Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

Aditya Malik writes "Wired has an interesting story up about how a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building 'protocells' from artificial molecules which are very close to satisfying the conditions for being 'alive.' '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.' This obviously raises some questions about creationism, not to mention some scary bio-research-gone-wild scenarios."

Comments

No, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't count it as life until it can build more fatty molecules too.

Re:No, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Life or not, I for one will not be welcoming our fatty molecule overlords.

Re:No, sorry

[marafa]

AND have a soul. can a molecular biologist create a soul?

Re:No, sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent funny

Re:No, sorry

[duckInferno]

Yes.

Re:No, sorry

[tek.net-ium]

So, in order to be life, every molecule essential to the organism must have a corresponding chemical pathway? By that standard, humans or any other animal can't be considered life... we need to eat all kinds of essential nutrients, like vitamins and certain amino acids, because we can't synthesize them.

Re:No, sorry

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

You already have fatty molecule overlords.

Human intelligence, culture, history, knowledge, and ethics are all transcendent offshoots supporting molecular reproduction.

Re:No, sorry

[Vexor]

Need a soul?

http://xkcd.com/413/

No problem.

grey goo?

[speculatrix]

is it grey, and is it gooey? in which case, it looks like the end of the world is nigh!

Re:grey goo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be green goo? Grey goo is non-biologic mini Von Neumann machines.

Re:grey goo?

[philspear]

Do von neumann machines have to be made out of inorganic materials? If not, I think these qualify, although green goo might be more precise.

Re:grey goo?

[couchslug]

"is it grey, and is it gooey? in which case, it looks like the end of the world [wapedia.mobi] is nigh!"

"Nanites eh? Bah, humbug!"

Re:grey goo?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are they gray goo.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.743095,-74.045105&spn=0.869827,1.235962&t=k&z=10

Re:grey goo?

[dwarfking]

No, it's the Adipose.

Re:grey goo?

[Keith_Beef]

Looks like we need to start work on the aerostomata...

K.

Re:grey goo?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The Earth is already covered in green goo from a green goo scenario that got out of control, in case nobody's been paying attention.

I imagine a robot world would be damned scared of plants and bacteria and so on.

Self Replicating?

[NoobixCube]

I know they aren't really Von Neuman machines, but that phrase always puts me in mind of a replicator apocalypse...

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

Why? You don't imagine that something as fragile and immature as this could actually compete outside the lab do you?

Hell, take an existing microbe and remove the genes that regulate its pH level and it will kill itself in a few generations.

It wasn't you who sent the death threats to the LHC physicists was it?

Re:Self Replicating?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Well, this always helps me feel better at dying at their hands. But you're right, its not a question of if, but rather when. But at the end of the world, I'll feel fine. To everything a time. Everything that has a beginning has an end.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

All organisms self replicate. Just because something is lab-made doesn't mean it would magically not be subject to evolutionary forces.

I.E if these little fellas were to multiply explosively, there would be a resulting population explosions of protocell eating amoebas, and an amoeba eating shrimp, and a shrimp eating whale, and finally Norwegians.

Re:Self Replicating?

[philspear]

All organisms self replicate. Just because something is lab-made doesn't mean it would magically not be subject to evolutionary forces.

Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces, it's unlikely they would be fit to survive in any natural environment. These things have not been instilled with any defenses against things looking to eat them including bacteria. Didn't read the article, but I would guess they aren't capable of digesting molecules, they probably have to be presented with ready to go "nutrients" to replicate, move or do anything. You don't find that anywhere in the real world, in fact, as I recall you don't even find that in your bloodstream. ATP is what your molecules use for power, but you only get that once your cells import glucose and your mitochondria turn it into ATP.

In other words, they have absolutely no way to eat anything they would need to survive.

In evolutionary biology, a major cause of extinction, at least in theory, is called "changing rules." If you're an organism doing well, you're highly adapted to your environment and proliferate. Think of the dinosaurs, they ruled the earth, bigger was better. Mammals were barely hanging on for dear life, small, furry, warm blooded, nocturnal didn't make sense at the time. If the rules suddenly change though through environmental shift, you might not be fit for the new environment. The asteroid hits, an ice age happens, and suddenly cold-blooded huge lizards can't cut it and massively go extinct. The only reason reptiles remain today is that there was significant variation in that clade that allowed some of them to survive in the new game.

These artificial bugs are barely managing to survive in an environment tailored to them, they can't replicate on their own. They also appear to have no variation. If they get out of their environment, they have no chance of survival. It's precisely because they're subject to evolutionary forces that they have no chance.

Re:Self Replicating?

[NoobixCube]

There's no telling what effect anything can have on an ecosystem until it's released into the wild. If it's completely unlike any currently existing life, then the life forms on a similar scale to it probably wouldn't understand it sufficiently to know how to interact with it (i.e, simple questions that don't require a great deal of sentience like 'is it predator or prey?' or 'is it a viable food source?'). I'm not a biologist, so maybe I'm not making a lick of sense, but how do you cram something totally new into the food web? Previous conservation efforts by humans (such as introducing the cane toad to Australia to eat the cane grubs) have proved disastrous, at best, because of unforeseen consequences.

Back to my original point, it's just short sighted to claim that it can't possibly compete outside a lab when anything could happen. To answer your question, it wasn't me who sent death threats to the LHC :P. My grasp of physics is much better than my limited knowledge of biology.

(P.S, about your sig, Creationists believe everything was created for them. They don't have to create anything themselves :P.)

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

Oh dear. It's a fat lipid with some RNA in it, not a magic eight ball. It's trivial to see exactly what would happen if this stuff was released into the environment: extinction, and likely in seconds. To work on this stuff they have to build huge clean rooms for precisely this reason.

My grasp of physics is much better than my limited knowledge of biology.

And yet you feel the need to open your mouth and proclaim doom.

Re:Self Replicating?

[localman]

It's just short sighted to claim that it can't possibly compete outside a lab when anything could happen.

I hear where you're coming from, but my feeling (and I'm not a biologist either) is that with the continuous struggle of life on this huge planet the idea that any one new organism is going to wreak havoc on everything is unlikely. New stuff is jumping into the fray all the time, and so far we've survived it all -- not necessarily individually, but as a species. Same for other species. It seems creatures are, and the environment is, more resilient than that.

Cheers

Re:Self Replicating?

[SuperSlug]

There is strong evidence that dinosaurs were in fact warm blooded and were not reptiles. Many actually lived in colder climates in the northern regions of the globe.

Re:Self Replicating?

[philspear]

That's strong evidence? I would say that's evidence that appears to challenge the hypothesis, but I think it's quite a leap to say that suggests they were warm blooded.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Absolutely. He distills them to their pure essence. Very Platonic. Perfect form, unhindered by the distortive forces of mass. His writing complements it as well. I really think this world would be a better place, if we were all stick figures.

Also, throughout high school I was marked down on my various school projects requiring artistic ability because I only used stick figures.

Also, I think he's got some serious sexual issues. Lately, he's been crossing the invisible line between the way the world is, and the way it should not be and is not.

Re:Self Replicating?

[SuperSlug]

Ok here is some more evidence

Bone structure and histology
Growth rates
Predator/prey ratios
Speed and agility
Rate of evolution
Similarities with birds
Parental Care
Bone Isotope Composition
Insulation
Arctic Faunas

Should I go on? There is a ton of evidence for each of these items that indicate that dinosaurs were warm blooded. There speed, growth rates and similarities with birds to the most obvious one.

