Posted on 06/17/2007 6:37:25 PM PDT by Flavius
Craig Venter says success is near, but critics blast efforts to patent synthetic organisms
First he succeeded in reading humanity's genetic code. Now gene pioneer J. Craig Venter believes he is within weeks or months of creating the world's first free-living artificial organism in his laboratory. It won't be much to look ata tiny bacterium with only a few hundred genes. But if it's truly feasible, he says, "it will be one of the bright milestones in human history, changing our conceptual view of life."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
either that, or a flood, maybe the microbes wont be able to swim
This is DAMN scary. There’s no telling what this could lead to. What if these artificial organisms have their own viruses that humans and other organic life have no defense against?
Perhaps the novel “Frankenstein” should have been required reading in the school systems. But Dr. Frankenstein has nothing on what is being done here.
” When we can synthesize life, it makes the notion of a living being less special.’
Discovering that the sun did not actually orbit the earth, displacing humans from the center of the universe, had the same effect. We became less special, in our eyes. Hopefully, species-level self-esteem won’t prevent us from creating life from scratch.
Convergence is near...will you be a PC or a Mac?
i think ive seen same cat twice
Brave New World ping
Everyone seems to overlook the fact that the term ‘artificial’ means:
“an imitation of something natural”
or...
“not genuine”
In other words, a FAKE!
If they construct a microbe, it would still take God to give it the spark of life, but what would be its purpose on earth other than to satisfy the vanity of a scientist?
Let me guess,most ot the “clones” are going to be IRS agents !!!
There are millions of such viruses, so this could take quite some time.
There are most likely critical components to intergalactic spaceships, time~machines, and a gazillion other gadgets and processes just floating around waiting for this to happen.
For the Creationists, it would be difficult to believe God didn't give us all the "seeds" for our "garden". For the Evolutionists, it would be difficult to believe that something Venter appears to be able to do after a couple of years work didn't also happen throughout the Cosmos in many places, and some of that "product" happen to travel to this sector of the Universe where we can scoop it up and work with it.
I get the feeling Venter is cackeling hideously, wringing his hands with glee, and anticipating getting ALL the money.
Atari
Well .. Jesus is coming sooner than expected.
God will never allow man to be the “genesis of life” - He already allows us to participate in bringing life into being .. but I cannot see it ever going any farther than that.
Or, simply something produced by other than the normal means but otherwise chemically equivalent or identical.
Why? Did you not know that God throws dice in the dark and in places where even He can’t see them?
If I was Mexican I would be getting nervous. Surely we could create are own "creatures" that would do the things Americans are unwilling to do.
If you read the next paragraph of the article, you'll see that it could have some very practical purposes:
It also could be lucrative. Venter's company, Synthetic Genomics Inc., has already filed controversial patents on synthetic bugs, which could make fuels such as ethanol or hydrogen. And on June 13 it announced a deal with energy giant BPPLC to find and modify naturally occurring microbes that can turn coal or oil below the earth's surface into cleaner fuel. Microorganisms "have the potential to provide all the transportation fuel we need in the U.S.," says Venter. "I joke that I'm going from the gene king to the oil king."
Well .. you can believe what you want .. but God has a purpose for everything.
And .. He doesn’t throw “dice” but HE DOES THROW ROCKS [and that’s from the Bible].
You know we already have a glimpse of just how much is hidden from us with the discovery of what is called "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy".
The measurable, observable universe of ordinary matter and energy is at most less than 5% of the whole.
So do you think God would be surprised or caught off guard by this?
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