For even a small life form and even starting with some fairly advanced molecules, there are a very large number of combinations that will never be more than rotting goo for every combination that is viable.
You are missing the point that any form of life is not simply one astronomical trial that went right but an astronomical sized array of trials, for each of which the odds of any result being compatible with life is astronomically small.
Numbers mean something -- you can't just wave your hand over them and dismiss what they are telling you. Go on to the link at the end as well.
True enough. But you also can't just wave your hand over them and cry "Numbers!" if they're not the right numbers for the question you're asking.
Look at your monkeys example. That's predicated on the monkeys coming up with a particular sentence. How do the odds change if we only ask the monkeys to come up with any valid English sentence? And how about if, every time they produce an English word, we let them keep it?
Have you heard of Richard Dawkins's METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL experiment? He ran the same test as your monkeys, but instead of forcing them to start over each time, he let them keep any letters they typed that matched the target sentence. It took them only 43 iterations to type the sentence.
Now, this isn't a perfect analogy to evolution, as Dawkins admits. For one thing, there's still a target, which as I've been pointing out isn't the case with evolution. And saving every letter isn't realistic; in reality, some letters would change back and then be found again on the way to the final sentence. On the other hand, nobody's claiming anything very drastic happens in only 43 generations. But somewhere between that and your example's umptymillion generations example lies the truth.
You are missing the point that any form of life is not simply one astronomical trial that went right but an astronomical sized array of trials, for each of which the odds of any result being compatible with life is astronomically small.
I can still picture one of my undergraduate school biology professors talking about that. He liked cats, so all of his examples involved cats. He said that if you have 10,000 cats, and the test for viability is that they can jump over a 10 foot chasm--the 9,999 cats who fell into the chasm don't matter. Only the cat who successfully jumped matters.
It seems like you're overlooking the fact that once a successful viable combination has occurred, the process of making another viable combination doesn't then start from scratch. It starts from the viable combination that already exists. The earth is large enough, and contains enough raw material, that the odds against the formation of a self-replicating RNA molecule (which is thought to be the first life-like molecule) forming really aren't that high.