Analyzing Intelligent Design {a structural construction of ID theory}

So far as the origin of life goes, as you point out Darwinism is based on heredity and so we need heredity before it applies.So, if the boundary between life and non-life is drawn such that there are predecessors to life that are capable of reproduction Darwinian theory can at least potentially explain that part of the "origin of life". But it can't explain what came before, which is probably more important. So we can only explain a small part of the "origin of life" through Darwinian theory and even that depends on choosing a definition of "life" which allows it.

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It just requires a variable heritable substance and a mechanism of selection. The heritable substance does not have to be living, so we have no need to stretch our definition of life.

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There are two problems here:Firstly if we define life as posession of a "variable heritable substance" - which is not unreasonable even if it is taken to include viruses or even prions then your assertion is trivially false.Secondly even if we adopt a more restrictive definition it still might not be the case that there was any pre-life with a variable heritable substance. Modern viruses, ofr instance, are not possible predecessors so a definition which excluded them would not necessarily help.But even then my ohter point stands. hemost difficult and most interesting part of the question of the origin of life is precisely those parts where Darwinian evolution is not applicable

You see, the thing is that generating complexity through evolution is relatively easy. So I see the main hurdle to abiogenesis as the the production of replicators capable of evolving.So - if I'm right - solving that issue is more important both from the point of view of figuring out how life got started and from the point of view of having implications both from a scientific perspective (how likelyy is it that there is life elsewhere in the universe) as well as the religious questions centering on the origin of life.

It's not just interest and if the creationists care enough about a result to invent excuses to deny evidence then that is an indication that it IS important to them, too.I genuinely beleive that this is the larger part of the scientific problem of how life began and that in itself makes it more important than the remainder.