Order can arise spontaneously out of disorder: an example.
You can do this in your kitchen. Take 1 cup of water, 1 cup of oil (olive or mazola or motor will do), pour into cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for 1 minute. Pour into a clear glass container.
You will see a very great deal of disorder in the liquid. Leave undisturbed for 1-2 hours (doesn't matter if there is light or darkness).
Observe again: You will see that the oil has spontaneously ("miraculously"?) risen to the top, and the water is nicely separated below. ORDER has appeared.
Please explain this via your interpretation of the 2nd Law and entropy.
Must it be distilled water? This is science after all and we want to be precise to 24 decimal places.
Non-sequiter.
There is a systematic influnce at work in this: the differing densities of the liquids, and a gravitational field. Re-do the experiment in endless free-fall and comment on your findings. Due at close of class today.
See post 24.
Those elements are not 'ordering' themselves, they are retreating to a state of equilibrium. Just a water droplet becoming an 'ordered' snowflake. It is adhering to its native form - per the ambient temperature - it is not achieving a higher level of complexity.
See post #189.
"Please explain this via your interpretation of the 2nd Law and entropy."
That is so stupid...
Let me know when the oil slides out of the glass, starts walking around and composes the Messiah.
That's a specious argument for order from disorder.
In fact, it may be a better argument against evolution.
Entropy TENDS toward disorder. Wouldn't the mixture temporarily imposed by the shaking motion be more complex than the individual ingredients? Yet because nothing was imposed to keep the mixture in the new state, it reverted to the original ingredients.
Evolution has to OVERCOME entropy to organize increased complexity of higher species. Or, as I believe, the order of this elegant universe is created and imposed by a Creator.