"Well let's hear you define the exact point of origin of life..." I can't do that, Steve Shaw; can you?

Nevertheless, I maintain that without the somewhat-less-than-perfect self-replicating mechanisms which we associate with "life" there can be no natural selection nor evolution.

Therefore evolution cannot have been responsible for the transition between non-self-replicating (ie non-living) and self-replicating (ie living). If you have arguments to the contrary, now's the time to state them.

I did not mean to imply, by using the word "development," that I thought evolution had a goal or was directed. If you prefer the word "change" to development then that's fine with me; I shall try and avoid the word "develop" in this discussion from now on (except in the next sentence). I do think, though, that to deny the word "development" to describe the change from undifferentiated monocellular barely-organism to the beauty & complexity of life as we know it now is perverse.

"You're trying to put a very ugly layer of gilding on a very beautiful lily." You are mistaken, inferring slights I did not imply.