‘Looked to me like you accused abiogenesis of being a form of “vitalism”. Is that not the case?”
Actually yes.
The idea that evolutionists push that the actual origin of life is not part of evolution, that somehow life occurred, abiogenesis, and then evolution by natural selection did it’s magic is a type of vitalism.
It’s in fact all chemistry subject to selection.
The supposedly hardcore materialists don’t even understand their own philosophy.
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I’m not sure what hand waving you referred to.
By definition, evolution describes how life changes over time through 1) descent with modifications and 2) natural selection.
There's no "vitalism" in that
How life first arrived on Earth -- whether through abiogenesis, panspermia or some other way -- is not addressed by evolution theory, though most scientists strongly suspect that some form of "evolution" was involved from the beginning with the earliest, simplest forms of self-replicating organic molecules.
Again, no "vitalism" in that, just basic chemistry.