I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent. But the root question remains unanswered: What has caused complex systems to form?

In private many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life... Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life.

Biology has progressed tremendously due to the model that Darwin put forth. But the black boxes Darwin accepted are now being opened, and our view of the world is again being shaken.

The trap does not work until all the parts were there. The system itself doesn't work until you fit all of them together.

I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it.

Thus it seemed to Haeckel that such simple life could easily be produced from inanimate material.

In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.