An intelligent design, requires an intelligent designer, it should be obvious...?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That cutting and pasting extant genes wasn't really what I had in mind.

For that most recent organism, Venter didn't cut and paste, he synthesized the genes from scratch (they were copies of the bacterial genes):

"Venter, together with his close colleagues Clyde Hutchison and Hamilton Smith and their team, set out to build a minimal genome from scratch, by joining together chemically synthesized DNA segments."​

They're not certain of the function of about 1/3 of the synthetic genes that proved to be necessary, but once they've worked out what they all do, they will be able to create new organisms without using an existing bacterium as a guide.

​

 

[Radrook]

"Intelligent design" can't be replicated in a lab, either. So why postulate it as happening to begin with?

Why postulate than anything has an intelligent designer? After all-there is no way we can tell-right?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Others might suggest extra-dimensional beings using extra dimensional technology.
Or alternate universe beings using their technology to tamper with other universes.
Or aliens who prepared the Earth and seeded our earth with life as in the film 2001 Space Odyssey. So the conclusion of God isn't necessary from the ID viewpoint as you seem to insist.
All ID proposes is intelligent design.

Of course, all those suggestions just move the origin of life one stage further back. 'Extra-dimensional beings' (whatever that means), alternate universe beings, and aliens, all originated somehow, somewhere; so the 'abiogenesis vs God' dichotomy still persists.

 

[Armoured]

For that most recent organism, Venter didn't cut and paste, he synthesized the genes from scratch (they were copies of the bacterial genes):

"Venter, together with his close colleagues Clyde Hutchison and Hamilton Smith and their team, set out to build a minimal genome from scratch, by joining together chemically synthesized DNA segments."​

They're not certain of the function of about 1/3 of the synthetic genes that proved to be necessary, but once they've worked out what they all do, they will be able to create new organisms without using an existing bacterium as a guide.

​

But they were copies, nonetheless. When a scientist designs functional, coding genes that don't exist in nature and creates the complete genome of a viable organism with them, we're getting into deity territory. When a scientist creates many such organisms that can exist in a viable ecology, I'd be pretty comfortable using terms like "godlike".

 

[Armoured]

Why postulate than anything has an intelligent designer? After all-there is no way we can tell-right?

It's your theory, that's what you're supposed to be telling us.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

But they were copies, nonetheless. When a scientist designs functional, coding genes that don't exist in nature and creates the complete genome of a viable organism with them, we're getting into deity territory. When a scientist creates many such organisms that can exist in a viable ecology, I'd be pretty comfortable using terms like "godlike".

OK - although it does remind me of Arthur C. Clarke's comment that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic...

 

[durangodawood]

...Because it factually did. Once there was no life and then there was. So life DID originate one way or the other.

Feels right.
But are you sure?
What if life is an eternal component of an eternal universe?

 

[Armoured]

Feels right.
But are you sure?
What if life is an eternal component of an eternal universe?

Yeah, pipe down Professor Hoyle, the grown ups are talking.

 

[durangodawood]

But they were copies, nonetheless. When a scientist designs functional, coding genes that don't exist in nature and creates the complete genome of a viable organism with them, we're getting into deity territory. When a scientist creates many such organisms that can exist in a viable ecology, I'd be pretty comfortable using terms like "godlike".

I think we need another couple decades to have the slightest idea how difficult that will really be. The technology is just approaching infancy. Its practically newborn. Way too soon to tell what it will grow up to accomplish.

 

[Armoured]

I think we need another couple decades to have the slightest idea how difficult that will really be. The technology is just approaching infancy. Its practically newborn. Way too soon to tell what to will grow up to accomplish.

We'll see, I guess.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I think we need another couple decades to have the slightest idea how difficult that will really be. The technology is just approaching infancy. Its practically newborn. Way too soon to tell what it will grow up to accomplish.

I'd be surprised if it's actually attempted - why design the parts from scratch when you can use the abundant results of 3.5 billion years of evolution?

 

[Armoured]

I'd be surprised if it's actually attempted - why design the parts from scratch when you can use the abundant results of 3.5 billion years of evolution?

We're getting into science fiction speculation now, but theoretically, if you wanted a biological function that doesn't occur in nature, and don't have time to evolve it, maybe?

 

[durangodawood]

We're getting into science fiction speculation now, but theoretically, if you wanted a biological function that doesn't occur in nature, and don't have time to evolve it, maybe?

Same territory where doubt that it can be done resides.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Feels right.
But are you sure?
What if life is an eternal component of an eternal universe?

Considering how "life" is defined, it makes no sense to say that life "always" existed.

I'ld say that by definition, there was a time where there was no life in the universe. Not on this planet, not on any other planet. In fact, there was a time when there were no planets.

 

[Armoured]

Considering how "life" is defined, it makes no sense to say that life "always" existed.

I'ld say that by definition, there was a time where there was no life in the universe. Not on this planet, not on any other planet. In fact, there was a time when there were no planets.

Assuming you subscribe to the Big Bang theory. The Steady State theory says otherwise, and, indeed, allows for the existence of life having always present, spreading by panspermia. Hence the Hoyle joke.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

We're getting into science fiction speculation now, but theoretically, if you wanted a biological function that doesn't occur in nature, and don't have time to evolve it, maybe?

That's already being done; I was referring to creating the whole genome from scratch.

 

[Michael]

Of course, all those suggestions just move the origin of life one stage further back. 'Extra-dimensional beings' (whatever that means), alternate universe beings, and aliens, all originated somehow, somewhere; so the 'abiogenesis vs God' dichotomy still persists.

FYI, in the framework of Panentheism, there is no such dichotomy and abiogenesis need not be "random" at all, even if it's a "natural" process.

 

[Armoured]

That's already being done; I was referring to creating the whole genome from scratch.

IIRC, gene pruning doesn't create new functions.

 

[Armoured]

FYI, in the framework of Panentheism, there is no such dichotomy and abiogenesis need not be "random" at all, even if it's a "natural" process.

Who mentioned abiogenesis being "random"?

 

[Speedwell]

Who mentioned abiogenesis being "random"?

It has been characterized as such by several of the creationists on this board.