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when evolution itself seems to purposefully work in the opposite manner.

This rises from a misunderstanding of the Second Law. This is due to the need to simply it for the layman. Check out this site for a good explanation.

This rises from a misunderstanding of the Second Law. This is due to the need to simpl[if]y it for the layman.

And yet if i am not mistaken, the article at the link you provide was written by Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus (Chemistry), Occidental College, Los Angeles. He is deeply involved with the mission and goals of the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society.

It seems the more "complicated" version of the second law -- the one for specialists, not laymen -- is getting a critical look these days. Here's an abstract from an article by Prof. Lambert and Evguenii I. Kozliak, entitled "'Order-to-Disorder' for Entropy Change? Consider the numbers!" (from The Chemical Educator (an online journal), 1 (2005), pp 24-25):

"Defining entropy increase as a change from order to disorder is misleading at best and incorrect at worst. Although Boltzmann described it this way in 1898, he did so innocently in the sense that he had never calculated the numerical values of W using DS = k_B ln (W/W₀) (because this equation was not stated, k_B was not known, and W₀ was undeterminable before 1900-1912). Prior publications have demonstrated that the word "disorder" is misleading in describing entropy change. In this paper, convincing evidence in provided that no starting system above ca. 1 K can be said to be orderly so far as the distribution of its energy (the fundamental determinant of entropy) is concerned. This is supported by a simple calculation showing that any system with 'a practical state of zero entropy" has an incomprehensibly large number of microstates.'"

The calculation was done by K. L. Pitzer in Thermodynamics (3rd edition, McGraw-Hill, 1995. It showed "that any molar system even at temperatures as cold as 1 K has about 10^{26,000,000,000,000,000,000} different microstates. This is not 'order' or 'orderly!'"

Perhaps the focus on the predicted behavior of macrostates -- althugh i am sure this is practically useful in many technical applications -- is just to look at the "tip of the iceberg." In the end, the microstates "rule." (So to speak.)

Or so it seems to this layman, FWIW.

Thanks for writing, Paradox!

Ahhhh, this collection of complex organic compounds now understands. Thank you for the link.