You don't need to have a PhD in aerodynamics to know that planes can fly. Same with evolution.

You want a simplified explanation: Given trillions of stars in the universe with many planets each and billions of years (deep time) of chain reactions of cause and effect, everything that can possible happen, will eventually happen. Everything is a chain of cause and effect events. This causes variety and diversity. Eventually, the right conditions will cause molecules to form proteins and eventually, with generations of mutations, DNA.

Everyone makes that jump from zero to full on complex. But it's really a staggering amount of time and "the drunkards walk" evolution isn't smart, it just has a lot of time and a shitload of material to work with.

Evolution is really quite simple. Just read Darwin's "Origin of Species". It's really an easy read and explains it well.

Also, keep in mind that Evolution does not address the question of where life originally came from, just how it changes over time.

You have clearly thought about this a great deal and that is commendable. I think the key is evolutionary biology is time...time beyond our ability to imagine. Millions and millions of years.
However, we see evolution in real terms every day. Sit a group of 20 years olds in front of a 30 page academic paper and they have no idea how to get through it. Bullet point the same paper on PPt or better still condense into a 'twitter' sized paragraph and they've got it.
Time and miniscule changes through each generation (even cellular and molecular generations) gives us what we have today. We know it wasn't a god or intelligent design because of the errors. We would not accept the amount of flaws if the human body was a car. We are an evolutionary work in progess. The majority of adults 40+ have some problems with eyesight. Backs are notoriously dodgy. The upright thing was never meant to be permanent.
If you see evolution as a straight line from A-B. From the primodial soup to you, then with respect, you will get in a muddle.
Teaching anatomy and physiology reminds me daily how complex the human body is but also how flawed it is.
Let me put it this way. I sew, I buy bits of fabric, needles, pins, zips, etc etc..then I make a pattern. Its invariably wrong. I remake it. Then I cut out...might make a mistake, back to the drawing board, lots in the bin. Then I make something up. First fitting, lots of alterations. Back to my sewing table...more alterations. Finally I create something wearable. Except, I am never quite sure. Will it hold up...will the fabric take the first wash, etc etc...
Given time the process of creating the flawed muddled disasterous life we have is possible and certainly not requiring divine intervention. If it was, I want my money back!

For me the concept is not that difficult to comprehend. It seems to be the mathematics of chaos and probability working together. It is really not a question of how could it happen but given the conditions and a significant number of attempts - it had to happen and it could come out no other way. Had the conditions been different in any step along the way the results would not be as they are today.

IMO your lack of understanding is totally rational. My college training in biology is limited to a single class in botany where evolution was presented as a cut and dried, fully understood theory, not subject to further arguments. The DNA molecule had recently been discovered and biologists were brimming with confidence. It was all a simple matter of random mutations in the DNA strands followed by natural selection. I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

About fifteen years ago I read “What Darwin Got Wrong”, a book which challenges that simplistic view of evolution, and which is backed by hard evidence. Since then the topic of epigenetics has crept out of the closet and is occasionally brought out from under the rug, even in polite company.

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IMO life is a profound mystery and anyone who claims to fully understand it is blowing smoke. The idea of intelligent design is certainly a possibility and should not be rejected out of hand. Breeders direct the course of evolution all the time. Isn’t that intelligent design? The concept of Universal Consciousness, entertained by various physicists, fits the intelligent design idea well. Those physicists were not talking about some magical, supernatural thing, but a real part of nature not yet understood by humans.

Not only is evolution a confusing mystery. All of reality is an overwhelming mystery, a miracle of the first order. The only rational response that I can see is one of deep awe, appreciation and reverence.

Try to wrap your head around this: the Theory of Evolution has nothing ( nada, zero, empty set) to do with the origin of life. You claim you have studied evolution for 5-6 year and you still don't know this?

Now you have to prove that you are not a troll.

Just what aspect of life appears designed that could not have evolved, as every bit of biochemical data confirms?

What is bizarre is how Christians (et al) always make the argument by incredulity, but never apply even a fraction of the same skepticism toward their idiotic dogma. Dogma which is readily disproved by science, and just as quickly trashed by basic philosophical inquiry.

You say you understand the concept of deep time but like everyone else in the world the sheer size of the numbers are incomprehensible to our brains. There's no reason for us to be able to distinguish between 10,000 and 10,000,000,000 on a practical level. - so we really have issues comprehending the sheer size difference between numbers we can visualize and those we can't. I think that's where you're running into issues.

Add in the rapidity that chemical reactions can happen with and the sheer scale of those reactions on the surface of a planet (combined with different levels of energy input) and you get an unimaginably high number of "dice rolls" to find a system that actually works. Quintillions, since that's the highest number I can think of ATM, but even higher in reality.

