In fact, divine explanations and naturalistic explanations are not exclusive, because God (if He exists) could create life through natural processes and laws of nature instead of through direct intervention. So we have a fallacy in the very introduction of the course, which shows its bias. We should talk of naturalistic explanations (which can be divine or not) vs non-naturalistic explanations (which can be only divine, that is, the direct intervention of God).
The problem for atheists is that their worldview does not accept non-naturalistic explanations, because this would mean that God exists. So they are not free to go where the evidence leads: they must insist that naturalistic explanations are true, whatever the evidence is. Since all naturalistic explanations have failed so far (no, not only in the details but completely, this is the second fallacy in the introduction of the course), this puts today’s atheists in a bad place. They have to insist that the future will reveal that naturalistic explanations are true.
This may be the case, of course. We cannot discard the possibility that some future research could reveal a successful naturalistic explanation (although I think this is unlikely). But this is a possibility and atheists treat it as a certainty. What is intellectually dishonest is to ASSUME that the future will prove that there is a successful naturalistic explanation. It’s like saying «the future will prove me right». But this is not an argument and everybody can say this in defense of any opinion in any area. «I know that dark matter EXISTS and future research will prove me right». «I know dark matter DOES NOT EXIST and future research will prove me right». You can defend any position saying «the future will prove me right». But we don’t know what the future will bring so you cannot base your opinion on possible future discoveries that may or may not happen.
The only rational position is to say that the current state of the research is that naturalistic explanations fail. You can remain agnostic about the origin of life if you want (this is my position, as a theist, I can go where the evidence leads so I don’t favor naturalistic or non-naturalistic explanations). But atheists cannot leave it like this and be agnostic about this area, waiting for new developments. They have to insist that naturalistic explanations must be true, whatever the evidence, because otherwise they would accept the possibility that God might exist. So they tie themselves into knots and use the most outrageous fallacies and distorsions only to get to the conclusion that they have assumed from the very first beginning. This is psychologically reassuring (nobody wants his basic assumptions to be uncertain) but it is not a rational assessment of the subject.