That always troubled me until I read an article a couple of months ago about a new discovery with regard to the attempts to recreate the start of life. Basical

That always troubled me until I read an article a couple of months ago about a new discovery with regard to the attempts to recreate the start of life. Basically, it said that biological self-organization and replication satisfies the 2nd law if you count the excess heat that is given off during the process. In other words, the chemical processes that power life are a reduction from a complex form to a simpler form and and the generation of heat. For instance, most organisms eat food, digest the food, which breaks down the complex chemicals to simple ones, and generate heat. So, while an organism may evolve into a more complex form, in the environment, it is creating entropy overall. This satisfies the 2nd law and explains evolution (a higher order life process).