Re:Self Replicating?

[zunicron]

Strong evidence? Jurassic Park doesn't count as evidence.

Re:Self Replicating?

[zunicron]

Your argument is the equivalent to:

Anything can happen -> you can be wrong

Not a very strong argument IMO.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Digital End]

My grasp of physics is much better than my limited knowledge of biology.

And yet you feel the need to open your mouth and proclaim doom.

Can we mod this guy +5 kickass?

So damn sick of people who have no idea how something works lending their halfassed opinions to the matter and expecting people to listen. Yes this is more directed at the LHC Lawsuits then this guy, but the point stands.

Can you imagine how stupid these people sound to the real experts?

"Well the car's not working. Now I know nothing about cars, but I was told when they're running it blows air out of the tailpipe. As you can see, it's not blowing air right now, so it stands to reason that if we suck on the tailpipe the car will be fixed."

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

Thanks. Here's another one I've heard. People are apprehensive about teaching chimps sign language, because, ya know, if those chimps are released back into the wild they will take over the world!!! Never mind that teaching chimps to sign is basically just a trained animal act and shows nothing about their mental capabilities. Just imagine if dolphins had thumbs!

Re:Self Replicating?

[Molochi]

"then the life forms on a similar scale to it probably wouldn't understand it sufficiently to know how to interact with it (i.e, simple questions that don't require a great deal of sentience like 'is it predator or prey?' or 'is it a viable food source?')."

If it's edible to them, they'll "know what to do". If it's poisonous to them, well that's evolution in action.

Re:Self Replicating?

[AmberBlackCat]

I'm working on a plan to make a few of these things viable by dumping them into a large hadron collider. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

So damn sick of people who have no idea how something works lending their halfassed opinions to the matter and expecting people to listen.

Welcome to the internet. You must be new here.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Everyone Is Seth]

Well, there goes about 99% of all the scientific "research" I have done in my life...

Re:Self Replicating?

[Khyber]

"Hell, take an existing microbe and remove the genes that regulate its pH level and it will kill itself in a few generations."

Darwin frowns and smiles upon you simultaneously. We can almost safely assume said microbe is world-wide, so changing its pH level won't do much, besides allow the resistant microbes in differing pH environs to survive and proliferate and wage war once a critical mass is reached.

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

No. Microbes have to control their pH levels otherwise their own operation will denature their proteins, literally tearing them apart. This is micro-biology 101.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Khyber]

"And yet you feel the need to open your mouth and proclaim doom."

And yet you feel the need to talk down as if you knew everything - we've had multiple lab-modified genes survive outside of a lab - what in the world makes you think this one would be no different? How about those things we sent out into space without any radiation shielding? A few survived where I'd guarantee the same amount of humans would not survive.

Keep talking. There's stuff to shoot you down, yet.

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

Bahaha, seriously, you have no idea what you're on about and you sound like a fucking moron.

Do yourself and favour and shut up already.

Hehe, this is Slashdot at its finest.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Khyber]

"So damn sick of people who have no idea how something works lending their halfassed opinions to the matter and expecting people to listen."

Yet you lend your half-assed opinion on a subject you obviously know nothing about and expect it to be modded insightful or interesting.

Get out of here, fool. We don't fall for that kind of nonsensical correlation and illogical thinking (except for the fools with a UID as high as yours.)

Re:Self Replicating?

[Urkki]

Why? You don't imagine that something as fragile and immature as this could actually compete outside the lab do you?

Well, probably not *this*, but it's not impossible that we come up with something that is fundamentally superior to current bacteria and archae based life (including us eucaryotes). Evolution has many limits, it can only "go" where it can go in small, beneficial steps, starting from existing organisms. We humans have no such limitation with our bio- and nanoengineering.

So even if it is unlikely, there is a possibility that we can come up with stuff that evolution has been unable to develop, for example a completely new kind of cellular wall that is superior to anything current life has and imprevious to any attempts of existing microbes to eat it.

I'd say that what ever we do in labs, we should always have some thought put to controlling it. Like the above example, we should have a chemical that is mostly harmless to existing life but able to destroy this new cell wall easily. And same applies to any self-replicating nanomachines we may some day create. The good news is, if something is very different, it is very likely that there is an antidote that can target just the difference.

But even if evolution has been going on for 4 billion years or whatever, it doesn't mean that we can't come up with dangerous self-replicating stuff that is outside the reach of biological evolution.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Archimonde]

Actually the evidence for warm blooded dinosaurs is slim at best.

According to this paper there might be a possibility for some number of warm blooded dinosaurs, but it is a more of a stretch to say that all (or even majority) of them were warm blooded. You should read that paper because it answers much of your points (with arguments/data).

I have pretty much no knowledge about dinosaurs but you can use a bit of common sense here. Size has its limits. It doesn't matter if the animal is cold or warm blooded, the bigger the animal, the relatively slower it is. So just to clarify, t-rex probably was relatively slow. If it were fast, its leg muscles should be bigger than whole its body, which is impossible. And you can always use elephants for the example. Elephants can't run. They can walk a bit faster. But to say they are fast is a exaggeration.

   

Re:Self Replicating?

[pbhj]

Moderation: Informative

Quote 1: "the evidence for warm blooded dinosaurs is slim at best"

Quote 2: "I have pretty much no knowledge about dinosaurs"

Err, OK.

Re:Self Replicating?

[kanweg]

Kangaroos cannot run either. Elephants seem to be able to reach up to 40 km/hour without running. My car is faster. More seriously: It appears they don't run because their front and hind legs would clash. Now, I completely see T-rex having the same problem.

Bert

Re:Self Replicating?

[SlashV]

I have pretty much no knowledge about dinosaurs [...] Elephants can't run. They can walk a bit faster. But to say they are fast is a exaggeration

You don't know anything about elephants either, do you ?
You won't keep up with an (african) elephant that is "walking a bit faster" ! See e.g. here.
And your common sense isn't all that common to me. I fail to see why the fact that an elephant may not be that fast means that a t-rex was slow. For one, an elephant probably doesn't need speed, while a t-rex being a predator would most likely have benefited from it and thus also developed it.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Schadrach]

Actually, I thought there were at least some cases of a signing chimp composing "sentences" that demonstrated some insight into what the signs meant, rather than just "I move my hands this way and get a treat". Nothing beyond your average toddler, but more than teaching your dog to shake hands for a treat.

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

There's no documented peer-reviewed cases. In fact, deaf researchers on these teams often report *no* signs.. it's only the speaking researchers who have learned sign language as a pidgin that think the chimps can sign. All the primate researchers have abandoned peer reviewed journals. They publish in the mainstream and covert their videos.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Cyanara]

Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces, it's unlikely they would be fit to survive in any natural environment.

Earth is a very different place now compared to when life began. It is extremely unlikely that life could be begin in any modern environment.

Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces, it's unlikely they would be fit to survive in any natural environment. These things have not been instilled with any defenses against things looking to eat them including bacteria. Didn't read the article, but I would guess they aren't capable of digesting molecules, they probably have to be presented with ready to go "nutrients" to replicate, move or do anything. You don't find that anywhere in the real world, in fact, as I recall you don't even find that in your bloodstream. ATP is what your molecules use for power, but you only get that once your cells import glucose and your mitochondria turn it into ATP.

