This is a rather silly reflection, but nevertheless one I found quite fun to entertain. As I was making my famous home-made pizza dough, I took the yeast out of the refrigerator, as I've done dozens of times before, and sprinkled it over the warm water and sugar solution I had prepared. It suddenly struck me how amazing this yeast was, having been transported to this home from our previous two houses, covering a period of roughly four years! Yet it still becomes active under the conditions I prepare ahead of time. What does this mean? The yeast has been stored in its jar, completely inactive in the cold temperatures, as lifeless as the jar it was sitting in. I've heard of much more simple viruses reviving after being frozen in time for 30,000 years. The virus sat completely lifeless, frozen solid, a matrix of lipids and proteins until suddenly "animated" by being placed in the right conditions. Doesn't this start to blur the line between the organic and inorganic? This is precisely the problem some Creationists have with the earliest evolutionary accounts of life: how does life make the jump between inanimate molecules to animate organisms? What if part of the answer lies within my pizza dough? What if it's simply a matter of the proper conditions?
Now who wants a slice? :)
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