CNN Gets 'Synthetic Life' Right in the Headlines

[Caecilian]

The first point that I'd like to make is that DNA does not equal life. DNA is, of course, an absolutely essential component of all living cells, but so are lots of other components- the ribosomes, the cytoskeleton, the cellular membrane, the network of enzymes that instantiates metabolism, and so on. Living systems are incredibly complex networks which operate in such a way as to conserve their identity from the general environment, maintain and repair themselves, and reproduce. They aren't in any way reducible to a particular chemical, however important that chemical may be.

What Venter and his team did was to manufacture a novel DNA system, and then insert it into an already functioning organism. It seems reasonable to say that in doing so they created a new species of bacterium. What they very clearly didn't do was create life- life was already there.

Heres an analogy. Suppose you design and manufacture a new type of car engine. You then remove the engine from a car, and put your engine in. What have you done? Not made a car, certainly, since all you've done is replaced one of the components, albeit a very important one. However, if you claimed that you hade made a new model of car, then I doubt if many people would argue with you.

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

@Tiberius

is someone else on your account? an ad hominem is not an insult. an ad hominem is a type of argument. My insult to your character was not an argument or a supporting part of my argument.

example of ad hominem
you should not believe that the earth revolves around the sun because Nicholas Copernicus was an infidel.

explanation: as you can see, the argument uses an irrelevant fact about Nicholas Copernicus to try to discredit his hypothesis that the earth revolves around the sun. I did not use any irrelevant derogatory facts about you to try to discredit your arguments.

example of a statement (insult)
Nicholas Copernicus is an infidel. so much for NIcholas copernicus being an infidel.

I said you 'almost' accused me of being creationist since you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would unreasonably defend. I didn't say that you accused me of being creationist. Again, be more charitable, less arrogant and maybe we'll get somewhere.

(his meaning being "creating something from nothing"). With this I agree with him; they did not create something from nothing. I also, however, pointed out that such creation is impossible, and so complaining about the wording is ridiculous in this situation.

When Venture said that he did not create a living organism from scratch, he meant that he did not create every part of the cell from scratch since they used the cell membrane, among other parts of an already existing living organism. The only part of the cell that was manufactured was the chromosome. I never said that 'created from scratch' meant 'something from nothing'. I clarified in an earlier post that 'created from scratch' in this case meant that no parts of this new cell were taken from an already existing cell. The only part of the cell that we can say was created from scratch is the Chromosome, as according to you, they assembled the chromosome base by base.

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The first point that I'd like to make is that DNA does not equal life. DNA is, of course, an absolutely essential component of all living cells, but so are lots of other components- the ribosomes, the cytoskeleton, the cellular membrane, the network of enzymes that instantiates metabolism, and so on. Living systems are incredibly complex networks which operate in such a way as to conserve their identity from the general environment, maintain and repair themselves, and reproduce. They aren't in any way reducible to a particular chemical, however important that chemical may be.

What Venter and his team did was to manufacture a novel DNA system, and then insert it into an already functioning organism. It seems reasonable to say that in doing so they created a new species of bacterium. What they very clearly didn't do was create life- life was already there.

Heres an analogy. Suppose you design and manufacture a new type of car engine. You then remove the engine from a car, and put your engine in. What have you done? Not made a car, certainly, since all you've done is replaced one of the components, albeit a very important one. However, if you claimed that you hade made a new model of car, then I doubt if many people would argue with you.

@Tiberius, emphasis added by me.

[Tiberius]

is someone else on your account?

No. Believe it or not, this is all me.

Please see the "other" thread (http://atheistforums.org/thread-3782-pos...l#pid72343) for my response to your ad hominem point.

I said you 'almost' accused me of being creationist since you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would unreasonably defend. I didn't say that you accused me of being creationist. Again, be more charitable, less arrogant and maybe we'll get somewhere.

Ok then, let me correct my previous statement:

2) I never 'almost' accused you of being a creationist.

Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I know when I've accused someone of being a creationist, or when I've "almost" done so. I did neither. I'll be more charitable when you stop with the constant whining and insulting me. If anyone is arrogant here, it is you. Here is a vital life lesson for you: people, even people you've previously respected, will not always agree with you. So instead of belittling them, or coming up with stupid accusations, try talking to them.

So far in the past few days you've seen that I've disagreed with you, and instead of accepting that as fact (like any reasonable person would), you've chosen to question my integrity or state of mind, asking "Are you drunk?", or appealing to emotion "Are you trying to pick a fight with me?".