You appear to be thinking specifically of oxidative phosphorylation in advanced eukaryotic cells which arose from the proliferation of oxygen in the atmosphere by prokaryotic cells and the symbiotic engulfing of smaller specialised prokaryotic cells (ie mitochondria, chloroplasts) by larger prokaryotic cells. This is the most efficient way to produce ATP, but certainly not the only way, and definitely not going to happen in a very primitive cell. Rather, you'd be looking at good old reliable fermentation.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Walkingshark]

Elephants can't run. They can walk a bit faster. But to say they are fast is a exaggeration.

Uh, Goatse, is that you? It must be, for you to fit all the stuff you just pulled out of your ass.

Elephants Running.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Walkingshark]

People are apprehensive about teaching chimps sign language, because, ya know, if those chimps are released back into the wild they will take over the world!!!

Sorry to break it to you, they already did.

Oh who am I kidding, that fucking idiot could never learn sign language.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Walkingshark]

How about those things we sent out into space without any radiation shielding?

I saw that episode too, though I always thought the prop department could have done better with the probe, it looked like a bunch of hat boxes glued together with a spike down the middle.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Walkingshark]

I don't buy the grey goo story. If there was some way of turning everything into copies of yourself, everything in the universe would be made up of copies of whatever the crap it was that could do that already. I'm slightly more worried about Galactus eating the planet than I am about grey goo.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but running is not walking fast.

You have to have all legs in the air at one point.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Urkki]

I'm not really talking about everything turning into all-eating grey goo, I'm talking about something taking over from current biological life.

It has happened before, current DNA-based cellular life has completely taken over from whatever existed before it or tried to evolve at the same time. And there have been lesser takeovers, such as the oxygen catastrophe, where only large part of the planet was taken over by organisms able to use oxygen.

We really don't want to produce something radically different that, if released into the wild, would be superior to current life. Something like "green goo", nanomachines or artificial life using solar energy and slowly but steadily and unstoppably taking over from plants, and as a side effect destroying current ecology of the Earth and killing everything except the most adaptive micro-organisms that would be able to live side-by-side with the "green goo".

Some humans might survive too, with help of technology. I mean, all our current food crops are inferior to weeds, yet we manage to grow them just fine. But it would not be a very happy future for the survivors, strugling to keep enough current ecology alive to be able to get food.

There is no guarantee that something like that won't happen even naturally. Though I think that's very unlikely, because if it hasn't evolved over last 4 billion years, it probably can't evolve. Or to put it the other way, the current life is "it" already.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Zenaku]

The theories that are currently in favor say that T. Rex was not a predator at all, but a scavenger. I know, I know, it's a big let down for those of us my age, who grew up automatically choosing T. Rex as our favorite dinosaur because it was the biggest, scariest, carnivorous hunter.

But science is always refining our knowledge and correcting its mistakes, and now we know it was just a big vulture. And that is why today's young'uns all love Velociraptor.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

sause?

Re:Self Replicating?

[JohhnyTHM]

...you only get that once your cells import glucose and your mitochondria turn it into ATP.

Wow, I have mitochondria now? I just ticked 'Religion: Jedi' as a joke on that questionaire.

Oh, wait...

Re:Self Replicating?

[DoubleBarrelDarryl]

Watch the movie evolution man. Any movie with Orlando Jones has to be scientifically accurate.

Re:Self Replicating?

[jasen666]

Who was the gorilla a few years ago who had a kitten? My memory might be off, but I remember seeing video and reading articles on how she was able to put together signs in combinations she wasn't taught, to answer questions or ask for specific things.
I know the speech center of their brain is not the same as ours, but intelligence-wise, they're up to about human toddler capability, right? I don't think it would be unreasonable to think they may be able to communicate like a human toddler, and develop some language ability.
It is unfortunate they don't publish through peer-review.

Re:Self Replicating?

[philspear]

You should go on. Bone structure I'd like to know more about. Histology to me is the study of tissues, which are not present or observeable in dinosaurs. You have impressions of their skeletons, that's all.

Growth rates I would also like to know how that means they were warm blooded. A google search shows several pages that assert that they have a growth rate that is inconsistent with cold bloodedness, but no explanation as to why. How many large cold-blooded reptiles are there today? Alligators and crocs are the only ones I can think of. It's not hard to imagine that in the ice age, the genes enabling rapid growth in poikilotherms was extremely deleterious, and as a result today there are no cold-blooded reptiles with fast growth. That could be the reason we don't see any fast growing reptiles today. Same with speed and agility. And I have to point out that there are many lizards that are extremely fast. Crocodiles are lethargic only until they see something they want to eat.

I can't see how rates of evolution would be specific to endothermic organisms. An environment in which cold-blooded large reptiles were particularly fit for would by consequence produce a lot of reproductive sucesses and thereby a lot of evolution. Maybe I should rather say that evolutionary sucess comes from fitness to the environment, not body type. Our environment is not well suited to cold blooded reptiles, consequently we would today see slow rates of evolution for them. It would be a mistake to take those rates and say that it would mean that under different conditions, cold blooded reptiles could not have evolved faster.

Similarities with birds, parental care, bone isotype composition, and insulation you're going to have to explain further.

All the arguments sound like they're based on looking at current reptiles, adapted to current conditions, and trying to say they couldn't do what dinosaurs did because they're not doing it now. Conditions are different now than they were in their era, changing the rules of the game, and furthermore we know that the extinction event selected against the very features that allowed the dinosaurs to proliferate, today's cold-bloods reflect that and consequently do not have the features that the dinosaurs had. All around it's faulty comparison.

Re:Self Replicating?

[philspear]

You appear to be thinking specifically of oxidative phosphorylation in advanced eukaryotic cells which arose from the proliferation of oxygen in the atmosphere by prokaryotic cells and the symbiotic engulfing of smaller specialised prokaryotic cells (ie mitochondria, chloroplasts) by larger prokaryotic cells. This is the most efficient way to produce ATP, but certainly not the only way, and definitely not going to happen in a very primitive cell. Rather, you'd be looking at good old reliable fermentation.

You're right, but my point was that even in the tailored and protected environment of your bloodstream, which services mostly your own cells, you don't just find free energy, your cells/symbiotes have to digest it. These artificial cells the guy made likely only have the ability to incorporate already digested raw materials, there is little chance for them to survive in any non-artificial environment you can think of because you don't find nutrients just lying around. Kind of like a baby surrounded by packaged formula. There are nutrients arond, but since it can't open the formula, it would starve on it's own.

Re:Self Replicating?

[steelfood]

Contrary to what your "common sense" says, elephants can in fact run. A quick google search will tell you that an elephant runs nearly as fast as a human being. Or at the very least, they sprint as fast as humans. They might or might not be able to sustain the same speeds as a human being.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Doctor Faustus]

There is strong evidence that dinosaurs were in fact warm blooded and were not reptiles. Many actually lived in colder climates in the northern regions of the globe.
My sister is a biologist and she was telling me they don't really consider "reptile" to be a terribly useful classification, anymore. Dinosaurs, turtles, snakes and lizards, crocodiles (I *think* those were the three reptile groups) and birds are all related to each other to a similar degree.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Bad Ad]

that would say to me that they are slow.... being X times bigger but same speed as us = slow

Re:Self Replicating?

