With microbiology in its infancy (by today’s standards), scientists of Darwin’s era didn’t know about the amazing complexities (including DNA--discovered 100 years later) of even a “simple” cell. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has famously commented that “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we have created.”
When evolutionary scientists of today attempt to make a case for life arising from non-life by random, natural causes (abiogenesis), they must also answer the question, “From where did this vast amount of complexity and information come?”