[Steve_Seattle]

"Do airplanes reproduce on their own? Do they mutate and have offspring that are slightly different? Does the complexity of a 747 vary based on the intrusion of a retrovirus at the right moment?"

It sounds like you're making points in favor of my argument, not against it. Sheesh.

[orionblamblam]

> It sounds like you're making points in favor of my argument

Wrong. The simplest life forms are self-replicating, as are even simpler organic chemicals. The most complex machine cannot do this. This is not because a simple protein or amino acid *wants* to reproduce; that's jsut what they do mechanically.

So, the progression from chemicals to you involves no inexplicable leaps in capability. The leap from an airplane being a manufactured item to being a self-replicating item *does.*