Like I've said before; I'm perfectly willing to debate with anyone, but please adhere to common courtesy.

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

Please see the "other" thread (http://atheistforums.org/thread-3782-pos...l#pid72343) for my response to your ad hominem point.

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I said you 'almost' accused me of being creationist since you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would unreasonably defend. I didn't say that you accused me of being creationist. Again, be more charitable, less arrogant and maybe we'll get somewhere.

---

Ok then, let me correct my previous statement:
2) I never 'almost' accused you of being a creationist.

Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I know when I've accused someone of being a creationist, or when I've "almost" done so. I did neither. I'll be more charitable when you stop with the constant whining and insulting me. If anyone is arrogant here, it is you. Here is a vital life lesson for you: people, even people you've previously respected, will not always agree with you. So instead of belittling them, or coming up with stupid accusations, try talking to them.

So far in the past few days you've seen that I've disagreed with you, and instead of accepting that as fact (like any reasonable person would), you've chosen to question my integrity or state of mind, asking "Are you drunk?", or appealing to emotion "Are you trying to pick a fight with me?".

2) you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would defend: you almost accused me of being creationist. my remark on you 'almost' accusing me of being a creationist is a joke, i don't mean for you to respond to that part in seriousness but you did accuse me of defending a straw man of my position.

I was only questioning your state of mind because I expected better. My appeal to emotion was just a reminder to you of how I felt about you. My appeal to emotion wasn't part of the argument, just a side note to see if we could lighten up the mood since I felt that even after my first response to your thread 'Scientists Create Synthetic Life' you completely wrote everything I said as wrong with very little explanation even when we mostly agree (given your posts). Let me go over what you said to me after my first post on your thread:

i said http://atheistforums.org/thread-3742-pos...l#pid71515
summary: 'scientists created synthetic life' as a headline is vague and will confuse theists and atheists. if atheists go around saying 'scientists created life' assuming that 'synthetic' means artificially and is implicit when saying 'humans created x', atheists will eventually look stupid since synthetic does not describe that not all the parts of the cell were manufactured and creationists will use that fact and we simply need to be prepared.

you responded:

This had nothing to do with abiogenesis. What they did was start from a bunch of chemicals in the lab, and synthesize the genome from scratch. They even coded specific markers (they call them "watermarks") which contain encoded lists of the researchers names, and website urls

you didn't even entertain that 'scientists created life' would be misunderstood by atheists and theists. i'm not the only one that thinks 'created synthetic life' is ambiguous and that 'created a synthetic species' is more accurate. Caecilian even came up with a good analogy. I tried talking to you but you continued to treat me as if I was stupid instead of trying to find some common grounds:

i asked an innocent question: http://atheistforums.org/thread-3742-pos...l#pid71519
"Is that proof the pieces of DNA they 'bought' were created by artificial means?"

you respond:

No, but this is: "What they did was start from a bunch of chemicals in the lab, and synthesize the genome from scratch." Chemical synthesizers have existed for years...

You say 'chemical synthesizers existed for years...' as if I was ignorant of chemistry and had no place in this discussion; but the only reason I thought that they maybe bought pieces of DNA rather than assembled (a plausible proposition) the chromosome base by base or nucleotide by nucleotide was because in the BBC video posted on your thread there was a whole 1 minute discussion on how you can buy strands of DNA and how the company Venture works for bought DNA. I explained this and you continued to bash me rather than say "oh, well I can see where you got confused, but they did create the whole chromosome, connecting every single nucleotide in the genome according to page 5, paragraph 4 of the research paper by Venture's team.", you continued to refuse to find any common ground.

[Tiberius]

2) you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would defend: you almost accused me of being creationist. my remark on you 'almost' accusing me of being a creationist is a joke, i don't mean for you to respond to that part in seriousness but you did accuse me of defending a straw man of my position.

Again, I have never accused you of defending a position only a creationist would defend. I never almost accused you of being a creationist. I never accused you of defending a straw man of your position.

What I did do was create a hypothetical and offer an assertion based on your argument at the time. At no point did I say in that argument that my hypothetical was true at this point in time, or that you had argued this. That is why it is a hypothetical.

You accuse me of refusing to see common ground (which is untrue by the way) and yet here you are still accusing me of something I didn't do, despite the fact I have now explained what I meant multiple times. If there are any strawman arguments here, they come from you; you've taken a hypothetical and argued against it as if I accused you of actually being in support of it. All you had to do was object to my hypothetical and argue against my assertion, but you seem content at playing the victim and constantly appealing to emotion.