[Paranatural]

Actually, elephants are only slightly slower than humans when they want to move. And in many cases, you'll find they can be deceptively fast for their size.

Linky: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004737.html

Re:Self Replicating?

[insllvn]

OP was hardly proclaiming doooom, merely acknowledging the possibility of unforeseen consequences. I understand enough about the LHC (to use your example) to know it will not destroy the world, but even so I can't help but think of headcrabs...

I also recall that during the first atomic detonation, even most scientists underestimated its power. The military man in charge of the project is famously credited with the saying that he, as a munitions expert, knew bombs, and that it would never go off. They positioned soldiers far to close to the blast radius, and as a result most died of radiation poisoning (within a year IIRC).

Must you know everything to comment on a story, or merely approach it reasonably and rationally? We know that introducing a rogue element into an ecosystem can reek havoc, and this is the ultimate unknown: a new example of (almost) life. As a parting shot I will offer a musing and a confession: Virus are almost, but not quite, life; and I did not RTFA, nor am I particularly facile with biology.

Re:Self Replicating?

[dwye]

> The theories that are currently in favor say that T. Rex was not a predator at all, but a scavenger.

This is a false dichotomy. All real predators eat carrion when they find it, and climax predators like lions spend as much time stealing prey from smaller predators as they do hunting, because prey stealing is easier when you are the biggest. Vultures will also kill helpless animals that haven't had the decency to die before the they arrived.

> And that is why today's young'uns all love Velociraptor.

No, they all love Utahraptor (sp?), the velociraptor look-alike that actually is as large as Spielberg's raptors were. Real velociraptors were the size of chickens to turkeys, and are no more scary, by themselves, than a single piranna. That they *call* it a veliciraptor explains why I do not pay attention to the opinions of small children in matters of, well, anything, but especially paleontology.

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

That'd be Koko, and you have to be very forgiving to think that she could sign, and none of the gorillas, chimps, or other circus acts have ever shown the slightest understanding of grammar. Not even the advocates of their signing believe they can sign about "the abstract".. this basically means that, without context to guess their intended signs from, you can't understand them.. and that means they're not using language.

Re:Self Replicating?

[ravster]

Yes, but the 'northern regions of the globe' were much warmer, since they were going through a 'greenhouse planet' stage.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Schadrach]

"Not even the advocates of their signing believe they can sign about "the abstract".. this basically means that, without context to guess their intended signs from, you can't understand them.. and that means they're not using language."

...then neither do most toddlers.

Seriously, I've never heard a toddler talk about anything that didn't involve either immediately present persons or things, or very specific things that had been given proper names to them recently. This is just from personal experience, however.

Most of what I've heard from those who've recently learned to walk generally involved no more than two word, subject object sentences. "Hug" (holding her arms outstretched at me), "Have Candy" (pointing at her candy corn), and "Candy?" (holding a piece of the candy corn out to me) are examples from my great niece just yesterday.

Those seem pretty context dependent to me.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, but the multi-chamber dinosaur heart in Raleigh, NC does count as evidence.

Re:Self Replicating?

[QuantumG]

Ask a 3 year old about the last time daddy took them for a ride in the car. You'll get a long gramatical sentence about where they went and what they did. That's language. To claim that humans dont have a unique place in the evolutionary tree due to a trained animal act that manages to replace grunts with hand movements is just laughable and these 'researchers' know it.

Re:Self Replicating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. The African Elephant, which is the largest animal on land, can reach speeds of up to 25 mph, which is faster than just about any human can run.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Bush_Elephant

So, this is what God must feel like

[w.p.richardson]

eh?

Re:So, this is what God must feel like

[glittalogik]

What, Canadian? Yeah, we knew that already, eh?

Or mabye...

[zappepcs]

They might be changed into something that could terraform Earth 2.0 ?

Lifeforms here on Earth are unlikely to be suitable for such. This could be quite interesting actually IMO.

Re:Or mabye...

[Abreu]

what's wrong with cyanobacteria?

Re:Or mabye...

[bugnuts]

Khaaaan!!!!!!

(I had to tag that....)

Re:Or mabye...

[Anonymous Coward]

It ruins a fish tank.

Re:Or mabye...

[zigmeister]

Seriously guys, this is what we have tiberium for... What's that Master Kane? Ya sure, whatever, I'll launch the damn missile. As I was saying...

because...

[Anonymous Coward]

life grown in a test tube environment is SOOO well adapted to a planet where other forms of life have fought a life and death battle for SIX BILLION YEARS.

Interesting work

[CrazyJim1]

I think many people should be doing this because it is similar to the Star Trek theory that life could come out in Silicon or something we do not know it as. Of course, I think science should also try and database as many species as it can especially since many species are dying off before they're being cataloged. We should strive to know all the viable lifeforms possible even if they're extinct or not a species yet. I think this is one of the reasons why SciFi and Fantasy books and games are so fun, to see what it is like interacting with different life forms.

As for the impact this has on people's belief on God. Personally, I know God exists, and it wouldn't shake my faith even if people start printing out lifeforms from their computer. Maybe I'll find people trying to reason away God more annoying, but it isn't my place to judge.

Re:Interesting work

[jmpeax]

Personally, I know God exists

Out of interest, how do you rationalise something other than God creating life?

I ask because I noticed on the page your sig links to you write "the Bible is God's infallible word, and that he guided the translators perfectly to copy it." From the Bible:

God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves

Re:Interesting work

[jgarra23]

I ask because I noticed on the page your sig links to you write "the Bible is God's infallible word, and that he guided the translators perfectly to copy it." From the Bible:

God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves

This is really for GP but I would like to know which translators he/she is speaking of. Since there are quite a few different translators and many disagree with each other- making such a general claim (at a glance mind you) sounds to me like an attempt at deception.

Re:Interesting work

[Idiomatick]

You would think the sea monsters would come into question first. And if you read his post he mentioned he didn't like people reasoning away god. So i dont think any reasonable logical argument will help.

Re:Interesting work

[CrazyJim1]

Out of interest, how do you rationalise something other than God creating life?

I don't understand the question. Can you be more verbose?
The Bible doesn't say anything against people creating life. People create robots, and robots can create robots.

Re:Interesting work

[mdmkolbe]

Out of interest, how do you rationalise something other than God creating life?

People and animals create new life every day. Since in the usual course of events God isn't sole creator but rather shares a co-creatorship with the parents, there is no a priori reason to suppose the same co-creatorship could not exist in other situations.

Disclaimer 1: There are a whole slew of controversies surrounding this topic. I have purposely avoided those in order to give you a straightforward answer without getting bogged down in ancillary topics that would generate more heat than light.

Disclaimer 2: I would probably disagree with the GP on a number of theological issues (e.g. divinely inspired vs infallible or whether it extends to translations, copies or only the original text), so I don't presume to speak for the GP or the GP's religion, denomination or theological school. I can only offer my reasonably well educated but possibly flawed understanding of one school of orthodox teaching from at least one Christian denomination that I am familiar with.

Re:Interesting work

[Cley Faye]

I ask because I noticed on the page your sig links to you write "the Bible is God's infallible word, and that he guided the translators perfectly to copy it." From the Bible: God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves

Heh, someone has already spotted this mistranslation:http://www.macguff.fr/goomi/unspeakable/vault271.html

Re:Interesting work

[ricegf]

I think science should also try and database as many species as it can especially since many species are dying off before they're being cataloged.

