CSflim

Ok, first off we must be careful to make sure that what is at stake here is not evolution, but materialism (or maybe non-interaction-by-god-ism). Even if someone we to come up with a devestating unrefutable proof that life's first ancestor arose due to a physical phenomena, it would not damage Darwinism in the slightest. (This argument is often put forward as a proof of Christian Creationism)

First of all, we can apply the apply the Anthropic Principle to the argument as it stands:
It claims that it is unlikely for life to arrisen on this planet by physical forces. But the point is, that if life had not arrisen, we would not be here to wonder about it.
It becomes much more probable that life would arise on a planet (as opposed to [b]this[/i] planet) when you consider all of the billions of stars in all of the billions of galaxies.

Second it assumes the primacy of DNA. It is certainly likely that DNA originated from simpler forms of chemistry (such as RNA which in turn perhaps originated from something even simpler?).

Third, and most fundamentally, it assumes that the first living thing was created by truly random forces. More than likely it bootstrapped itself up from non-life by evolution. Crystals, clay and other such replicators being the proto-life. (See Seven Clues to the Origin of Life by Graham Carins-Smith, The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene both by Richard Dawkins for more. Also Steps Towards Life by Manfred Eigen is supposed to be good, though I have not read it).
Theists often level the charge at atheists that science has no idea how life arose on earth. Ian Stewart remakes that this is false; "we have too many ideas".

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