dhw thought that: "even the most rabid of atheists would have to acknowledge that there is some kind of "life force" at work".-Certainly not! There is no evidence for any such "elan vital". This is a reversion to primitive "vitalism".-dhw has no complaint if "atheists believe it is a mixture of unconscious chance and the impersonal laws of Nature".-Such a process cannot be described as a "life force". To give it such a name implies surely that it is purposive towards the creation of life, or that it is somehow motivated and possesses some primitive form of life within itself.