Perhaps saving a healthy sample set of DNA would enable future advances to recover them from extinction? (I'm not a biologist, but I certainly enjoyed Jurassic Park. :-)

Re:Interesting work

[Rick Bentley]

Just curious: who created god?

If the questions is: where did we come from? And the answer is "god created us", then aren't we just moving the problem around? Unless you answer where god came from then I don't think you have answered anything.

Re:Interesting work

[Tweenk]

Biologists creating artificial life are entirely tangential to creationism. After all, it's the *biologists* who created that artificial lifeform. It didn't appear spontaneously.

Re:Interesting work

[crispin_bollocks]

Fun interacting with different life forms? Male and female humans can rarely interact successfully (or at least satisfactorily).

Re:Interesting work

[draco664]

Male and female humans can rarely interact successfully (or at least satisfactorily).

Oh boy, are you doing it wrong!

Re:Interesting work

[Golddess]

I realize it's a fallacy to presume you believe 100% in the full text of the link in your sig, but I still find it interesting that you seem to have completely glossed over GP's single quote from it.

Re:Interesting work

[lawpoop]

Unless you answer where god came from then I don't think you have answered anything.

If the question is "Where did we come from?" and the 'truth' really is "God created us", then he has answered the question. You're moving the goalpost in this case.

It's like a creationist asking a scientist, "Where did we come from?" "The Big Bang." "OK, where did the Big Bang come from? If you can't answer that, then you're just moving the problem around, and you haven't actually answered anything."

Or more simply, if you're asking where cars come from, an appropriate answer is Detroit. You don't have to say where Detroit came from, or how steel gets made. The question has been answered. If you want an answer, good or bad, about ultimate origins, make sure you ask that question.

Re:Interesting work

[quizwedge]

On the flip side, assuming there is no such thing as god, where did the universe come from? If an acceptable answer for where the universe came from is that it always existed, then why is that not an acceptable answer to where did god come from? Basically, the creation of the universe comes down to two cases. Either it always existed (and by always existed, I'm including the theory that it expands and contracts, collapses on itself, and starts again) OR something / someone created it. Ultimately you have to have someone/something that always existed.

Re:Interesting work

[StrategicIrony]

There are a bunch of people who argue that the King James version is the "correct, God-inspired translation", whereas there was no god-inspring going on for the newer translations such as the NIV and New World or the Darby, or any of the other 40 or 50 that are out there as linguistic exercises from various linguists and historians...

But, to me, it seems they're more stuck on their childhood fondness for bible verses full of "thou" and "doth" and "shalt".

Re:Interesting work

[im_thatoneguy]

It's only the biologists if they didn't reproduce it using means that feasibly would occur under historical circumstances.

If I pick up a rock, let go and it falls then I've found substantial evidence of the feasibility of spontaneous falling when an object is unsupported.

This instance of life isn't interesting to ambiogenesis but to rule out artificial life as tangential to creationism is an innaccurate blanket statement.

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that the science of creating life destroys belief in god(s) existing. It's that, if life didn't happen like in the Bible, that destroys the need for (or indeed the miraculous nature of) the God of the Bible. The joke is he's already easily disprovable and statistically non-important in your every day life, no matter how hard you pray.

Now the existence of something (or someone) currently outside our understanding that put the universe here to begin with? Ahhh, now you've got a philosophically interesting question...

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple answer:

Himself.

If a being is in such a perfect state, surely He can be self-perpetuating.

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me answer your question with a question:
How did matter come into existence?

If you one person chooses to believe that matter could in fact spontaneous come into existence, it is not much further a leap to say that there is a God that could live outside what we know as time and space.

Re:Interesting work

[Animaether]

The 'problem', if one may state it as such, is in your presentation of the options...
A. the universe always existed
B. it was created by something/someone.

That's really three options...
A. the universe always existed
B. it popped into existence due to something, we don't know what - we may never find out
C. it was created by someone, and we call that someone God.

B and C are distinctly different; just because I have no explanation of what caused the Big Bang, doesn't mean 'God did it'. Even if scientists told me right now that it's impossible to find out what caused the Big Bang (which is very likely), it doesn't mean 'God did it'. 'God did it' isn't an answer to a question - it is a belief. I have no problems with beliefs (Hello, I'm an agnostic), but too often the 'God did it'-approach is used as a substitute for actual answers.

Back on-topic... you don't ultimately need one or the other having to always have existed. Keep in mind that the prevailing idea is that 'before the universe existed' is a problematic sentence as there is no 'before the universe existed'.. time, if you will, did not exist until the universe began.

Re:Interesting work

[zifn4b]

I am not an expert on the subject of philosophy but God is sometimes referred to as the uncaused cause. This is one of the classical arguments in Cosmology. I'll also admit my knowledge of the Old Testament is a bit rusty but I believe somewhere in there God refers to itself as "I am who am" which I think means that which has always existed and has no beginning or end.

I have done quite a bit of reflection on this subject and one of the possible conclusions I have come to (and this may sound a bit crazy) is that perhaps time or more specifically the human perception that everything must have a beginning and end is a false perception or illusion and that really existence has never had a beginning or ending, it just is.

The more interesting question is can you define what the universe is by contrasting it with non-existence of anything? What would it mean for nothing to exist? How can something arise from nothing? IMHO, these are much more interesting questions to ask than the one you've posed. If you figure any of it out though, please let me know. I'm very curious to know the answers. :)

Re:Interesting work

[Gastrobot]

Arguing that evolution is feasible does not in any way threaten creationism. The feasibility of evolution vs. how life came to be are not at all opposed.

Keeping with your example of a rock; if I see one on the ground you could drop another rock and say that it is feasible that that the first rock fell to the spot in which I found it, but if I held the belief that the rock was placed on the ground then your demonstration would not prove me wrong.

Now to say that my rock did fall to the ground would be opposed to my belief.

So as a creationist that doesn't believe that evolution is crazy I do feel that this is tangential to the question of the origin of life.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

...that life could come out in Silicon or something we do not know it as...

Any possible life has to be able to synthesize molecules with a large number of atoms in complex configurations. Living cells can be thought of as incredibly complex nano-machines, miniature factories producing an almost endless variety of molecular products.

A central building block atom with just the right binding energy is needed at the hear of these machines. The other atoms it binds with must also have comparable binding energies. Bonds must be strong enough to hold together fairly well, but not so strong so it takes inordinate amounts of energy to break and rearrange them. The elements must also be reasonably common and widely distributed. Having wood and nails that needed a 50 pound sledge-hammer to build a house would be difficult, if not impossible.

Of all elements carbon is the best central atom to bind to any other elements. It is widely available in the CO2 of the air. Besides carbon, the other two widely distributed main elements with compatible energies are oxygen and hydrogen. These are also easily available in the form of water. These are the three most common elements of life. Silicon binding energies to other common atoms are considerably higher than carbon. That is why silicon compounds, such as silicon sealers and greases are used where high temperatures are present. Other common element are included for specialized molecules needed for the many complex functions of life. Some less common elements are used for the special properties and functions they empower the cellular factories to provide.

The Creator God, the one of Genesis 1:1, designed the correct binding energies of the main building blocks of the physical life He wanted to create and then picked carbon, hydrogen and oxygen as the basis for life.

