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"Your statements above amount to little more than shouting with fingers in ears."

Can anyone blame me?

With all due respect... you have given me lots of information, but I don't see any reasoning. Maybe it is I who don't know what you are trying to show. There is nothing in anything you have said that can tell me how life came from non-life, intelligence from non-intelligence, or consciousness from non-consciousness. What you perceive as repetitive shouting is my attempt to get back on point, because there is no use noodling around in the grimy details if one of us completely misses the broader supporting idea.

And the broad idea, by the way, is that by definition, a naturalistic approach to studying the universe can give you information about the 'what' and the 'how' of the way things are, but never the 'why,' and never the 'ought.' Of course, you are free to try and ascertain the 'why,'but if you do, you will always be stepping outside naturalism into a subjective discipline - religion, philosophy, fantasy, post-grunge indie rock, etc. If you can't agree on this fundamental distinction, then we probably don't have anything to talk about.

With all due respect... you have given me lots of information, but I don't see any reasoning.

First, let's focus in on the origin of human consciousness. I'll give a high-level summary of some of the evidence.

I. A Graduated Hierarchy of Intelligence in Modern Lifeforms

algae (some species move toward light)
jellyfish (neural net, a few reflexes)
lancelet (chordate organization)
shark (vertebrate organization with brain)
iguana
opossum
border collie
chimpanzee
Hillary Clinton
Winston Churchill

Now, the typical creationist trick is to say there are only two kinds of consciousness, the kind that can write Dante's Divine Comedy and everything else. Your dog may have soulful eyes and try all kinds of tricks to communicate, but it can't talk. Cheap trick. The graduated hierarchy of intelligence is out there and it points to a prosaic origin of our mental processes. Which brings up part II.

II. A Gradual, Evolutionary Appearance of Features Associated with Humanity

a. Structure
From here.
b. Function

First stone tools, then copper, then bronze, then iron, etc.
First existing caves, then wood shelters, then stone buildings, etc.
First drawings, then pictographs, then identifiable script, etc.
...

That is as high-level a dash as I can imagine. The topic is just too big to do justice to here. Against the accumulated weight of the last two centuries of science, you have only your unwillingness to see.

And the broad idea, by the way, is that by definition, a naturalistic approach to studying the universe can give you information about the 'what' and the 'how' of the way things are, but never the 'why,' and never the 'ought.'

Not really a criticism of science, but your article tries to make it one. Science is supposed to be about the "what" and "how." If all you want to talk about is "why" and "ought," you should be writing about ethics, or public policy, or whatever. If scientists sometimes lapse into the language of anthropomorphism, animism, intent, "ought," and other imprecisions, it's because most people don't understand partial differential equations in complex tensor variables.

Of course, you are free to try and ascertain the 'why,'but if you do, you will always be stepping outside naturalism into a subjective discipline - religion, philosophy, fantasy, post-grunge indie rock, etc.

You wrote the article, and you wrote it about science. I just responded, initially in post 11. I notice my initial reaction still stands, as far as I'm concerned.

If you can't agree on this fundamental distinction, then we probably don't have anything to talk about.

The one thing I notice is that you relentlessly employ fallacy, your favorite being the argument from semantics, no matter how often it is pointed out to you. It's obvious, brazen, a Johnny-One-Note performance. There's probably little more to say.