a permanent increase in order. In general, evolution acts to increase local order in a permanent way at the same time that the second law of thermodynamics is decreasing order generally. These two processes are not in opposition because they both derive from the quantum law of all action.
The social version of the second law is Murphy’s law, that if anything can go wrong, it will, but its opposite is Adam’s law, that from bad, good can come. Physics has no counter to the second law so it predicts inevitable disorder but evolution is the universal anti-entropy principle it ignores.
If evolution was limited to biology, the second law might supremely decide the universe but if matter evolved as life did, evolution is as universal as the second law. The second law predicts a universe devolving into disorder but evolution predicts it is also evolving order. An unstoppable quantum reality is constantly shaking the universe to possibly evolve even as it probably decays.
Evolution was built into our universe from its inception. The grand evolution of matter and life going on all around us defines the universe as much as physics based on heat flows. The dismal fact that the universe is dying doesn’t deny that it is also evolving, and we are the proof. Evolution explains what the second law cannot, that we are here because ordered life evolved.