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

Well....If your question is about the God that Christians, Jews and Muslims (it's the same God) believe in, the theory says that God does not fit into our concepts of time and space as we understand them. Easy way: He has no beginning or end or location.
A philosopher called Toma di Aquino even used these attributes to prove God's existence by asking a question similar to yours:
Anything in the universe is the effect of a cause.
Considering that, if we are to assume that this chain does not go infinitely in the past, we must accept the thought that there must be an entity that does not follow our assumption and is self-sufficient.The primordial cause. This entity did not have to be created by anyone and exists outside time and probably space(since space is also the effect of a cause). Well, we just got to the definition of God.

I am sure there are other philosophers bringing counter-arguments to this theory but since this is philosophy, I'll have to say something that has already been said above but it seems people kind of neglected: this discussion generates more heat than light.
I find that if one believes, regardless of the arguments presented to them they will continue to believe. This also happens the other way around. If a non-believer would see a miracle he'd rather refuse to trust his senses than change his beliefs.
In short, yes - someone answered the same question some thousand years ago. Also, if you enjoy taunting people with questions at least find a smart one.
Example1 - Complex:

If God knows all in past and future, he probably knew most people on planet Earth will live their life's suffering and fighting hard to survive. Then why do you say he is good and loving?

Example2 - trivial paradox:

If God can do anything, can he create a boulder so big that he cannot lift himself?

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

...There are a bunch of people who argue that the King James version is the "correct, God-inspired translation....

Unless you know Hebrew and Greek, a way to get around this is to get as many translations you can afford and compare them. It turns out most of them agree amazingly well except those put out by specific organizations that have certain of their doctrines reflected in their own specialized translation.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

...I realize it's a fallacy to presume you believe 100% in the full text..

Anyone who can truly believe the first verse of the Bible, should have no problem fully believing the rest of it.

Re:Interesting work

[dj245]

A. the universe always existed B. it popped into existence due to something, we don't know what - we may never find out C. it was created by someone, and we call that someone God.

Many people would also argue for a different option- D. It doesn't matter. We can never know what happened before the big bang since there is nothing to measure. We can rewind the tape to the beginning but we can't flip it over and listen to the other side.

Re:Interesting work

[Nazlfrag]

African or European God?

What happened before the Big Bang? Is God the Higgs Field? Will the LHC destroy Jesus and finish Nietzsche's work? How long is a long time? How wet is a fish? I hope I answered something for you there.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

...Unless you answer where god came from ...

God just IS, He was not created. No scientific OBSERVATION or experiment has ever contradicted the majestic opening sentence of the Bible:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth.

In this one majestic opening verse, we find the three basic aspects of the reality we find ourselves in. There is the beginning -- time, then there are the heavens -- space, and then there is the earth -- matter-energy. The Bible is the only time tested document we possess that tells us about an eternal, uncaused being, called Elohim, in the original Hebrew that part of the Bible was written in.

ALL other religions and world views always place their version of God within our time-space-matter-energy universe, or as as part of it. ONLY in the Bible does the real, eternal self-existent God reveal Himself as One outside of and entirely independent of the Universe and its content.

Re:Interesting work

[quizwedge]

Actually, my B covers both your B and C. If the universe hasn't always existed, then it was created by someone (God) or something. I agree B and C are different. Heck, even the option that God created the universe has multiple different sub-options. My point was to show that either the universe has always existed or something or someone came before that (and maybe before that, etc.). Eventually you get to something or someone that existed in infinity past / the "beginning".

I agree that just because we have no explanation for something doesn't mean 'God did it'. On the flip side, it doesn't mean that God didn't do it. It just means we have no explanation for it.

I tried to not argue for or against the existence of God, just lay out the options. Personally, I believe in God, but I try to not let my belief be a blind belief. Instead I look for proof.

As for the problematic sentence, yes and no. When we talk about someone or something in infinity past / the "beginning" we're really talking about someone or something that is outside of time. If nothing created the universe, then the universe has existed since the beginning and as such would have "always existed". If the universe was created by something or someone, then that someone or something exists outside of time and thus "always existed". At least part of it comes down to semantics because how do you define that which happens outside of time? That which created the universe comes "before" only because we tend to think of time as linearly.

To be complete, I guess the one option that I haven't presented is that someone or something existed outside of time and ceased to be at the creation of the universe or sometime after.

Re:Interesting work

[Ravon Rodriguez]

I have done quite a bit of reflection on this subject and one of the possible conclusions I have come to (and this may sound a bit crazy) is that perhaps time or more specifically the human perception that everything must have a beginning and end is a false perception or illusion and that really existence has never had a beginning or ending, it just is.

I think you're onto something here. I've always heard it said that time is an illusion of the human mind. In reality, all events in space-time happen simultaneously.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

... If an acceptable answer for where the universe came from is that it always existed...

The observed evidence is against the concept of an eternal universe. This used to be believed, but modern evidence points to a definite beginning of time, space and matter-energy. Scientists have labeled this creation event "The Big Bang" which arose from what they call a singularity.

The evidence is that ALL of the universe, including time itself and all laws of physics, came into existence from this singularity. Nobody can calculate back any further than about 10^-44 seconds AFTER the singularity appeared. Nobody has any idea where the singularity itself came from. It seems to us it came from nothing, but this is a belief in the same way as a belief in God.

Re:Interesting work

[quizwedge]

And anything before that singularity would be "infinite" in that it exists or existed outside of time. Either something or someone.

Re:Interesting work

[Zalbik]

There are actually 4 options:

A. the universe always existed
B. it popped into existence due to something, we don't know what - we may never find out
C. it was created by someone, and we call that someone God.
D. it popped into existence. There is no point in trying to establish cause as the "start" of the universe precludes cause and effect.

Asking what caused the universe is like asking what's the square root of blue. The concepts just don't mesh. As far as we can tell, physical law as we know it (including all our "common sense" notions about time, cause/effect, etc) came into being in the first hundreths of a milliseconds of it's existence.

Re:Interesting work

[Plutonite]

As for the impact this has on people's belief on God. Personally, I know God exists, and it wouldn't shake my faith even if people start printing out lifeforms from their computer. Maybe I'll find people trying to reason away God more annoying, but it isn't my place to judge.

Good for you! Unfortunately, the crushing majority of previous and contemporary "believers", including commoners, priests, saints, prophets and so on (i.e people probably on more favorable grounds with the deity you worship) would be quite happy to lynch any man who so much as suggests that something other than their most almighty god is responsible for the origin of life. And they have, in the past, for far less ambitious ideas, let alone experiments. It's called heresy. There is a raging BATTLE between scientists and silly folks who are unwilling to accept even the role of evolution in things(try turning on a neoconservative TV channel sometime), because of the texts written by people thousands of years ago, which you are supposed to believe in literally. They have books and essays published to "refute" science and rationalism. In fact, most of them will cast YOU among the lost souls, too, you modernist liberal interpreter of the holy books you.

The fact that you have set your mind on something, regardless of the stark contrast between it and scientific evidence, does not mean that it is okay for the rest of the world. People who understand science won't be very shaken with abiogenesis. It is the people that don't who will be losing sleep.

Re:Interesting work

[jelton]

One question.

When did god create metaphorical language, before or after the creation of "heavens -- space" and "earth -- matter-energy"?

