I don’t think Rob was out to debate, he was out to get information as that’s how this got started according to Jon Perry.
The video of Rob at TCCSA (twin cities creation ) actually making his case was a stronger presentation, and even moreso the book which included the asphalt paradox which I wasn’t aware of till recently.
The press hypes up only one side of the OOL story, the “progress”, they don’t highlight the known regresses, and they are serious. Koonin would not be thinking of invoking multiple universes if the problems weren’t getting serious.
In anycase, I was commissioned to write a follow on book, tentatively titled Stairway to Understanding. I saw the Stairway to Life project developing and was a non-technical reviewer of the book. I was listed in the acknowledgements.
One of the major problems as Dr. Tan pointed out, though she doesn’t use the words, is the law of large numbers, which makes difficult the origin and uniformity of large numbers of isomers (nucleotides and amino acids) forming homo linked biopolymers. These are known problems too which were really borne out in Craig Ventners work, specifically the use of technology like the Blue Herron process.