[MEGoody]

"No, you won't be impressed. To you, such a demonstration by man would only prove "that an intelligence had to be involved in creating" the world."

I presumed you'd know that 'chaotic environment' meant that no human intelligence had been involved in selecting or manipulating the elements to go into it. Perhaps I should have been clearer.

And yes, if you were to show me life occurring spontaneously in such an environment, I would be impressed.

[Junior]

Define "life." I'm not being facetious. As one gets simpler and simpler, the distinction between life and non-life becomes fuzzier. Are self-replicating molecules living? Are virii? Where does one draw the line and say, "everything on that side is alive and everything on this side is not"?

Don't sweat not being able to answer. Biologists don't always agree on this, either. However, we know the building blocks of life do occur naturally and are readily abundant in interstellar dust clouds of all places. Indeed, prototypical cell membrane-like structures have also been discovered in similar environments, formed naturally and without intervention by living entities.