Irreducible complexity is a somewhat compelling argument to me (a life-long atheist). I understand natural selection. I've taken graduate course in genomics w

Irreducible complexity is a somewhat compelling argument to me (a life-long atheist). I understand natural selection. I've taken graduate course in genomics with top grades. Still, the concept that random point changes to a several billion base pair sequence could produce advantageous new genes goes against everything I know about complexity and combinatorics. But I admit natural selection is still a far better explanation than anything else we have, so I continue to accept it grudgingly. I understand why scientists don't want to give religious leaders a foothold to sow doubt and push their nonsense, but I wish the scientific community was more open to criticisms of evolution that are presented rigorously. For example, a model of evolution where proteins first evolve in microorganisms before being integrated into larger organisms (for example through viral vectors) makes a lot more sense to me than SNP-driven natural selection.