Scientists create synthetic life.

[bozo]

" My concern now as an atheist is that a crazed evangelist may use the technology to create God ".

" Religious groups claim Craig Veenter is playing God. Should they not be claiming that God is playing with Venter? "

Letters in today's Guardian newspaper.

[Violet]

Of course, religious leaders are now claiming he is just playing God, despite the fact that these organisms could be created to provide a range of functionality beneficial to huminty, including creating biofuels and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Or could be created to provide a range of functionality harmful to humanity...

If all 'God' does is create life... then women have been 'God' since they were asexual self replicating beings... no 'playing' about it.

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Is there a link to an actual peer reviewed paper on this?

I'm more wondering why this is news, actually... doesn't 'news' imply 'new'? :S

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The difference is between "life" and "synthetic life", which I made sure to include in the title. They manufactured the DNA themselves, as stated, using a chemical synthesizer. They even went as far as to code English words into it...

Of course... synthetic life remains life. The 'purpose' and 'origin' change not the components of the machine.

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And before the xtians start going on about "playing god".

They wouldn't imagine it to be so if they are intelligent... I mean: what is 'God' if we can play him?

Just remember,"playing god" is what humans do best.

I'll go into theist mode... and question precisely how firstly: humans do it at all... and secondly: humans do it better than anything else.

After all, whenever god(in his infinite mercy) gives a child cancer etc

and science then cures it we have played gods game.

Cancer will cause death... what is a mortality's purpose if not to die? Curing cancer implies scientific progress... what is life's purpose if not to progress?

And played it much better since we have beaten him at it.

We've beaten him at what now? :S A game?



The only way to beat him is if he wants to be beaten... but then: have you really beaten him at all?

[Loki_999]

.... and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

That would be incredibly stupid....

However critics, including some religious groups, condemned the work, with one organisation warning that artificial organisms could escape into the wild and cause environmental havoc

Sure it could escape, but it is still DNA based. It would then just fall into natural competition with existing living things. This is very normal. The scary thing would be if they created a new neucleonic acid (or even something more different) that was used for the basis of life. Common wisdom suggests that as DNA is already established then any non-DNA based life would have an almost impossible time supplanting it..... but maybe it could, or maybe it could happily coexist competing for resources. Certainly an interesting possibility.

or be turned into biological weapons.

Of course! Does that mean we shouldn't continue research? We use fire, sticks, nuclear energy, etc as weapons... but they can also be used for the good of life as well. Let's all go back and live in caves.... although I think some of the more extreme types would be happy with this.

Others said Venter was playing God.

Why not? God apparently played at being human (ie: Jesus). Why should he have all the fun? Really though, its a natural scientific experiment. May as well say that generating electricity is playing God as well... after all, doesn't God cause lightning?

Bah!

[Paul the Human]

The Science Channel has a special about this coming up on June 3rd. I can't wait to see it!

Science Channel Documented the Five-Year Pursuit to Produce Life Synthetically for Creating Synthetic Life, premiering Thursday, June 3, 2010, at 8PM ET.

Press Release

[rjh4 is back]

Quite an interesting thread.

I'm not sure, though, why everyone thinks this is so astounding. Gene therapy and gene manipulation in bacteria has been going on for years. So has replacing the genome of a cell with another (I believe that is how they cloned the sheep). Relative to creating the genome from scratch, I would bet that this is quite misleading. While they may have synthesized all the DNA that went into the genome, I bet they did not make up all the genetic code (the series of nucleotides). In other words, the new cell requires proteins to sustain life and reproduce. Those proteins are synthesized by the cell via the DNA. Did they use sequences of DNA that are already known to produce those proteins and just reproduce large segments of DNA that they already knew would sustain life and reproduce (and add their own codes to this) or did they make up an entirely new DNA sequence that encodes new proteins that contsitute a new way of sustaining life and reproducing? I would bet on the former, which to me is not all that different from what has already been done. It is different...but not much.

It seems to me that using Adrian's definition of "synthetic life" that this has been done for the past 25+ years via genetic engineering, gene therapy, and cloning.

Lastly, I see nothing in any of this that would/should have any impact on whether or not one believes in God or even what one would belive about God (unless the person was oblivious about what has been done previously with genetic engineering, gene therapy, and cloning).

[Loki_999]

hey i can't find the link of creating new thread.. :p its been a while since i opened this site..

This is awesome! The implications are... astounding! There sure have been some serious scientific discoveries/advancements lately. I love it.

Not on topic but i found these two posts following each other made funny reading.

[Minimalist]

This is turning out to be a bad day for creationist shitheads.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...101957.htm

For scientists attempting to understand how the building blocks of RNA originated on Earth, guanine -- the G in the four-letter code of life -- has proven to be a particular challenge. While the other three bases of RNA -- adenine (A), cytosine © and uracil (U) -- could be created by heating a simple precursor compound in the presence of certain naturally occurring catalysts, guanine had not been observed as a product of the same reactions.

By adding ultraviolet light to a model prebiotic reaction, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Roma, "La Sapienza," have discovered a route by which the missing guanine could have been formed. They also found that the RNA bases may have been easier to form than previously thought -- suggesting that starting life on Earth might not have been so difficult after all.

Then again....when you believe in talking snakes every day is kind of like this.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y108/rs...829128.gif

NSFW!

[rjh4 is back]

This is turning out to be a bad day for creationist ****.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...101957.htm

Oh...I missed that one, Min. That article provided all the evidence needed to prove all creationists wrong. I repent. I repent.

(I hope you didn't miss the sarcasm, Min.)

[Minimalist]

This is turning out to be a bad day for creationist ****.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...101957.htm

Oh...I missed that one, Min. That article provided all the evidence needed to prove all creationists wrong. I repent. I repent.

(I hope you didn't miss the sarcasm, Min.)

It wasn't about you rjh. Just seemed like the logical place to put a new article about RNA.

[rjh4 is back]

It wasn't about you rjh. Just seemed like the logical place to put a new article about RNA.

I clearly misunderstood, then. Sorry. I guess it was your preface to the article's citation that threw me off.

(BTW...I agree that it was a logical place to put such an article.)