How long will it be before humans can create life from scratch in the lab?

[Loudmouth]

About as far away as becoming God. I doubt they will get past the point of creating enough proteins to make a cell, properly folded for use.

Having the technology capable of making proteins in vitro is not the problem. Getting the proteins to fold properly is the easy part. As you say, quantity is the problem.

Creating rNA or DNA from scratch is about as viable as a child creating a supercomputer with an erector set.

They have machines that make DNA. A 12 year old could probably run it.

http://www6.appliedbiosystems.com/press_releases/3900/

 

[Loudmouth]

Do they make up for the damage caused by radiation, pesticides, heavy metals, and every other poison science has released on the people?

Given the current size of the population, I would definitely say yes.

 

[SkyWriting]

And by that I don't mean synthesising a replacement set of DNA and placing it in a cell and noting that it continues to live (which has been done). I mean create something living from base chemicals.How far are we away from achieving this? BTW: My personal intention is to post this question, and stand back for at least a bit and let others discuss.

It can't be done in a sterile environment.
You don't have the needed resources.
Where would you find these parts?

 

[paul becke]

And by that I don't mean synthesising a replacement set of DNA and placing it in a cell and noting that it continues to live (which has been done). I mean create something living from base chemicals.

How far are we away from achieving this?

BTW: My personal intention is to post this question, and stand back for at least a bit and let others discuss.

They haven't even come near it. Nor will they. Even the design and construction of a single-cell E-Coli bacterium is like a vast, unbelievably sophisticated factory, far beyond current scientists' imagination. And that's not even the cell of the most primitive plant!

 

[Loudmouth]

They haven't even come near it. Nor will they. Even the design and construction of a single-cell E-Coli bacterium is like a vast, unbelievably sophisticated factory, far beyond current scientists' imagination. And that's not even the cell of the most primitive plant!

What part of the E. coli bacterium do you think they couldn't make?

 

[justlookinla]

We've had allegedly billions of years and a googolplex of lightening strikes and haven't found where life was spontaneously created by this method. Isn't it time we dropped such fables?

 

[Loudmouth]

We've had allegedly billions of years and a googolplex of lightening strikes and haven't found where life was spontaneously created by this method.

What methods were you using to detect life?

 

[justlookinla]

What methods were you using to detect life?

Just use whatever they used to detect life when speaking of abiogenesis.

 

[Loudmouth]

Just use whatever they used to detect life when speaking of abiogenesis.

They didn't use that, which is the whole point. First, you need to sterlize the water and rid it of all biologically produced RNAses. That wasn't done. Therefore, any life that could have appeared through these processes would have been chewed up by life that already exists.

 

[paul becke]

What part of the E. coli bacterium do you think they couldn't make?

Our nanotechnology is not competent. Period.

“The very notion that nanotechnology, the functional complexity of which is beyond the ability of modern science to create intentionally, came about mindlessly and accidentally is what is as unbelievably stupid as it is false. If atheistic science knew even one way to build technology from scratch that could also manufacture more instances of itself from available raw materials, then it might be able to begin explaining how such a technological feat could have occurred mindlessly and accidentally, because it would then at least have some idea of what would be required for something like that to take place. As it is, atheistic science insists that that which it has no idea how to make happen on purpose happened accidentally. The stupidity of that is something like jungle savages insisting, even though they didn’t have any idea how to manufacture one, that the laptop PC they found came about accidentally.
The functional complexity of life’s nanotechnology is light years beyond our own.”
Harry UD Blogger

Note the first sentence, Loudmouth.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

It can't be done in a sterile environment.
You don't have the needed resources.
Where would you find these parts?

These are all quite complicated organisms, being Eukaryotes. Yes, they would be very difficult to make but it would be much easier to make something simpler like a simple bacteria or archaea. It may also be possible to design something from scratch which lives, but is simpler than any known example of life.

I personally don't have the resources to make one, I would expect that this would be done by a world leading well funded laboratory in one of the world's major universities.

They haven't even come near it. Nor will they. Even the design and construction of a single-cell E-Coli bacterium is like a vast, unbelievably sophisticated factory, far beyond current scientists' imagination. And that's not even the cell of the most primitive plant!

Mycoplasma genitalium, with a genome of only 580,000 base pairs and 482 protein-coding genes is much simpler than E-Coli and nowhere near a 'vast unbelievably sophisticated factory'. It's clearly still a big job to make one, but how would its complexity compare to, say, a modern highly computerised fighter jet?

 

[Loudmouth]

Our nanotechnology is not competent. Period.

I was very specific.

What part of the E. coli bacterium are you saying that humans can't make? Can't you answer the question?

