True enough...but to figure out how the islands formed an efficient scientist wouldn't simulate a random process and wait until something looking like Hawaii popped up. We are able to use observations and logic to skip the random experiment and hone in on a conceptualization of the process.
Climate modelers have been relatively successful at generating plausible physically realistic outcomes given realistic inputs to a complex system.
To your knowledge has much progress be made in this way with regard to the generation of life from chemicals?
True enough...but to figure out how the islands formed an efficient scientist wouldn't simulate a random process and wait until something looking like Hawaii popped up.
True, and neither do abiogenesis researchers. They learn as much as they can about biochemical processes and then use that knowledge to gain insight into the earliest stages of the formation of life.
We are able to use observations and logic to skip the random experiment and hone in on a conceptualization of the process.
Exactly.
Climate modelers have been relatively successful at generating plausible physically realistic outcomes given realistic inputs to a complex system.
And so have biochemists.
To your knowledge has much progress be made in this way with regard to the generation of life from chemicals?
Yes, there has actually been an *explosion* of productive research in this field in the past ten years, and especially the past five years, as knowledge in several different relevant fields (information science, biochemistry, DNA sequencing, geophysics, phylogenetics, etc.) have reached the "take-off" point and come together with respect to being able to provide a real foundation for abiogenesis research. This is why the new Harvard research program on abiogenesis has been begun recently, whereas it would not have made sense even five years ago. The field has now reached the point where there are several promising lines of research which have a good chance of bearing fruit, and thus it makes sense to begin a coordinated project bringing together researchers in the relevant disciplines.
Multiple creationists have already tried to spin this new project as an act of "desperation", but they're just whistling past the graveyard. Science doesn't embark on such research projects unless it already has pretty good reasons to expect useful results. The fact that they're starting a full-scale research project indicates confidence, not nervousness.