[microgood]

The point being that these types of systems are actually capable of producing the necessary molecules found in living organisms and are energetic and active enough in the catalytic sense that it is a constant cauldron of molecular synthesis

Cool and interesting, but that sounds like primordial soup to me. And producing the necessary molecules found in living organisms is a far cry from producing a living organism. The complex structure I just cannot see bubbling out of some geothermal puddle. Look at the complexity of a single cell organism.

[tortoise]

Cool and interesting, but that sounds like primordial soup to me.

Yeah, it mostly is, but some of the assays and analyses of these things clearly show the prerequisites required, and that a lot of the catalytic bootstrapping that would need to happen actually is happening. Of course, a very simple single-celled organism emerging from this is highly improbable, but given billions of years, it at least seems plausible for these systems since they are constantly producing non-functional cell-like structures (sacks o' complex chemicals, really). As someone who was a theoretical chemist at one point in time, I would say that these systems exhibit all the potential required to accidentally produce a primitive organism, though whether it actually happened is up for grabs. It is a more thorough story than goop floating in the ocean anyway.