[microgood]

At some point they will say 10% of the steps have been reproduced, then a few years later 20%, etc.

I think biology needs an Einstein. It is also possible that man does not have the intelligence to create life from inert matter by design.

I have never bought that all life came from one beginning cell via random mutation and natural selection. There is something else going on here and that's what we need an Einstein for.

[BroJoeK]

microgood: "I have never bought that all life came from one beginning cell via random mutation and natural selection."

No, of course not, but it's a matter of word definitions as to when "complex chemistry" becomes "life".

There is no doubt that complex chemistry does develop in nature, given certain conditions.
And some complex chemistry can become even more complex under other conditions.
And we would not classify a simple series of complex molecules, in a membrane, that can somehow reproduce itself as "life", and yet that is how it begins.

Once you have complex molecules reproducing themselves, then there is an opportunity for errors and natural selection.
Well, people say, there's no way this could happen all at once -- statistical probabilities prevent it.
But, of course it didn't happen all at once, rather over billions of years, and if you calculate the numbers of reproductive events amongst single celled critters over all those years, it comes out to a number with about 45 zeros behind it.
So there was plenty of opportunity for whatever mutations necessary to turn "complex chemistry" into life.