Stephen Meyer's "Signature in the Cell" Lecture

I first saw Stephen Meyer in the Ben Stein’s movie “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, but didn’t know who he was.  Then earlier this week I was listening to a debate on Intelligent Design between William Lane Craig and Francisco Ayala (boring…) and saw this link to a lecture by Stephen Meyer.  I will definitely be getting Stephen Meyer’s book, The Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.  I’m super impressed with the research that has been done in cellular biology and how it points to design. 

Now to be an atheist, you have to believe that the molecules necessary for life came together and formed a means to replicate without a pre-existing template (ie DNA), which through an undirected mechanism (ie natural selection, which is a process description not a mechanism), continued to gain complexity until a cell formed…and then eventually humans.  Is there any evidence to support the existence of self-replicating molecules?  For example: Scientists are able to replicate life using DNA, which provides the mechanism for the replication, but these processes are directed by a designer (ie the scientist).  How does this occur in nature without a designer or DNA?  What is the cause for the replication?  Why would this occur?  This is something I hope to study more.