Replies

BipolarBob: "I’d say the biggest hole(s) to resolve are

(1) How did life first originate? (and don’t give me that primordial soup without some hard facts)"

Seriously, science doesn't know how life originated on earth, and so there are now about a dozen different hypotheses proposing one possibility or another.
None have been confirmed, and if any ever are, my guess is they will find some combination or sequence which turned complex but lifeless organic chemicals into very simple but recognizably living cells.
That is, assuming we never find evidence of life arriving on Earth from outer space.

"(2) How does evolution work to give us eyes and hands that work just where we need them?"

That question is simpler to answer, because natural selection weeds out any critters born with eyes and hands in the wrong place.
But on the larger question of how did we get eyes in the first place -- many examples of critters with very simple light detectors, others with crude "eyes" and still others with eyes only slightly less complex than our own.
Here is one graphical explanation:

"(3) How does the genetic material from a one-celled organism enlarge itself to EVER become an elephant/human?"

In fact, the DNA of every recognizably living thing on earth is amazingly similar, and that's one suggestion of common ancestry (or if you prefer: a single Creator).
And, just as we don't know how life first arose here, we also don't know how single celled organisms became not just multi-celled, but also developed organs to eat, breath and reproduce.
However, there are many clues in the fact that Earth still has many very simple multi-celled critters which could well be survivors from that most ancient of times.

That is, assuming we never find evidence of life arriving on Earth from outer space.

Which of course doesn't answer the question, it merely changes the location.

....my guess is they will find some combination or sequence which turned complex but lifeless organic chemicals into very simple but recognizably living cells. That is assuming we never find evidence of life arriving on Earth from outer space.

Your statement seems to be a series of faith statements. How does a chemical, or multiple organic chemicals organize into a cell. The proteins (hundreds of proteins in perfect amino acid sequence folded in conformational space) lipids ( in arrangement with both carbohydrates and/or protein) to perform not only a structural purpose or a functional (enzymes, hydrolytic enzymes, proteolytic enzymes, etc). How do you deduce those 'arrangements' without specific instructions. How do all of the enzymes show up concurrently with the structural proteins, the liposomes, the organelle semipermeable membranes? Your reference to extraterrestrial life infers ID, but seems to leave that notion hanging out there like a matzo ball. The complexity of the simplest cell is so complex that man has never yet been able to develop such a primordial cell.....and that is with intelligence applied, yet you seem to want to rely on blind luck, happenstance, and hope. But those first 'cells' were in a reduced atmosphere so that there was no oxygen available to drive those enzyme systems, muscle cells, cytocrome P450 system, and a myriad of others dependent upon O2. Yet O2 was not available to act to serve those systems.

Your schematic of the invagination of a select portion of ectoderm which invaginated, becomes sequesters and then takes on a completely different functional form ( light sensitivity, sight) with just the good luck to develop a lens. It then assumes the neurological changes in that 'to become a retina' just appears. Then the sentience of the brain (occipital lobe in mammals) to perceive the light and interpret the light seems to just appear. All of this is the old adage that "Ontology recapitulates phylogeny".....the old lie of Ernst Haeckel and fraudulent drawings of embryos. We know these are fraudulent, yet public school books still lie to young students to inculcate this nonsense. It is interesting to not that the mammalian eye allegedly developed and 'lo and behold' so did the nautilus and octopus. So they came up with a fancy phrase called 'convergent evolution' and stuff that down the throat of the uninformed..

>>In fact, the DNA of every recognizably living thing on earth is amazingly similar, and that’s one suggestion of common ancestry (or if you prefer: a single Creator).<<

Yes this is one of the premises of Intelligent design. Thanks for keeping an open mind.