Fairly complex organic molecules have been found in space and appear to form relatively easily, so the basic blocks are there. It's not actually starting from scratch, so there's that.

Hope this helps.

I would suggest you step back from the deeper biological sciences for a bit. They tend to get very detailed into how small microcosms of biology work. You could learn them all and still not have a satisfactory answer. I would suggest you start taking a look into physics and cosmology. Not so much the math in them but the theoretical concepts. I suggest this because as you learn to understand them you will be able to start to draw parallels into biology. At least I did. It might assuage your frustration of not being able to completely wrap your head around evolution as well. For one thing you must get comfortable with as a physicist is knowing that what you know is such a finite amount of knowledge compared with the amount of knowledge to be learned.

Science is an infinte puzzle. Sometimes we can get a good idea of parts of the picture even when we haven't pulled the right pieces out of the pile yet.

As a few others have pointed out, you are moving from evolution to abiogenesis. A decent starting point would probably be the Miller-Urey experiment and following the trail from there. Of course, the next step you will probably run into after you feel comfortable enough with abiogenesis (ok, you probably won't as we are still hashing out this area) is "how did we get molecules," followed by "how did we get atoms," and "how did we get anything," and probably even "what are virtual particles and why does that matter (pun intended)." While these things are often treated as separate fields, they all run into each other. We keep them in silos on the same farm so we don't become overwhelmed by the pure mass of knowledge they cover. It's like eating a whale, you have to do it bite by bite. I know, not what you are after, but wanted to prepare you for the road ahead.
To be quick, you might want to try the book: "Abiogenesis: How Life Began. The Origins and Search for Life" It covers a lot of ground in small bites to whet your appetite.

You might find these of interest and they may provide impetus for further study. Forgive the simplistic nature of the first two, but what is said there is important to understanding of mRNA structuring.

Abiogenesis is not evolution. Your problem is with the beginnings of life and not the mechanism of speciation through natural selection.

There is a great book called "Biology" by Miller and Levine.
it's one of the best up to date on that subject.
Kennith R Miller is a renowned professor of Biology at Brown University.
Miller is also one of the main people at the Dover trials, where his testimony was key in showing irreducible complexity to be a load of BS, and just another word used by creationists to try and say intelligent design is an actual alt to modern Science.

With a bit of irony, Miller is also a Roman Catholic. But he really knows his stuff about cellular biology and Evolution.

It seems to me that your problem is in understanding the origin of life rather than the evolution. Religious organizations have claimed divine origin followed by biological evolution. Origin of life on earth is not scientifically settled.

There's a big difference in accepting the conclusions or teachings of science, and the type of blind, willfully unquestioning faith of religion. There are actually good, logical reasons to trust scientists, and you don't have to rely on absurdities to do so.

Of course, anyone is better off learning more about evolution or any other theory, and you are more knowledgeable if you do so. I don't mean we shouldn't try to do that as best we can. But I'm just saying that your "faith" in science is grounded in reason.

Science does not discount the theory that the first dna (or precursor to dna) came from a meteorite from space (or some other external force) .. there is just no proof of it.

Not impossible just very complex and explainable the kind and educated people here will gladly help it's why I love this place

This is the god of the gaps reasoning. If you do not know what this means look it up .

So the most basic step is the most important (I have to leave out the details because some I don't know myself and some are unknown at the moment). At first you have some "random" molecules some of which are stable some of which not that form in the right circumstances. Nothing special so far. Now as more complex molecules form there is a certain probability that one of those is a molecule that reproduces itself with other atoms/molecules from that environment. The probability might be very tiny but with enough time such a molecule is going to form. And when that takes place it "infests" the environment like a virus forming multiple copies of itself. Through "random" mutations some of those copies change for the better (changes that make it survive easier), some changes don't have a great effect and some are bad changes (makes the "survival" of those molecules less likely).
This is basically the start. From that on the molecules just become more complex until we reach cells, organisms, animals and so on where the same process is repeated again and again only on a much bigger scale.
I think the mistake you make is that you discount how probabilities and time interact with each other. I would inform myself on some of the following topics. The mathematical basis of probability: things like the Galton board (which is a good example how certain environments favor a certain outcome), John Conway's game of life and maybe read Satan Cantor and Infinity by Raymond Smullyan. Also worth checking out is entropy. How it works relating to probabilities of certain particle states.
What is also important to consider is that the exact details might never be known. We know THAT life formed and we want to know why. But this might be a question that is out of reach for us. We don't know yet. The best we might hope to get one day is a simulation that gives us a plausible scenario even though the rough principles behind the process are understood.

