Mickiel, are you a professional biologist? Do you have a graduate degree in cellular physiology and chemistry?

I ask because your position and the ideas you are proposing are simplistic to the point of being flat out wrong. I'm not arguing with the fact that mules are sterile, I'm arguing with your proposal that the sterility of mules is enough evidence to base a universal law off of. If you want to talk about the genesis of life (not the biblical book, but the origins of life) and talk about the laws governing life then we must look at the behavior of the smallest forms of life, single celled organisms.

There's a reason mules are sterile and that has to do with genes. The biological definition of a species is that they are genetically compatible within the group (the offspring are not sterile) and they are genetically incompatible outside of the group (no offspring are generated, or they are sterile). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species...ons_of_species

Speciation is the process of what was one species splitting into two species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation This is most commonly done through separation of one interbreeding community into two separate interbreeding communities. As time passes and genetic mutation occurs, the communities genetically drift apart from each other until they are no longer sexually compatible to generate offspring. This phenomenon is real.

What most people think of as evolution is macroscopic morphological change, which does not necessarily require a severe change in genetic material and could be a result of shifts in chemical equilibrium within the cell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

Mickiel, it takes YEARS of study to master an understanding of what we now know is going on at a cellular level. My wife is a Biology major studying pre-med, I've had about 2 years of college level biology, and let me tell you this subject cannot, absolutely cannot, be simplified into a few trite "laws" or "principles". There is far too much complexity and too much that we don't know or don't understand. Presenting simplifications and generalizations not only trivializes the material, but spreads misinformation and misunderstanding.

Biogenesis is not a law, it is simply what happens for most life. We are currently studying how cells are decomposed into functional units and playing around with re-purposing cell functionality much in the way we re-program computers. There are two major criteria to life: 1 self-replication (allowing errors in copying that don't stop replication) and 2 a cellular envelope. It is not necessary that the cellular envelope be similar to what we have now, but it is necessary that there be some sort of envelope that allows the customization of an internal environment separate from the ambient environment.

Self replication can be observed in nature, emergent out of the principle of self-organization and the previous generation of structure aiding in the establishment of the new generation of structure. This can be witnessed in crystal lattice growth. There are clays which have a quasi crystalline structure and the characteristics of the crystal get replicated. For Abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) to occur the most likely path way was for an inorganic structure like a clay or crystal to provide a surface which facilitated the alignment of organic molecules to bond into larger molecules. The next stage would be for the larger molecules to replace the clay/crystal as being the lattice against which other new composite molecules emerged. The next stage would be some sort of envelope which creates an environment which facilitates the replication. The envelope has to be composed of the replicating material and the envelope itself may have been the initial structure against which the molecules organized themselves.

Once life gets started with a cellular envelope and self-replication, the explosion in life is to be expected. Failure to make faithful copies in the replication process is essential for life. Some mistakes will hamper replication, some mistakes will enable more efficient replication. Anything that replicates survives provided it can acquire enough resources to replicate again. The more efficient an organism is at resource consumption and replication, the more progeny is produced. Speed this process up millions of years and the machinery that is replicated is going to be far more efficient, complex, and prolific. The complexity is going to included cells cooperating together to ensure mutual survival. Once you have cell colonies, then cells can begin to specialize and become optimal at performing certain tasks. Alone these cells would die, but the emergent orchestration from the cooperative specialization is more efficient and more stable. This is the basis of single celled organisms moving to multicellular structures. NOTE that some cells moving to multicellular structure does not imply all cells do.

Armchair philosophy might have a foothold, but there is no such thing as arm-chair biology. You have to become an expert to understand the nuance and complexity.

I'm asking everyone, please take 2 or more years of collegiate level biology from reputable sources, or at least read the text books and understand the material. If you're commenting without mastery of the material, most likely what you are saying is WRONG and does more to mislead and confuse others.

The simplification of life to some whimsical notions doesn't work. Life is complex and you have to put some serious time, energy and mentation to understand the processes going on.