Problems with the first life

You answered this in the first part of your paragraph - the ocean protects it, if it's deep enough. Since asexual reprodction would have to be the first thing it could do - replication being a prerequisite of being considered "alive" - it doesn't make sense to say this comes from a "mutation." Rather, asexual reproduction is an inherent quality of life. If it can't reproduce, it's not alive.If we're talking about the first living thing, reproduction is already a given. All life processes, including reproduction of any kind, are "some kind of chemical process" so this statement is more or less meaningless.Given that there are plenty of living things today that lack all organelles why would you propose that the first living thing would have to have all organelles?

In a word, hydrophilia. Lipid molecules have an end that is attracted to water and an end that is repulsed by it (because of the polar nature of water molecules.)When they bind side-by-side, in two layers, they form the "lipid bi-layer" that is the precursor to all cellular membranes. There's no trick to making it happen; this is a natural, self-organizing arrangement that the lipid molecules form spontaneously.

I can find no indication that Dawkins actually spoke or wrote these words.But even if he did, why would he be wrong? We know intelligent design isn't parsimonious; there's only one known intelligent species in the universe, and we weren't around at the time. There's no avaliable intelligence at the time to do the designing. Therefore naturalist explanations continue to be the most parsimonious.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-16-2005 16:25 AM