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

People, people, come to your senses. The answer is 42. We all know it. What we do not know is what question is.

Also, even if the (almost) would not be there, and even if this substance would be able to eat, replicate and adapt to environmental changes and evolve: How did you lads get from that article to the "ultimate origins" shite?

The fact that this dude made life would contradict creationism only if you assume that when the Genesis book in the Bible claims that God literally took dirt and created man.

If however you accept this as a figure of speech used to briefly summarize the entire evolution without having to resort to chemistry, genetics and physics at an advanced level(which would have been a bit difficult to chew for the dudes whom first wrote the book) then I guess identifying that life can be caused in a lab proves less then a dry shite in the middle of the desert.

After all people eventually come to replicate anything that exists in nature sooner or later. E.g. It takes nature a whole lot of time to compress carbon into a diamond. Not to mention the time needed to convert a living being into carbon. Well, nowadays, there are dudes that can reduce any departed member of your clan into a wearable diamond in about a week for the appropriate sum of cash.

Re:Interesting work

[wormBait]

Perhaps things don't happen all simultaneously. Perhaps everything happens backward; but, since you can only remember in one direction, that's how you perceive time.

Re:Interesting work

[Rick Bentley]

I don't think so. If a creationist asks a scientist "Where did we come from" the scientist will go into evolution, the history of the earth, the history of our solar system, how stars are formed and how their death creates the heavier elements and how we think it all came from a big bang. When asked "where did the big bang come from?" the scientist should reply "we're working on it, here's what we know and think so far..."

This is very different from someone asking a creationist "where did we come from?" and he says "adam, eve, 7 days and nights, all from god." When asked where god came from he says "er, always been here, I guess"

god is often just used as a big logical dumping ground for everything that can't be explained. This is unfortunate, because it keeps (some of) us from working on the hard problems.

Re:Interesting work

[Weedlekin]

"ALL other religions and world views always place their version of God within our time-space-matter-energy universe, or as as part of it."

Balderdash. Hinduism for example says that this universe is one of many that have existed, and others will exist after it (their total number is supposedly greater than the drops of water in the Ganges). Each of them is created by Brahma The Creator, maintained by Vishnu the Preserver, and will eventually be destroyed by Shiva the Destroyer, who are mere avatars of The Great One, a being so complex that humans can only perceive minute and sometimes apparently self-contradictory aspects of it. The story says that one day to Brahma is greater than four thousand million human years, and when he sleeps at night, the Earth is destroyed, and will be recreated when he awakes. After Brahma has lived a number of these days equal to the days in a human life, Shiva will destroy this universe (an act that also destroys Shiva and Vishnu), leaving Brahma to create a new universe and new avatars of Vishnu and Shiva.

"ONLY in the Bible does the real, eternal self-existent God reveal Himself as One outside of and entirely independent of the Universe and its content."

Nobody who isn't living in complete ignorance of the writings of the many other religions that have existed during our history would make such a preposterous claim, because the African Kabuka and Mandinga religions have single gods who create the entirety of the universe, as does the original Korean religion (which calls the creator JuMulJu), the ancient Egyptian cosmogony of Ptah, and many, many other religions both ancient and modern.

Re:Interesting work

[im_thatoneguy]

There are two kinds of creationists.

Deluded ones who believe that it's actually based on observation (science based creationists). And those who hold onto it purely because they want to and for no other reason what so ever (faith based creationists).

The second variety (of which you seem to be a member) have nothing to fear from any research ever so yes... if we accept that evolution is possible as a mechanism then this will have no effect one way or another.

If you say "God caused ambiogenesis" then you're pretty safe from scrutiny and falsifiability (I would argue that what that leaves you is no longer the judeo-christian tradition and pushes it out to a form of deism due to the philisophical consequences of evolution and 'fall of man'.) or if you push it even further out to the big bang "God caused the big bang" then you're almost completely safe (for now) from scrutiny.

However in both cases the only argument that can be made for "rock grew up from under ground millions of years ago" vs "rock fell from above millions of years ago" is purely speculative. Which means any theory may be advanced. "I'm a ExoImplosionists. I believe that the big bang was caused by an alien fart which imploded under its own stink."

The trouble with circumstances where science has no domain is that it means everybody's belief is pointless and completely random. That's the trouble with situations where you really do have to just take it on faith... nobody's faith is better than anybody else's which means YOU are without a doubt statistically wrong. And so am I. Which leaves us worse off than before we even started.

Re:Interesting work

[omuls are tasty]

My point was to show that either the universe has always existed or something or someone came before that (and maybe before that, etc.). Eventually you get to something or someone that existed in infinity past / the "beginning".

Judging from the rest of your post, it seems that you're well aware that general relativity suggests that spacetime collapses prior to the Planck epoch, and that it makes no sense to talk about "before" in that context. So... I can't fix it for you, you'd need to do it yourself ;)

Of course, when someone finally comes up with a TOE I'd might need to fix my post for myself...

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice straw man idiot.
Singularities do not exist quantum mechanically

god = phail

Re:Interesting work

[lawpoop]

When asked "where did the big bang come from?" the scientist should reply "we're working on it, here's what we know and think so far..."

You misunderstand the theory of the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the ultimate origin, the beginning of time and space itself. There was nothing before the Big Bang, because all matter and space ultimately originated at the Big Bang. In fact, there wasn't even a before the Big Bang -- time itself originated then, too!

Here's what wikipedia says:

"In 1931 Lemaître went further and suggested that the evident expansion in forward time required that the universe contracted backwards in time, and would continue to do so until it could contract no further, bringing all the mass of the universe into a single point, a "primeval atom", at a point in time before which time and space did not exist. As such, at this point, the fabric of time and space had not yet come into existence. "

So, the Big Bang didn't "come from" anywhere. It's an ultimate origin, just like a Creator God.

Most creationists are radical monotheists, although they may not be able to argue the position well. Check out Maimonides' _Guide for the Perplexed_ for a good understanding of radical monotheism. An unchanging, omnipotent, omniscient God has no beginning nor no end; therefore, the question of "Where did God come from" is non-sensical. The God that creationists suppose transcends time.

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

It always existed because time is internal to the universe. There is no "before" the universe any more than there is anything south of the South Pole.

Re:Interesting work

[NiteShaed]

So, the Big Bang didn't "come from" anywhere. It's an ultimate origin, just like a Creator God.

No, it's the origin of the universe we inhabit, not necessarily the origin of *everything*. We don't know where it came from, or what caused it, but that doesn't mean that science just says, "Well, we don't know where it came from, so nothing can possibly have preceeded it". Maybe someday we will, but right there is the difference between science and religion. In science, you can say "I don't know yet", in religion, you fall back to "Because God willed it". Big difference.

Re:Interesting work

[Zenaku]

Here is the crux of the matter. You can either believe that the universe exists but was not created by anything, or you can believe that the universe must have been created by "God," who exists but was not created by anything.

Both beliefs require accepting the existence of something that was not created.

But we know the universe exists, we can directly observe that. Scientists only need to accept that this directly observable known thing called space-time didn't "come from" anywhere -- that it exists is a given.

Theists need to first accept that God exists at all -- for which there is no evidence, except the axiom that the universe had to "come from" somewhere -- and then accept that this unobservable God himself didn't "come from" anywhere.

