"Does one want to call a mountain range "living"? They do grow, move, emit offspring, etc."
no, because a mountain range, while "emiting offspring" do not create an "offspring" that will one day be parallel to the original. if it produces more than one, they will be smaller, and most likely of a different composition. also, please, "kill" a mountain. if it is living, it must die.
thanks for citing a poet to explain sciene though, it proves you have some stock in abstract ideas. now apply them.
What does "parallel" have to do with anything here?
Note that the Ancestral Rockies did not necessarily give rise to the current Rockies though.