I was only questioning your state of mind because I expected better.

Really? It's odd, because you accused me of being drunk, and then once I told you to not post stupid comments, you told me that I was the one being stupid. All I did was express my opinion; who is really the one not trying to find common ground here, I ask you again.

You continually ask me to be "nice" and given you the "benefit of the doubt", but this isn't how debates work. If someone attacks your position, and you realise that they have a misunderstanding of your position, you correct them on it. I'll be "nice" in a debate when my opponent is nice to me; otherwise I'll be nasty like I have been in this one. If my opponent decides to make a snide comment about my state of mind rather than actually attack my argument, you'll be damned sure I'll be just as nasty back.

i said http://atheistforums.org/thread-3742-pos...l#pid71515
summary: 'scientists created synthetic life' as a headline is vague and will confuse theists and atheists. if atheists go around saying 'scientists created life' assuming that 'synthetic' means artificially and is implicit when saying 'humans created x', atheists will eventually look stupid since synthetic does not describe that not all the parts of the cell were manufactured and creationists will use that fact and we simply need to be prepared.

you responded:

This had nothing to do with abiogenesis. What they did was start from a bunch of chemicals in the lab, and synthesize the genome from scratch. They even coded specific markers (they call them "watermarks") which contain encoded lists of the researchers names, and website urls

you didn't even entertain that 'scientists created life' would be misunderstood by atheists and theists. i'm not the only one that thinks 'created synthetic life' is ambiguous and that 'created a synthetic species' is more accurate. Caecilian even came up with a good analogy. I tried talking to you but you continued to treat me as if I was stupid instead of trying to find some common grounds:

Firstly, your summary doesn't match the post you linked to. Nowhere in that post did you mention the headline as vague, nor did you mention that atheists will look stupid. The only piece of recognisable summary from your post is the part on "not all the parts of the cell were manufactured", but even this isn't accurate, since in your post you only talked about the individual DNA strands (which *were* all manufactured).

I responded mentioning abiogenesis because *you* mentioned the Miller-Urey experiments, which were to do with abiogenesis and had nothing to do with what these scientists had done. I didn't entertain that "scientists created life" would be misunderstood for two reasons:

1) You never mentioned it in your post (despite your "summary" above).
2) I made sure to put the word "synthetic" before the word "life" in my original post. They did not create life, they created synthetic life. As long as that word is there, I can't see how any confusion can come out of this.

You say 'chemical synthesizers existed for years...' as if I was ignorant of chemistry and had no place in this discussion; but the only reason I thought that they maybe bought pieces of DNA rather than assembled (a plausible proposition) the chromosome base by base or nucleotide by nucleotide was because in the BBC video posted on your thread there was a whole 1 minute discussion on how you can buy strands of DNA and how the company Venture works for bought DNA. I explained this and you continued to bash me rather than say "oh, well I can see where you got confused, but they did create the whole chromosome, connecting every single nucleotide in the genome according to page 5, paragraph 4 of the research paper by Venture's team.", you continued to refuse to find any common ground.

I said that chemical synthesizers had existed for years because when I told you they encoded specific information into the genome, you said you "knew that", but were still wondering how they got the DNA. You even said they "bought" it at some point, which is untrue because they made the entire genome themselves, hence me saying the stuff about the chemical synthesizers.

You seemed at the time either very ignorant of chemistry, or ignorant of what the scientists had done, which is why I clarified it for you.

I'm not sure which BBC video you watched, but the 12 minute one that I linked to explained how they made the genome from scratch. So no, I didn't see how you could have been confused. If, however, you'd watched a different video, then confusion can obviously occur. I don't see how your confusion is suddenly my fault though.

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

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2) you accused me of defending a position that only a creationist would defend: you almost accused me of being creationist. my remark on you 'almost' accusing me of being a creationist is a joke, i don't mean for you to respond to that part in seriousness but you did accuse me of defending a straw man of my position.

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Again, I have never accused you of defending a position only a creationist would defend. I never almost accused you of being a creationist. I never accused you of defending a straw man of your position.

you accused me of being willing to defend the position that if scientists don't create 'something from nothing' they aren't creating life from scratch and that is a position only a creationist would defend.

What I did do was create a hypothetical and offer an assertion based on your argument at the time. At no point did I say in that argument that my hypothetical was true at this point in time, or that you had argued this. That is why it is a hypothetical.

I know that it was hypothetical but it was still a straw man of my position that you framed as a position I would defend.

