Evolution

There's a kind of interesting article article about RNA and the origins of life here. Interesting, that is, if you're interested in RNA/DNA and such.

They're looking for the right "soup" with which to accidentally brew life. Or more precisely, self-replicators. The same soup they were looking for when I was in school.

I can follow most of the article up until the last paragraph. Which sums up:

Right now, there's no way to choose between these options. No fossilised vestiges remain of the first replicators as far as we know. But we can try recreating the RNA world to demonstrate how it might have arisen. One day soon, Sutherland says, someone will fill a container with a mix of primordial chemicals, keep it under the right conditions, and watch life emerge. "That experiment will be done."

OK, so if you already know it will happen, why do the science? Used to be, you did the science in order to learn the results. Now we seem to know the results first, and do the science afterward.