For a long time it seemed to me that Life (and evolution) was a force that ran counter to the second law of thermodynamics. While everything else in the universe was winding down, loosing order, and leveling energy gradients in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, Life seemed to be going the other way. Living beings organized things. Evolution seemed directed towards greater order. Was life special? Was life an exception to the physical laws?
A couple of years ago I attended a conference where Dorion Sagan (the son of Carl Sagan) was a panelist. Dorion had an interesting view of this conundrum about life being an exception. He suggested that life forms that are more “highly evolved” (I use this term without buying into all it suggests) are actually better adapted to leveling energy gradients than are “less evolved” (again same disqualification). Human beings, for instance, are better adapted to transforming the potential energy stored in fossil fuels into lower potential energy levels through our use of cars and industry. If you look at the effects of our actions, we are “using up resources.” We seem to be “better” at this than are any other life forms. Perhaps life is evolving in service of the second law of thermodynamics.
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