How about I emulate John Lennon and act like an ash ??
To what end? All living things involve cells and it seems to me, based on living things adapting (one way or the other, ie life or death) to different enviornments, that all living things are capable of some level of sense perception, which might include senses we know nothing about.
"As a network engineer I know that changes in data do not improve a program, they render it useless or problematic at best. Ever have a corrupted program on your computer spontaneously develop new and improved features?"
Programming changes improve programs, not data changes. If you have data problems, human engineer your program to identify them. When it comes to spontaneously developing new and imporved computer program features, I do it daily.
"We are not finding newly evolved species."
The AIDS virus is a new species.
"Does anyone think that at the sub-cellular level decisions are being made to evolve with the environment? "
Just as theories proposed by Copernicus and Galileo moved toward being accepted as fact, Darwin's theory is moving up to being fact.
"the best scientists have not a clue as to how life started
True ... We also don't have a clue as to how the universe started.
Thank you for your time ...