CoxRox- not exactly. That is the laws of physics and chemistry working on the matter in the universe (I found out the other day that they've figured out down to a very small fraction of a second what happened right after the big bang. Isn't that neat?).
Biological evolution only has anything to do with living organsims. The primordial soup you're talking about? That is one theory of Abiogenesis, and is well (and simply) described by Dawkins, actually, in Selfish Gene. There's a whole chapter on it. And, it's a very elegant theory that relies only on energy (geothermic, solar, electrical) and the chemical composition of the earth at that time to explain the beginning of life. They have replicated this "soup" in laboratories, and in less than a week, organic molecules (not life, but the building blocks for it) were found in this soup. The experiment can and has been repeated. But this is only one theory of how life on earth got started- there's a rather unconventional one involving crystal lattices in clay, there's the idea of a meteorite seeding earth... etc etc, these are all ideas that scientists are investigating right now. But evolution has nothing to do with non-living organisms (except maybe viruses, which are not necessarily considered alive). So up until those building blocks actually formed a self-replicating... thing... there was no natural selection, simply because there could not be. Personally, I think the idea of primordial soup is probably the right one, but I agree with leo- it is not certain exactly how life started. What is certain is that as soon as it did, natural laws came into play.
Biological evolution only has anything to do with living organsims. The primordial soup you're talking about? That is one theory of Abiogenesis, and is well (and simply) described by Dawkins, actually, in Selfish Gene. There's a whole chapter on it. And, it's a very elegant theory that relies only on energy (geothermic, solar, electrical) and the chemical composition of the earth at that time to explain the beginning of life. They have replicated this "soup" in laboratories, and in less than a week, organic molecules (not life, but the building blocks for it) were found in this soup. The experiment can and has been repeated. But this is only one theory of how life on earth got started- there's a rather unconventional one involving crystal lattices in clay, there's the idea of a meteorite seeding earth... etc etc, these are all ideas that scientists are investigating right now. But evolution has nothing to do with non-living organisms (except maybe viruses, which are not necessarily considered alive). So up until those building blocks actually formed a self-replicating... thing... there was no natural selection, simply because there could not be. Personally, I think the idea of primordial soup is probably the right one, but I agree with leo- it is not certain exactly how life started. What is certain is that as soon as it did, natural laws came into play.
