Given that the application here is molecular chemistry aimed at targeting human biology, one of the few problems equally complex as computer chips, I would say their analogy is far more appropriate than a hammer.
Creating a medicine such as the ones mentioned in the talk is FAR more simple than creating microchips - as a starter you don’t need a billion dollar worth clean room and equipment as they clearly demonstrate.
So yea human biology is as complex if not more complex I agree - creating medicine after a proven recipe is not.
You do not need “a billion dollar worth clean room and equipment” to make chips. You just need a garage and a bunch of old equipment. Even high school students can make microchips:
As your “creating medicine after a proven recipe” remark, that is not how things work. The way it usually works is that you study organic chemistry in college and then you work out a recipe yourself based on the chemical formula. You do not follow a recipe from someone else because recipes are often trade secrets. At least, that is what I took away from studying organic chemistry in college. Well, that and a remark by the professor that those making illicit drugs take that course before getting started.
This is an interesting comment, because before you mentioned it I did not even consider DIY chip fab was a possibility.
In the context of access to cheap mass production, it would of course be silly to use the DIY product of that professionally.
In the context of "having zero access" to the technology, then the hand-produced products can be better than nothing, especially if the "no access" alternative is heinous or deadly in its own right.
It's kind of a micro-scale version of the larger discussion, perhaps?
That specific sentence is making an analogy using handmade tools. A hammer is an ideal example of a tool. You would expect to find a hammer in a toolbox. A computer chip is not an ideal example of a tool. You would not expect to find a computer chip in a toolbox.
Laser level,
boroscope, camera stud-finder, thermal camera, laser tape measure, multimeter, battery management system on a lithum-something battery pack for power tools; those are all gonna have IC chips in them and it wouldn't be unreasonable to find them in a professional's toolbox.
So yea human biology is as complex if not more complex I agree - creating medicine after a proven recipe is not.