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As for when (and if) we can create life from non-life, keep in mind that using a bunch of instruments and setting everything just right to prove that abiogenesis can occur naturally, without intelligent intervention is... kind of redundant.
If we have to intelligently measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun, does this mean that that distance was intelligently made? Nope. With respect to abiogenesis, even if the CONDITIONS were intelligently controlled, the resultant self replicators would be considered natural and not the product of intelligence. Another example, is ice intelligently created because you stick water in your freezer? Obviously not. If conditions and reactants set up by an intelligence is reasonably close to what we would expect in a natural early earth environment then the results can be considered indicative of what we would expect in nature. This type of rule is adhered to throughout science, and in the biological sciences especially.
An example of possible intelligently made self replicators would be a step by step synthesis. An analogous procedure is drug manufacturing where each step in the synthesis is controlled to such a degree that the chances of this compound naturally occurring in the quantities seen in synthetic manufacturing is quite low. It is the step by step procedure that is the problem. Equating this to self replicators, it would be like creating a 3 million base genome and controlling the sequence base by base. Non-intelligently produced self replicators must have a large dose of randomness, and this must be reflected in the methodology.
Argh, turned 30 last month and already I am getting long winded. I'll probably start repeating myself any minute now. And I'll probably start getting long winded too.