In evolution thermodynamics, order-from-disorder is an oft-used term referring to the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon of the spontaneous formation of ordered structures in the universe, as typified by human life, in a universe governed by the second law of thermodynamics, often typified as the tendency in isolated systems towards disorder. A synonym includes “order out of chaos”, as introduced by Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine in the title of his 1984 book, among other varieties.

History
The general phrase "order from disorder" seems to trace to Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger chapter “Order, Disorder and Entropy” of his 1944 book What is Life?, in which the science of genetics is said to counter statistical thermodynamics second law, entropy tendency, towards disorder. [1] In 1984, Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine published his most-popular book Order Out of Chaos, in which a nonequilibrium thermodynamics variation of a far-from-equilibrium state of ordered life emergence was hypothesized. This soon led to a mixture of the two interpretations. In the 1992 book The Meaning of General Theoretical Sociology, American sociologist Thomas Fararo warns his readers not to mix up the far-from-equilibrium Prigoginean thermodynamics interpretation of equilibrium and structure formation with the standard sociological one (an abstract analytical conception):

“The main point is that theoretical sociology should employ an abstract analytical conception of equilibrium in which this concept is in reference to certain states of the social system, not of the biophysical environment … any special emergence of order-from-disorder phenomenon in our field must be accounted for by the mechanism of social interaction, not by a vague appeal to some thermodynamic situation.”

References
1. (a) Schneider, Eric D. and Sagan, Dorion. (2005). Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life, (section: Order from Disorder, pg. 15-19). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
(b) Schneider, Eric D. and Kay, James J. (1997). “Order from Disorder: the Thermodynamics of Complexity in Biology”, chapter 12 (pgs. 161-74) in Michael P. Murphy and Luke A. J. O’Neill’s What is Life? the Next Fifty Years, Cambridge University Press.
(c) Hunter, Graeme K. (2000). Vital Forces: the Discovery of the Molecular Basis of Life, (pg. 249). Academic Press.
2. Fararo, Thomas J. (1992). The Meaning of General Theoretical Sociology: Tradition and Formalization, (pg. 86-87). Cambridge University Press.