“The very notion that nanotechnology, the functional complexity of which is beyond the ability of modern science to create intentionally, came about mindlessly and accidentally is what is as unbelievably stupid as it is false. If atheistic science knew even one way to build technology from scratch that could also manufacture more instances of itself from available raw materials, then it might be able to begin explaining how such a technological feat could have occurred mindlessly and accidentally, because it would then at least have some idea of what would be required for something like that to take place. As it is, atheistic science insists that that which it has no idea how to make happen on purpose happened accidentally. The stupidity of that is something like jungle savages insisting, even though they didn’t have any idea how to manufacture one, that the laptop PC they found came about accidentally.
The functional complexity of life’s nanotechnology is light years beyond our own.”
Harry UD Blogger

Note the first sentence, Loudmouth.

What a load of bovine excrement. It's like saying that humans can't make helium from the fusion of hydrogen evidenced by the fact that they get helium from mines instead of from fusion reactors.

We can synthesize DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids . . . all that is needed for a living cell. The only reason we don't is that it is way easier and way cheaper to use biological reproduction to produce these materials.

 

[paul becke]

These are all quite complicated organisms, being Eukaryotes. Yes, they would be very difficult to make but it would be much easier to make something simpler like a simple bacteria or archaea. It may also be possible to design something from scratch which lives, but is simpler than any known example of life.

I personally don't have the resources to make one, I would expect that this would be done by a world leading well funded laboratory in one of the world's major universities.

But scientists admit they don't have the first clue as to the origin or nature of life, which is clearly immaterial, and hence falsifies the prevailing materialist paradigm in any case. Every conjecture has been falsified.

 

[paul becke]

I was very specific.

What part of the E. coli bacterium are you saying that humans can't make? Can't you answer the question?



What a load of bovine excrement. It's like saying that humans can't make helium from the fusion of hydrogen evidenced by the fact that they get helium from mines instead of from fusion reactors.

We can synthesize DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids . . . all that is needed for a living cell. The only reason we don't is that it is way easier and way cheaper to use biological reproduction to produce these materials.

'I was very specific.' You don't say. Well so was I. NONE of it. What is it you don't understand about nothing? Oh I remember, atheists think it contains vacuum foam! I'd change your username or stop trying to live down to it. But let's start with the shell of the bacterium.

 

[Loudmouth]

But scientists admit they don't have the first clue as to the origin or nature of life, which is clearly immaterial, and hence falsifies the prevailing materialist paradigm in any case. Every conjecture has been falsified.

They don't know about the nature of life? There is a whole field of study that knows a lot about the nature of life. It's called biology.

Second, not knowing how life began has nothing to do with our ability to manufacture life that already exists. The question in abiogenesis is what the first life looked like, not how could we synthesize the materials to produce that life.

Third, where did you demonstrate that the origin of life is non-material?

 

[Loudmouth]

'I was very specific.' You don't say. Well so was I. NONE of it.

Then you are flat out wrong. We can synthesize DNA in the lab

http://www.the-scientist.com/?artic...hesizers-Let-Small-Labs-Make-Their-Own-Genes/

 

[AnotherAtheist]

But scientists admit they don't have the first clue as to the origin or nature of life, which is clearly immaterial, and hence falsifies the prevailing materialist paradigm in any case. Every conjecture has been falsified.

Scientists don't know how life first originated on earth. This is a very different question from whether it can be created in a lab from scratch, which is not constrained by history, only by technology and possibility.

There is no evidence that the origin or nature of life is immaterial. Very simple organisms live, but there is nothing necessary to their well known chemical processes which requires the immaterial or non-physical. If you claim there is, can you describe what parts of the life cycle of a simple bacteria cannot be explained by chemistry and physics.

Also, there are plenty of clues as to how life may have started, so saying that scientists don't have the first clue is incorrect. E.g. see the work of Wolfenden and Carter on tRNA and amino acid properties at different temperatures including the higher temperatures thought to have existed on the early Earth. http://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html We have lots of other clues, the second clue, the third clue, and beyond.

 

[whois]

If atheistic science . . .

science is not atheist or theist in nature, it's agnostic.
there are some, dawkins for example, that would like for you to BELIEVE it's atheist though.

 

[SkyWriting]

These are all quite complicated organisms, being Eukaryotes. Yes, they would be very difficult to make but it would be much easier to make something simpler like a simple bacteria or archaea. It may also be possible to design something from scratch which lives, but is simpler than any known example of life.

That looks like a Mile or so of DNA to stitch together by hand.
And you can't use any automated processes, by the way.

Cell wall

 

[AnotherAtheist]

That looks like a Mile or so of DNA to stitch together by hand.
And you can't use any automated processes, by the way.

(picture snipped)

That, as a prokaryote, is simpler. But, there is even simpler life than that. I never said it would be an easy job, I was asking when people thought it would be possible.

Why would it not be possible or allowed to stitch together the DNA using automatic processes?