Scientists worldwide race to create artificial life

Houston Chronicle ^ | 8/20/07 | SETH BORENSTEIN

[laotzu]

Humans are quite ingeneous at finding new ways to piss God off.

[BipolarBob]

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

[BallyBill]

The same people that fear global warming probably think this is OK.

[msrngtp2002]

The last sentence is the kicker here - Not in our wildest imagination.

In MY wildest imagination I see these man made things getting free and creating widespread sickness, mutations to life forms that cause great hardship on mankind. Unlike nuclear weapons which once can see with the naked eye, microbes can be carried aloft and spread widely. They can’t be seen with the naked eye.

I don’t trust “scientists” who are actually entrepreneurs looking to patent the first artificial life form and make billions of dollars.

This reminds me of the groups who want to try to fire rockets that spread billions of little mirrors to control global warming - In MY wildest imagination I see that going horribly wrong as well.

This is truly scary!

[beckaz]

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Where have we heard this before? (computers, nanotech, biotech....)

[ClearCase_guy]

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

Life being created by highly Intelligent Designers. Who knew such a thing was possible?

[xcamel]

Alternate source:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1883668/posts

[Crazieman]

In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases — adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) — molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

[Greg F]

Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.
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Well if we don’t create monsters someone else will. At least they’ll be American monsters. Maybe the monsters will work for low wages.

[laotzu]

Apologies. I did not mean to steal your posts thunder.

[edcoil]

Aren’t we all suppose to be dead from global warming in 10 years?

[stillwaiting]

“Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe,” Bedau said. “This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role.”
Life being created by highly Intelligent Designers. Who knew such a thing was possible?

THIS IS OBVIOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE, WE ALL KNOW IT REQUIRES MILLIONS OF YEARS OF TIME, MUTATIONS AND NATURAL SELECTION AS THE ONLY WAY TO GET LIFE.....

SILLY WABBITS....

[popdonnelly]

Scary stuff.

[Lou L]

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life

Oh? Is that all?

That kind of reminds me of the old line on how to save a million dollars. First, get a million dollars.

The whole premise seems very arrogant of these scientists, and should they ever make something life-like, I'm not sure what purpose it would serve.

[Rummenigge]

... doing the jobs americans wouldn’t do :)

[Rummenigge]

If there was a god - wouldn’t he (or she) be quite pleased to have some guys around trying to follow his (or her)steps ?

[laotzu]

wouldn’t (God) be quite pleased to have some guys around trying to follow his (or her)steps?

Why would that please Him?

[MEGoody]

If there was a god - wouldn’t he (or she) be quite pleased to have some guys around trying to follow his (or her)steps ?

Historically speaking, man has taken every thing that he has discovered and twisted it into something bad. So just why do you think God would be pleased at this?

[pillut48]

I’m offended!! Everyone knows there’s no such thing as Intelligent Design!! [scoffs] It will take millions of years of evolution for these things to develop artificial life, everyone knows that! /libbie rant off

Seriously, though, this is bad. This is VERY bad. God is pretty patient, but I’m wondering how much longer He’s going to let this kind of thing go on!

[BlazingArizona]

Life being created by highly Intelligent Designers. Who knew such a thing was possible?

One of the best arguments for Darwinian biology is that natural selection can be caused to operate in the laboratory (microbial resistance). So if intelligent design can be reproduced by experiment, what does this prove?