I'm surprised that you wrote this post, because to me, it seemed like a trivial consequence of the process of evolution combined with the Second Law of Equilibrium. I'm shocked that anyone here even might have suggested that you were wrong. So I guess that since you're in the minority who are correct, you deserve some sort of accolade or praise for actually deducing correct consequences of scientific theories.
Having said that, the Second Law of Equilibrium states that systems tend towards a state of equilibrium. This tendency is described as entropy, which is quantified as a measureable quality of the system itself, and of all the bodies in the system. As such, this entropy causes systems to gravitate more towards a state of equilibrium than away from it. Such a property fulfils the properties of an evolutionary pressure. Evolutionary pressures are the driving forces behind the direction that evolution takes. So as the system evolves, i.e. as changes happen, entropy drives the system to give greater advantage to the changes that favour equlibrium, which means that over time, with many, many changes, the total of those miniscule changes adds up to a general driving towards an equilibrium state.
So in short, yes, what you said was correct.
This is a late reply but here it goes anyway..
What you wrote certainly makes sense but I think so does my explanation in terms of feedback loops. So this to me is an indication that there's some connection between entropy or the tendency for things to move towards equilibrium and feedback loops.
Frankly, I don't understand what entropy is. They sort of tried to explain it in our thermodynamics course last term but it wasn't a satisfactory explanation from my point of view. I couldn't and still don't see how it can arise out of first principles unless one considers it itself to be a first principle.
From other places, they seem to describe entropy as the amount of information a system possesses and that makes sense because information is inversely proportional to order and thus entropy is disorder which is good.
Now my mind tries to link this fact back to deltaS = integral (delQ/T) and all I can see is a large gaping hole.
This is probably due to the fact that I have no idea what heat actually is or temperature for that matter.
Hmm...I asked a Professor once and he told me that temperature is the measure of kinetic energy all the particles in the system possesses while heat is the measure of both potential energy and kinetic energy the particles in the system possess.
But this is only referring to the exchange of entropy but there's still the entropy generated component due to irreversible processes.
Maybe someone can help me tie it all together or at least show me the general direction in which I should proceed to make sense of entropy?
Perhaps someone like Architect whom I recall has a phd in Physics?
Much appreciated.
(This post probably could be classified under a different thread but I don't want to waste another thread just for this)