You accuse me of refusing to see common ground (which is untrue by the way) and yet here you are still accusing me of something I didn't do, despite the fact I have now explained what I meant multiple times. If there are any strawman arguments here, they come from you; you've taken a hypothetical and argued against it as if I accused you of actually being in support of it. All you had to do was object to my hypothetical and argue against my assertion, but you seem content at playing the victim and constantly appealing to emotion.

I did object and I did argue against your assertion.

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I was only questioning your state of mind because I expected better.

---

Really? It's odd, because you accused me of being drunk, and then once I told you to not post stupid comments, you told me that I was the one being stupid. All I did was express my opinion; who is really the one not trying to find common ground here, I ask you again.

I thought maybe you were drunk because my concerns on the first post of your blog were perfectly reasonable... i wasn't trying to insult you as you did me when you called my comments 'stupid'. sorry for thinking you might have been drunk. sheesh.

You continually ask me to be "nice" and given you the "benefit of the doubt", but this isn't how debates work. If someone attacks your position, and you realise that they have a misunderstanding of your position, you correct them on it. I'll be "nice" in a debate when my opponent is nice to me; otherwise I'll be nasty like I have been in this one. If my opponent decides to make a snide comment about my state of mind rather than actually attack my argument, you'll be damned sure I'll be just as nasty back.

you were the first to call my posts stupid on your thread and treat me stupid on this thread even when I've tried to clarify my position. I feel the same way, the more you treat me as if I'm stupid saying i fail to understand something or my comments are stupid the more I'll emphasize your stupidity.

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i said http://atheistforums.org/thread-3742-pos...l#pid71515
summary: 'scientists created synthetic life' as a headline is vague and will confuse theists and atheists. if atheists go around saying 'scientists created life' assuming that 'synthetic' means artificially and is implicit when saying 'humans created x', atheists will eventually look stupid since synthetic does not describe that not all the parts of the cell were manufactured and creationists will use that fact and we simply need to be prepared.

you responded:

This had nothing to do with abiogenesis. What they did was start from a bunch of chemicals in the lab, and synthesize the genome from scratch. They even coded specific markers (they call them "watermarks") which contain encoded lists of the researchers names, and website urls

you didn't even entertain that 'scientists created life' would be misunderstood by atheists and theists. i'm not the only one that thinks 'created synthetic life' is ambiguous and that 'created a synthetic species' is more accurate. Caecilian even came up with a good analogy. I tried talking to you but you continued to treat me as if I was stupid instead of trying to find some common grounds:

Firstly, your summary doesn't match the post you linked to. Nowhere in that post did you mention the headline as vague, nor did you mention that atheists will look stupid. The only piece of recognisable summary from your post is the part on "not all the parts of the cell were manufactured", but even this isn't accurate, since in your post you only talked about the individual DNA strands (which *were* all manufactured).

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I responded mentioning abiogenesis because *you* mentioned the Miller-Urey experiments, which were to do with abiogenesis and had nothing to do with what these scientists had done. I didn't entertain that "scientists created life" would be misunderstood for two reasons:

1) You never mentioned it in your post (despite your "summary" above).
2) I made sure to put the word "synthetic" before the word "life" in my original post. They did not create life, they created synthetic life. As long as that word is there, I can't see how any confusion can come out of this.

Caecilian came up with a good analogy to explain why 'synthetic life' is ambiguous. You don't think that Venture's research may aid in abiogenesis research?

You say 'chemical synthesizers existed for years...' as if I was ignorant of chemistry and had no place in this discussion; but the only reason I thought that they maybe bought pieces of DNA rather than assembled (a plausible proposition) the chromosome base by base or nucleotide by nucleotide was because in the BBC video posted on your thread there was a whole 1 minute discussion on how you can buy strands of DNA and how the company Venture works for bought DNA. I explained this and you continued to bash me rather than say "oh, well I can see where you got confused, but they did create the whole chromosome, connecting every single nucleotide in the genome according to page 5, paragraph 4 of the research paper by Venture's team.", you continued to refuse to find any common ground.

I said that chemical synthesizers had existed for years because when I told you they encoded specific information into the genome, you said you "knew that", but were still wondering how they got the DNA. You even said they "bought" it at some point, which is untrue because they made the entire genome themselves, hence me saying the stuff about the chemical synthesizers.

I'm not sure which BBC video you watched, but the 12 minute one that I linked to explained how they made the genome from scratch. So no, I didn't see how you could have been confused. If, however, you'd watched a different video, then confusion can obviously occur. I don't see how your confusion is suddenly my fault though.

