[voletti]

Awesome piece. Must-read ping!

[Schweinhund]

Definitely useful. As humanity in its current form is incapable of reaching reasonable speed in interstellar travel, it is obvious that GOD sees humanity as an intermediate stage to some biomechanical droid life form.

[metmom]

No intelligent designer would have put the genomes of living organisms together in the way that evolution has. Some parts overlap, meaning that they cannot change jobs independently of one another. Others have lost their function but have not been removed, so they simply clutter things up. And there is no sense of organisation or hierarchy. That is because, unlike an engineer, evolution cannot go back to the drawing board, it can merely play with what already exists. we don't know everything about genetics yet and so can't make the determination of why things are the way they are.

In order to make these blanket statements, scientists would need to demonstrate that they indeed know all there is to know about all DNA and WHY it's the way it is. They're presuming they know more than an intelligent designer capable of creating an entire universe and the life in it. A bit presumptuous.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Barbara Streisand initial premise. Teosinte to corn is a fine counter example. Tagline...

[doc30]

It's inevitable. The more we learn about genetics, the mopre we learn how to manipulate them. It is only a mkatter of time until someone somewhere synthesizes an organism that has no natural analog. Hopefully, it won't be some apocalyptic plague.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

In the short run such engineering means assembling genes from different organisms to create new metabolic pathways or even new organisms.

Or assembling genes from scratch.

[freedumb2003]

Ping? (these days I don't know which are "good" threads ;)

[freedumb2003]

I don't understand the (Science Plays God) byline...

[VOA]

In the short run such engineering means assembling genes from different
organisms to create new metabolic pathways or even new organisms.

And many countries in Europe and around the world would ban even
beneficial alterations.

Because:
1. They don't understand the work
2. They don't want to pay for improved product they think they should get for free.

[theFIRMbss]

>As an engineer, he can recognise a kludge when he sees one. And life, in his opinion, is a kludge

Aren't Ford autos
designed by engineers? What
will those guys whip up

when they turn their skills
to cranking out new life forms?!
Yeah. They'll be good gods . . .

[edsheppa]

Dr Endy ... can recognise a kludge when he sees one. And life, in his opinion, is a kludge.

Indeed.

[Ichneumon]

Life 2.0 (Science plays God)

So... Why is recombining or tweaking genes considered "playing God" while planting corn isn't?

[AntiGuv]

FutureTechPing!

An emergent technologies list covering biomedical research, fusion power, nanotech, AI robotics, and other related fields. FReepmail to join or drop.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Human creatures will not be able to create life, nor should they attempt to do so. Life 2.0 displays an enormous amount of arrogance, moreso than even a 1.5 or something in the 1 range. Humanity could return to its state before the Flood (people lived past 900 years), but man was CREATED perfect.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Why is it that the Macroevolutionists seem to always try to get the last post on what end out becoming crevo threads?

[Truth-The Anti Spin]

I for one welcome our new bio-robot overlords.

[WardMClark]

Read-later-ping