Posted on 12/05/2008 4:33:09 AM PST by Soliton
Scientists have discovered a more efficient way of building a synthetic genome that could one day enable them to create artificial life, according to a study. The method is already being used to help develop next generation biofuels and biochemicals in the labs of controversial celebrity US scientist Craig Venter.
Venter has hailed artificial life forms as a potential remedy to illness and global warming, but the prospect is highly controversial and arouses heated debate over its potential ramifications and the ethics of engineering artificial life.
Artificially engineered life is one of the Holy Grails of science, but also stirs deep fears as foreseen in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel "Brave New World" in which natural human reproduction is eschewed in favor of babies grown in laboratories.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That's why it says they are getting closer
Do you mean clones, genetically engineered animals, or what?
... always love how when a scientist says he is going to create life he starts with God’s stuff. Really, start at the beginning with just words and thought to create matter.
If you’re going to worship yourself, prove yourself worthy!
Creating artificial life is in no way related to hatching humans out of artificial wombs like in “Brave New World”.
It would be a little fleck of replicating molecules in a test tube or petri dish, not a baby hatched out of machine, or a storm trooper clone or something.
Anyway, when and if they ever do create artificial life, it will just give testament to the grandeur of God's creation that all things were in place awaiting God's command for the oceans and the earth to bring forth life.
I don't worship myself. What a strange insult!
Amen brother! :0)
I don’t think they can call it “creating” life. You can place new genetic material in an already living cell, but I have yet to see a procedure where they start with non-living material and “create” a living organism.
Real life. Accept no substitutes.
No, right now it is just "designing" life. Amino acids can be created in laboratories though. They are learning the mechanisms to assemble them into DNA now. The next step will be to "bootstrap" a ribosome in a petri dish and then use it for the assembly process, then truely "created" life becomes possible.
The free market is a scary thing. Chicken wings sell for $1.79/ pound, whereas thighs sell for $.99/pound. I can imagine "chickens" with a dozen wings and no thighs. Yuck!
“I don’t worship myself. What a strange insult!”
Not aimed at you at all.
It was aimed at scientists and atheists (but, I repeat myself), who are playing the roll of God. Since I don’t know you, it wasn’t directed at you. If that description is accurate for you, consider yourself included.
In either case, it isn’t an insult, it’s a comment.
It is a straw man argument. You accuse someone of holding an opinion that they do not claim and then attack it. I see nothing about “worship” anywhere in the article. Religionists frequently see religion even when it’s not being discussed.
Soliton,
Sorry, I mentioned nothing about religion.
I posted in keeping with the topic of the
article you posted - creating life.
My point is simple: they claim to be creating
life (at least the article portrays the story
in that way). They are not creating it. They
are modifying life by using that which God
already created - His stuff.
If they were going to —> CREATE <—, they would
have to actually create and not crib God’s stuff.
Alas, they can’t do that, can they? Therefore,
they are not creators at all. Just men who think
they are creators.
Those who set themselves up as God aren’t.
They only think it in their own mind.
Sorry you are so troubled by my dissenting
opinion. Feel free to going back to “creating
some life”.
Just make your own stuff - or give credit to
the Creator when you stand on His shoulders.
so you weren’t referencing religion when you mentioned worship?
That was a joke.
“so you werent referencing religion when you mentioned worship?”
No
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