Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Let the handwaving, post hocing, and goal post moving begin!!!!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.
It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.
Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe.

 

[BananaSlug]

I remember the coolest thing I read about in my classes in college were the "protobionts" mentioned in my Biology and Historical Geology classes. The creos here will say, "but it still was created!" Just watch.

 

[AV1611VET]

Let the handwaving, post hocing, and goal post moving begin!!!!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

That's it! Get that NFL star quarterback made that I've been harping on all along!

How much sooner before scientists bring back worshipping the sun as the giver and sus... oh, wait ... nevermind!

 

[MrGoodBytes]

That's it! Get that NFL star quarterback made that I've been harping on all along!

How much sooner before scientists bring back worshipping the sun as the giver and sus... oh, wait ... nevermind!

And the last time scientists worshipped the sun was...

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

oops I posted this in the science forum...

Anyway once the technology can be tailored to produce "organisms" with specific proteins aka enzymes we will see huge changes in industry when it comes to fine chemical (drugs / drug intermediates) and possibly bulk chemical production (biofuel / polymer intermediates). Could be the start of a new green carbon based economy.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

That's it! Get that NFL star quarterback made that I've been harping on all along!

How much sooner before scientists bring back worshipping the sun as the giver and sus... oh, wait ... nevermind!

Even if we had the tech to create human in situ I doubt we'd use it to create a player from such a mediocre sport. A rugby player on the other hand....Maybe.

 

[Cabal]

That's it! Get that NFL star quarterback made that I've been harping on all along!

How much sooner before scientists bring back worshipping the sun as the giver and sus... oh, wait ... nevermind!

Didn't you say in another thread that it wouldn't matter to you even if we DID manage to create an NFL star in a lab? Can't win, can we.....

And yes, obviously the only reason I have a cross as my faith icon is because there isn't an icon for sun worship...

On an unrelated note, welcome back!

 

[AV1611VET]

On an unrelated note, welcome back!

Thank you, sir! It's good to be back!

 

[atomweaver]

Let the handwaving, post hocing, and goal post moving begin!!!!

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html

That's it! Get that NFL star quarterback made that I've been harping on all along!

Make life -->

--> Make NFL star

That was quick. AVVET is always so obliging... thanks, AV!!

 

[AintNoMonkey]

That's not moving goal posts...THIS is moving goal posts!

 

[MarcusHill]

Of course, even if this works Creationists will still say "but you can't prove that's how it happened", entirely missing the point that we don't have to show how it did happen without a god, merely that it could - just like refuting any "irreducibly complex" system.

 

[AV1611VET]

Of course, even if this works Creationists will still say "but you can't prove that's how it happened", entirely missing the point that we don't have to show how it did happen without a god, merely that it could - just like refuting any "irreducibly complex" system.

Well, for one thing, if that worked, wouldn't that be a demonstration of Intelligent Design?

(Be careful --- this might be a trick question to get you scientists to insult yourselves.)

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Well, for one thing, if that worked, wouldn't that be a demonstration of Intelligent Design?

(Be careful --- this might be a trick question to get you scientists to insult yourselves.)

No, because this experiment is merely constructed to simulate the conditions necessary for an organism to arise naturally without any outside influence (apart from energy, obviously). This would demolish ID practically overnight.

 

[suzmot]

So you could say the "experiment" was intelligently designed, but the life itself was not.

Which is pretty close to what most theistic evolutionists believe?

 

[Bombila]

So you could say the "experiment" was intelligently designed, but the life itself was not.

Which is pretty close to what most theistic evolutionists believe?

In terms of what theist or atheist 'evolutionists' think/believe, this experiment has no effect. This experiment actually is testing for the possibility of abiogenesis, not evolution, which we already know to be factual.

This whole theist/atheist evolutionist distinction always strikes me as silly anyway, since both believe evolution happened as it appears to have happened, as demonstrated by everything we've learned from half a doxen or more different scientific disciplines.

 

[thaumaturgy]

How much sooner before scientists bring back worshipping the sun as the giver and sus... oh, wait ... nevermind!

Does it offend you that the sun is an orderly process? Or are you most offended by the fact that the sun provides sufficient energy to account for what you religious folks like to think of as the great MYSTERY of "Entropy"?

The great thing about science and the sun is we don't have to worship it for it to work! That's the best thing about it. It works to provide us energy on the earth whether we tell it we love it obsessively or not!

I don't have to wake up every morning and remind a "just and loving Sun" that I love it ever so much and then chant some set of now-meaningless phrases that were drilled in my head by a minister when I was 5.

Nope, the sun gives its energy whether we care or not, whether we kneel before it or not, whether we ask it to or not.

Worship is for those who aren't so sure their "deity" will treat them well if they fail to do it.

Better pray to God for a few seconds so he'll keep you safe. Don't miss a day or God might whack ya...and then just ask Job how well that worked out for him!

 

[AV1611VET]

Does it offend you that the sun is an orderly process? Or are you most offended by the fact that the sun provides sufficient energy to account for what you religious folks like to think of as the great MYSTERY of "Entropy"?

The great thing about science and the sun is we don't have to worship it for it to work! That's the best thing about it. It works to provide us energy on the earth whether we tell it we love it obsessively or not!

I don't have to wake up every morning and remind a "just and loving Sun" that I love it ever so much and then chant some set of now-meaningless phrases that were drilled in my head by a minister when I was 5.

Nope, the sun gives its energy whether we care or not, whether we kneel before it or not, whether we ask it to or not.

Worship is for those who aren't so sure their "deity" will treat them well if they fail to do it.

Better pray to God for a few seconds so he'll keep you safe. Don't miss a day or God might whack ya...and then just ask Job how well that worked out for him!

You just remember these words the next time you have someone dear to you needing some kind of beneficence that no astronomical object can produce.

 

[Psudopod]

You just remember these words the next time you have someone dear to you needing some kind of beneficence that no astronomical object can produce.

I'm sure he will. But wanting something doesn't make it happen. The sun is a big ball of hydrogen. It's not capable of healing or bring luck. I will admit I've never been more painfully aware that I don't believe in an interventional diety than when a friend of mine was very ill earlier this year. I wanted to believe, I wanted a miracle, but I couldn't change what I believed in just like that.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

You just remember these words the next time you have someone dear to you needing some kind of beneficence that no astronomical object can produce.

That's why I'm sure he would seek the help of other people, just like most reasonable people would... Just like I hope you would.

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm sure he will. But wanting something doesn't make it happen. The sun is a big ball of hydrogen. It's not capable of healing or bring luck. I will admit I've never been more painfully aware that I don't believe in an interventional diety than when a friend of mine was very ill earlier this year. I wanted to believe, I wanted a miracle, but I couldn't change what I believed in just like that.

How's your friend doing now --- (just to be nosey)? And if that's how you feel about it personally, don't be shy in asking someone here to pray for your friend(s).