I don't think you are looking for the impossible, you are simply not willing to accept the science. Hey, if you can't accept the science, just go with god did it. I don't see any other choice.

First you have to realize what vast eons of time are available for the processes to go from raw (Big Bang produced) materials to arrive at complex life forms. Then you need to realize what looks like one big complex change is actually a simple series of individual steps that are controlled by what is inside each atom as soon as it is formed. I am talking about the affinities between different atoms. Affinities are a measure of attraction or ' liking ' between two atoms. The measure is a result of interactions involving electrons within the atom. Oxygen atoms for example have probably the greatest attraction of any element for any other element, neon argon and a few others are not attracted to any other element's atoms. Carbon likes to form chains and rings more than any other atom and forms the basis of life partly for this reason.

Once these attractions are in place then small chemical reactions between a ' soup ' of atoms until gradually significant molecules which will eventually join with others are formed and produce life . It does not need a designer or ' master-plan ' It just happens - driven by the energy in the electron interactions when other atoms come close. It all takes time and patience to understand.

There's a video on YouTube titled "There Was No First Human" by "It's Ok To Be Smart". It's a PBS channel and the video explains how there was never a first human. The information in the video can be applied to all species.. and I personally believe it can be applied to all the steps of abiogenesis as well.

I never believed in the idea of the "first" cell that all life came from, nor do I believe there was a "first" complex molecule.

The way I envision life appearing is, as we all know, natural processes leading to the building blocks of life. We are pretty sure than certain building blocks (BB) could have only formed in space and brought to Earth through comets. BBs also formed on Earth through vents at the bottom of the ocean, lightning strikes on the surface of the ocean.. and plenty other processes that I didn't list nor am educated on.

Anyway, these processes churn out countless copies of their respective BBs.. which are then brought together through other processes. As they bump into one another, there are only a few select ways they naturally form a stable connection. There might be 1,000s of unstable connections that don't last to every 1 stable connection. As time goes on and countless unstable connections fail, the stable connections start to form chains and molecules. The molecules are still vulnerable, but when they bump into something like a lipid, they gain a lil extra protection and are more fit for survival.

Over time, any changes that make them more fit for survival give them a lasting leg up on the rest. Qualities like the ability to rob other molecules of necessary BBs, better protection from the elements, and so on.

Eventually, these changes lead to single cellular life forming.. but they likely don't have the ability to divide yet. That too is a trait that needs to evolve. It's likely these single cells (more akin to an organelle in a multicellular lifeforn) just consumed and eventually broke down from growing too big without the ability to divide. Once the ability to divide evolved, they were more fit and survived.

This process most likely happened numerous times, giving rise to more than one single cellular species. With at least two different types, one (or both) would evolve to consume the other.

Once again, over a period of time and countless changes and mutations, one of the consumers would evolve to not break down the consumee.. but rather form a relationship where they support one another. This would be the beginning stage of multicellular life. Of course it wasn't instant, both species would have to coevolve to where their biological and reproductive processes lined up over several generations.

After that, the bulk of what you know about evolution would take over.. leading us to where we are today.

Bravo for digging in to the science. I envy the understanding you've amassed.

As you know, the tricky words in "the incredible coordination needed at the cellular and molecular levels almost seem like they had to have been purposefully designed" are "seem" and "had to have been." If we reverse-engineer any event, the coordination needed to bring it to pass will look purposefully designed. Thing is, we usually only do that with big things. How about something mundane? Suppose you're in a strange place and in desperate need of a bathroom, and you find one in the nick of time. Now consider the incredible coordination that led to that bathroom's being at exactly the time and place you needed it. If someone had built a gazebo instead of a bathroom, if the colonies had lost the war, if an earthquake had swallowed it a week earlier, if no one had invented the toilet, if you'd twisted your ankle and couldn't walk the last 20 feet to get there ... Just look at all of the things had to come together to help you out in your time of need.

I believe in time humankind will solve the how-did-life-start puzzle. Until then, people like you and me have to live with "don’t know—yet." I"m with you in that it's frustrating not to know. But, as you've indicated, to leap from "don’t know" to "ergo God" is irresponsible. Better to live with the frustration of "I don't know yet." I just hope we're both still around when humankind finally figures it out. I bet we sooner or later will. If we don't blow up the world first.

Thank you for so eloquently pointing out the difficulty in understanding evolution. If an intelligent nonbeliever, such as yourself can have trouble with the concept, can you imagine the difficulty the average person with a religious influence would have. I suspect evolution is a major obstacle for believers just because it can be too difficult to understand, and seems kinda crazy. I have a degree in biology and would not attempt to explain it, at least not on the level you are looking for.