Scientists Attempting to Create Simple Life Form

derubergeek writes "The Washington Post is reporting on an apparently credible project to create a simple life form in a petri dish. The goal is two-fold: 1) to actually create a unique life form essentially from scratch and (more importantly) 2) to extensively analyze and model the entire biology of this critter. Exciting and scary at the same time. From the article, it sounds as if they are quite wary of their project and fascinated at the same time. I usually refer to that sensation as 'That little voice that I should have listened to...'" There's also a NY Times article.

Comments

Re:News: Two famous scientists found dead

[esarjeant]

I couldn't agree more. We are meddling with forces we do not comprehend, and for that matter we are attempting to control mis-understood biological mechanisms in the process.

While there are many potential benefits if we can accomplish this kind of genetic engineering, it's not clear that we are entirely ready for this. One must also ponder the potential for limited success, what will we do if some hideous Frankenstein creature results from this? If this creature goes awry will we be able to "kill" --- Is this moral / ethical?

Re:Aaargh

[CyberKnet]

I am so fucking sick of people invoking morality ...
And none of it, none of it, justifies putting up roadblocks to research that will, almost certainly, in the not-too-distant future, save lives.

9 times out of ten, any moral/ethical issue arrising from cutting edge biotech is most likely to be concerned with an issue *other* than creating life. In fact, it's much more likely to be about human embryonic stem cell research, and that should always have its morality questions or ethical issues invoked. We should never justify killing new lives as "saving lives". That's just backwards.

However, in response to your argument, you can never take too many precautions when attempting to create new life. I do not believe that even with the best of planning a scientist can be absolutely sure of the outcome of such a project. You still have to weigh up the risks. And with those risks are going to be questions related to ethical and morale issues. It doesn't even have to be about "Playing God". It could be "Do I want to risk wiping out all life on this planet to try and find a cure for cancer?"

There are other moral and ethical issues at stake with cutting edge biotech than "playing God"; and it is usually those that are being called into question.

Stop using your own pet peeve to create a baseless, needless rant.