Hmm, currently 13 pages. These issues are never easy, simple, cut. or dried. . . . and Neat they are most definitely not. At least this is in a tech forum and not a science blog. Those things can be totally brutal.
When you start really digging into an area of science the more messy and involved it gets. On the surface Macro Evolution (yes, I need to distinquish between the two) is the generally accepted scientific theory. Unlike the "Big Bang", or Reletivity though, when you really delve into it and origin of life papers you can tell it is at best incomplete or uncomprehensive, and at worst needs some reworking or could be moved in another direction. To those scientists who dedicate their efforts to investigating these questions, kudo's to them, but they definitely have a lot of work cut out ahead of them.
Current hurdles in the field include some of the following: (Warning, I am not a scientist, just a nerd with too many questions and too much time on his hands that does way too much reading, and All I ever learn is that I know less now than I thought I new before. I eat my humble pie. I ask for seconds too.)
The Cambrian Explosion. Over a very short period of geological time (5 to 15 million years according to scientific dating estimates and the fossil record.), almost all of our current species appear yet since then there really hasn't been much except extinctions.
Organisms with identical or exceptionaly similar morphologies but yet share no common genetic anscestry, This is called convergence, and explaining it is problematic for the current evolutionary theories.
Currently establishing the biological pathways for a primordial soup is elusive. Carbon monixide levels along with many other factors seem to make the creation of life in that way impossible. It seems the ingredients and conditions to create biological molecules at on stage would destroy or stop them from forming the next. This has led many researchers to head into the direction of what on the surface would appear to be farther out theories like panspermia.
Simultaneous emergance of divergent but yet symbiotic organisms. Right now Scientists are up to scenerios of 3 totally distinct unrelated organisms that could not survive at all if it weren't for each other.
And whats truly scary, is from an evolutionary standpoint, it is only small critters, with massive populations, and rabid gestation cycles and who have large numbers of offspring where the probable balance of beneficial to harmful mutations swings into the favor of beneficial.... Which is more than likely why beetles, rats, cockroaches, bacteria, and other vermin seem to survive everything and have been around the longest while large bodied advanced animals like dinosaurs, whales, and ... quite frighteningly to me... Humans... have a tendancy to go extinct. As a side note, radiation hardiness... which the aforementioned vermine have in spades, but we people seriously lack... Is also a concern. One Massive Super or HyperNova too close to us and BAM! I know, one's not supposed to happen probability speaking for another 500,000 years or so... but still, if thats all it would take to wipe the chalk board it changes your perspective on the power of the universe.
But I digress, what I'm really saying is that whereas some scientific theories are very strong, like the big bang, that defeats opposing models such as the constant state theory, and many others repeatedly, and Einstein's theory of reletivity, which is constantly tested and seen to predict the reality of measurements,and so show a high probability of roughly approximating reality. Others, though generally accepted because they do seem to best describe what we see from a naturalistic view, are in no means as polished and tested. I would not feel comfortable at all betting my life on macro evolution, I predict the end model, as research continues will diverge greatly from currently held theory, And in general, I know science is never done, but Origin of Life research has a long long long way to go.
Also a parting note, Current Big Bang Cosmology indicates that the Universe had a finite beginning, and if everyting continues on its current course, will continue expanding, thus cooling, and in more possible years than I can fathom burn out as matter will be too spread out to form starforming regions. It is however currently not predicted to go through a big crunch and start all over again... Thus it seems the universe began at a finite beginning from a transcendental event, and naturalistically unless something happens or intervenes, all current knowledge indicates a cold dead ending... no cyclic rebirths.
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