[Stultis]

If evolution only pertains to life once begun, at what point in the history of life does evolution start operating?

It seems to me that darwinian evolution requires the presence of entities with the following characteristics:

--Reproduction (obvious)

--Inheritence (at least some traits get passed to offspring)

--Variability (at least some heritable traits vary at least some of the time)

--Mutation (the factors causing the state of heritable traits themselves at least sometimes change)

--Superfecundity (more offspring can potentially be produced than can possibly be supported by the environment)

So, at whatever point where you have entities with these characteristics, that's when evolution begins.

[count-your-change]

o.k.