Emergence Explanation Fail

And God said, Let the water team with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.  Genesis 1.20  NIV

Here finally comes animal life on planet earth in our creation narrative.  Of course, the origin of life is a huge question in several fields of science.  Being an enthusiastic student at UI's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), I was excited this past semester to note a course called “The Emergence of Life.”  It was taught by the diversely focused, talented, and entertaining Bruce Fouke, professor in geology, microbiology and the Woese institute for Genomic Biology.

In the class I learned that the traditional view of the tree of life has expanded incredibly just over the last few decades.  Here is the updated diagram.  Inside the circle is what was known and taught when I was in high school.  So much more has come to light since then!  Our class was updated on this and shown examples of evolution.  In the entire eight weeks however, Dr. Fouke shed no light on the actual origin of life.  How could he?

Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, says this in his book The Language of God:  "How did self-replicating organisms arise . . . ?  It is fair to say that at the present time we simply do not know.  No current hypothesis comes close to explaining how in the space of a mere 150 million years, the prebiotic environment that existed on planet Earth gave rise to life."

Perhaps it's not fair to say the Emergence of Life class did not explain the emergence of life.  I suppose Dr. Fouke could say that he meant emergence of life from lower forms to higher forms rather than the emergence of life from inorganic matter.

PS  Thank you, Em, for the formatting help tonight!