Depending on who you ask, scientists either have or have come mighty close to creating primitive forms of life in a laboratory. If nothing else, their work provides new insight into abiogenesis, the theories which describe and predict how life formed on this planet.*

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* And no, abiogenesis is not Darwinism or evolution. It's quite different. Which is a useful thing to know when you need to poke a rhetorical stick in a creatonists' eye. Not that I would ever do something so rude. My story, sticking to it.