My confusion isn't your fault. Whether or not they created the DNA 'from scratch' (base by base) isn't really an issue now. In an earlier post on your thread about this sub issue, I posted the link and time where they said that DNA was bought. I trust your 12 minute video of Venture's explanation is a much better source, so my question about whether or not they created the chromosome, molecule by molecule, is/was answered.

[Tiberius]

you accused me of being willing to defend the position that if scientists don't create 'something from nothing' they aren't creating life from scratch and that is a position only a creationist would defend.

I didn't accuse you of anything. I also highly doubt your assertion that only a creationist would defend such a position, but that's another story. As I said before, I didn't accuse you of being a creationist, nor did I create a strawman of your position.

I know that it was hypothetical but it was still a straw man of my position that you framed as a position I would defend.

Y'know you can't exactly have a hypothetical that is also a strawman right? A strawman is where you argue against a position not held by your opponent. A hypothetical is where you bring up a scenario that is not being discussed and build an assertion based on the interpretation of your opponent's current views.

There is a big difference between saying "If X, you say Y" and "If X, I bet you'd say Y". The first (if untrue) is an assertion that could lead to a strawman. The second is a hypothetical, where the ability of the person asserting to be wrong is acknowledged in the wording ("I bet").

I did object and I did argue against your assertion.

Whilst accusing me of commiting logical fallacies which I did not commit. Hence my charge that you seem content on playing the victim and appealing to emotion rather than actually concentrating on my points.

I thought maybe you were drunk because my concerns on the first post of your blog were perfectly reasonable... i wasn't trying to insult you as you did me when you called my comments 'stupid'. sorry for thinking you might have been drunk. sheesh.

I never said your comments weren't unreasonable. You misunderstood what they'd done; I don't have a problem with that. I explained what they'd done, and you went off on a tangent and asked if I was drunk. I took that as an insult, and called it a stupid comment, which I still believe it was. If you want to come across as clever in a debate, you don't go around asking if your opponent is drunk…it's a very stupid thing to do.

Anyway, I accept your apology; despite the obvious lack of sincerity given by the 'sheesh' at the end.

you were the first to call my posts stupid on your thread and treat me stupid on this thread even when I've tried to clarify my position. I feel the same way, the more you treat me as if I'm stupid saying i fail to understand something or my comments are stupid the more I'll emphasize your stupidity.

I called your post asking if I was drunk 'stupid' because you had the nerve to ask me if I was drunk. I haven't treated you as stupid in this thread; I've constantly criticised your understanding of what the team did, as well as your debate tactics. If you think that is the same as me treating you as stupid, then I don't know what to tell you, but I treat people who are stupid in a totally different way. There is no shame in not understanding something; it is not the same as being stupid.

Caecilian came up with a good analogy to explain why 'synthetic life' is ambiguous. You don't think that Venture's research may aid in abiogenesis research?

No, I don't think it may aid in abiogenesis research. They are completely different areas of research, as I said before. Venter created a DNA strand and inserted it into a cell. Abiogenesis doesn't even involve the creation of DNA, it involves creating the building blocks of life from non-living matter. There is no abiogenesis theory that deals with the creation of DNA life-forms, namely because we believe that RNA was far more likely to have developed. Even in Venter created an RNA strand, I don't think it would help towards abiogenesis research, because they used a chemical synthesizer, and designed the entire strand.

[Shinylight]

If you want to come across as clever in a debate, you don't go around asking if your opponent is drunk…it's a very stupid thing to do.

Unless you are debating Christopher Hitchens

[theophilus]

Whatever he calls it, it annoys the shit out of bible-thumpers. Therefore, it is all good.

Why should this annoy us? It only confirms our belief that the creation of life requires an intelligent creator and can't happen by chance. God made humans in his image. He is a creator and so we also have the power to create, although on a smaller scale.

[Paul the Human]

Whatever he calls it, it annoys the shit out of bible-thumpers. Therefore, it is all good.

Why should this annoy us? It only confirms our belief that the creation of life requires an intelligent creator and can't happen by chance. God made humans in his image. He is a creator and so we also have the power to create, although on a smaller scale.

There are plenty of 'bible-thumpers' that are not as willing to justify it that way. They would rather deny scientific advancements than accept the truth of them, even if they can justify it and make it fit what they already believe.

In reality, this feat has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with the potential for serious breakthroughs in things like medicine and environmental issues (and much, much more). However, it does not confirm that the formation of life cannot happen by chance. That it happened by chance is the most likely scenario. This synthetic lifeform has no bearing on, or relation to, that.