[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

if you are trying to demonstrate that something can be produced abiotically, without intelligent intervention, you cannot do so by showing that intelligent, biological organisms can purposefully replicate it in a lab.

Of course you can! It sort of depends on your approach. If you're trying to synthesize RNA by patching together different strands, then you have a point. But if you manage to produce RNA by recreating plausible conditions from the time and seeing what results, then sure, you've shown that it can happen. It's just like any other lab model of events that take place without intelligent intervention, from weather to beach movement.

so far nobody has proposed a remotely sensible way that it might happen.

Depends on what you mean by "sensible," I guess. By my standards, there are at least a few sensible hypotheses. Here's an overview of some.

[Boogieman]

“But if you manage to produce RNA by recreating plausible conditions from the time and seeing what results, then sure, you’ve shown that it can happen.”

Is that the type of experiment that leads to the synthesis of RNA? I know they can synthesize RNA with human-managed reactions, but I haven’t seen that they can just supply some soup of amino acids and organic chemicals under the right conditions where the RNA will spontaneously form.

“Depends on what you mean by “sensible,” I guess. By my standards, there are at least a few sensible hypotheses.”

Well, they’ve got hypotheses, but yes I guess sensible is a personal judgement. Ultimately, we will have to see if any of their hypotheses ever make it to the next level, and that will be the final measure of the quality of the hypothesis.