The fish darwin symbol... N!rmpbcBiyXn8GRV.z60~gpz0J#a0P_LaB.sV 856

Really, recognised by whom? In what way is it alive?

Here I'll give you a hand:

Does it breathe? Yes No X Does it eat? Yes No X Can it reproduce itself? Yes No X Does it excrete waste? Yes No X Can it move itself? Yes No X Does it grow? Yes No X

So is it alive or not? A crystal is slightly more alive on this score than a virus, at least crystals can grow.

As another example, scrapie, CJD and BSE are all similar forms of disease in different animals. Now tell me, is BSE "life"?

Yes, extremely low, not zero.

For about 1 to 1.5 *billion* years there was nothing that has left traces of what we recognise as life on Earth. That's a long time, long enough for something to have happened that was a remote possibility. Besides the possibility may not have been as remote as you think.

It only has to happen once.

Now, given that you cannot say for certain if a virus is alive or not, how can you tell where and when life evolved? If the first forms of life were more like a virus than a single celled organism then your statement:

"There would have to be an instant in time where nothing suddenly became life"

Is untrue, there would not be any moment when you could put a finger on something and say *there* is the begining of life. There would simply be a process of becoming more and more like life until we could finally see something we recognise.

You also stated:

"I just question the ability of one species to evolve into another starting from a single celled organism."

Odd, because the evolution of multicellular creatures is well studied, well understood and was one of the evolutionary steps that once it occured lead to an explosion (termed the Pre-Cambrian Explosion) in the diversity of life on Earth. It's a process that can still be seen today.

Take the Portugese Man-o-War, a type of jellyfish. It isn't a single animal, it's a colony of specialised cells. All it takes to develop an organism like a jellyfish from single cells is for those cells to decide to hang around together, and that's it. Once that's done, evolving complexity is just icing on the cake.

You keep stating that you cannot accept this and you cannot accept that and that all of it is too far fetched. Yet you prove over and over again that (a) you claim to have studied the subject is bollocks, and (b) the only real "problem" is your lack of imagination and understanding.

-- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759