So one belief is that an observed measurable thing exists but came from nowhere, while the other belief is that an unobserved unprovable thing exists but came from nowhere. Those are quite different.

Re:Interesting work

[AndersOSU]

I disagree. Plenty of people can, and do, believe 100% in the first verse, but don't think we've got all the later details precisely right.

I find it useful to distinguish between a philosophical idea of god who is, at least, omnipotent and eternal, and a religious god who is anthropomorphized in some way.

The first verse simply postulates a philosophical creator god. If you just take the first verse you can make the argument that god was the watchmaker - a position which, if not necessarily useful, isn't particularly problematic either.

I have more issues with god raining brimstone as a result of immorality than I do with, "In the beginning..."

Re:Interesting work

[Hierophant7]

Well, after today, we might just find out how the big bang started. (LHC)

Re:Interesting work

[Joey Vegetables]

From my very limited background as an amateur, part-time Bible student in the past:

• The oldest texts (Alexandrian family mainly) differ substantially from the later "Textus Receptus" family. These differences dwarf any subtle differences between translations based on the same textual family.
• Most widely used English translations are actually pretty good. In particular, the KJV does a fairly good job of translating the TR (though the English is of course out of date) and the NIV does a decent job on the Alexandrian family.
• People who prefer the KJV in spite of its dated English, including myself, often do so because they are not fully persuaded that a handful of older texts outweigh the evidence of numerous newer ones. But even in this group there are many (again including me) who would like an updated version of the KJV, keeping the same textual basis but updating the language to be more understandable to 21st century English speakers.
• Even the substantial differences between Alexandrian and non-Alexandrian manuscript families are somewhat irrelevant to doctrine.
• For the Old Testament we have a completely different problem. The text can be reconstructed fairly well. The meaning of the text sometimes cannot, because of our less than perfect knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic. The best evidence often comes from versions (translations) and while some of these are much later than the texts in question, they do provide valuable insight into the meaning.
• The Greek LXX (Septuagint) version is enigmatic at best . . . it is not of particularly good quality, yet Jesus and the apostles quoted from it extensively, even in places where it appears to differ in meaning from the Hebrew text. To me this is an unsolved problem. It suggests a need for further research and questioning of many of the assumptions Bible scholars tend to make.

Re:Interesting work

[Joey Vegetables]

As an aspiring Christian I have no interest in "lynching" or otherwise harming anyone, except possibly for those who deliberately harm others without provokation. The two great commands given by Christ are to love God with all your being, and also love your neighbor (i.e., all other people) as yourself. I don't see how "lynching" people you disagree with could possibly be consistent with either of these commands. Hence, when I see or hear about so-called "Christians" acting hatefully toward other people, sometimes even other Christians, I have no choice but to think they are doing this not because of their faith, but in direct contradiction to it. Sure, "Christianity" may be the excuse for doing wrong. But not the reason. If they did not have that excuse, they would surely pick some other. To genuinely follow the Prince of Peace, one must follow peace. One must love not only one's friends, but even one's enemies. I must admit I do not do this perfectly, or even particularly well, but I understand that I must at least try, and seek God's help, and seek forgiveness from Him and from those whom I have wronged when I mess up.

Also . . . I believe that God created everything. I do not pretend to know how, nor do I pretend that the knowledge we gain from science, and the knowledge we gain from faith, will ever be identical. If they were, then one would not be necessary. But I do think they are consistent, or at least should be. If not then something is wrong. As I understand it, God created us with the ability and desire to learn about our universe. I'm not afraid of where that learning will lead. I oppose the teaching of dogma - *any* dogma - as if it were science. But I'm also pretty convinced that people who are informed and open-minded will eventually converge upon similar understandings of similar truths, regardless of the path they choose to take in order to get there. Until then, if we must agree to disagree, that's OK with me.

Re:Interesting work

[gfxguy]

So then maybe God was a biologist; we're simply a long forgotten experiment.

Re:Interesting work

[quizwedge]

Didn't know it in quite that way (my physics and astronomy training is limited to basic jr high and high school and briefly covered in one college class), but the basic idea, yes. Still, for lack of better terms, I had to choose something and beginning works as well as anything else, if not better, given that we tend to think of time as linear. Thanks for filling in the gaps with a more technical description. :)

Re:Interesting work

[jjm496]

dang...wish I had mod points to give to this one. Very well put.

Re:Interesting work

[quizwedge]

I have found evidence to support my belief in God and would argue that there are many proofs of God from many different angles (logical, philosophical, historical, even scientific), but have been around Slashdot long enough to know that any debate on the evidence of God can quickly turn into a flame war and, at best, leads to no conclusion at all. :)

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found evidence to support my belief in God

In my experience this phrase is uttered exclusively by those who use a very loose definition of the word "evidence."

Re:Interesting work

[Zenaku]

Indeed, and despite my own beliefs I tried to keep it civil and simply point out how the two beliefs are not equivalent.

I could argue that the logical, philisophical, or historical "proofs" you speak of do not constitute either evidence or proof in a scientific sense, but as you rightly point out, that's a flamewar waiting to happen.

So instead I will simply say this -- whatever scientific evidence you may feel you have for the existence of God, the scientific body of evidence for the existence of the universe is rather more substantial. People will argue about the validity of the evidence for God until long after you and I are dead, but very few people deny the existence of the universe. Thus accepting the existence of a universe that came from nothing is still quite different from accepting the existence of a God that came from nothing.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

... who would like an updated version of the KJV, keeping the same textual basis....

Check out and compare Green's Modern King James Version to your "normal" KJV. I find the MKJV very readable. The familiar rhythm and meter of the original KJV is mostly retained, but the old, no longer used expression are replaced with their modern equivalents. I have a printed copy as well as well as the electronic copy as part of the free e-sword distribution.

(.. The Greek LXX (Septuagint) version is enigmatic at best ..)

It is quite likely that the 70 scholars had better, more accurate manuscripts available to them. It was the common Bible available to Jesus. I believe that an eternal, transcendent God, capable of, and desiring to communicate to mankind, has the ability to keep His message from getting messed up such as to express anything He did not intend.

You echo this with your statement: "Even the substantial differences between Alexandrian and non-Alexandrian manuscript families are somewhat irrelevant to doctrine".

As Mark Twain, a disbeliever once said: "I don't have trouble with the parts of the Bible I don't understand, but the parts of the Bible I do understand very well, but do not wish to be obedient to".

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It has that ability no matter which translation is used.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

God searched, but could not find an innocent party among humans. We are all liars, thieves etc. and therefore guilty. So now the choice was narrowed down to either enforce the law on us all or become human and then take the decreed punishment Himself as a human. Because of His love for us that is what God did in Jesus Christ.

We are all under the sentence of eternal death, sitting here on Earth, on death row. However, what God did through Jesus Christ enabled him to offer a pardon for those WILLING to accept such a pardon and agreeing to not desire to be a liar, thief, adulterer etc. any longer. This doesn't mean we will no longer occasionally lie, steal, be unfaithful, etc, but that we have change of heart, a change of attitude about the seriousness of these offenses and earnestly strive to avoid them.

God doesn't want to execute the judgment on you or anyone else, but will be forced to in the end, if he desires to maintain justice, which he does. I have accepted his pardon and now He is waiting for you to also accept the pardon he freely offers.

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

...The Great One, a being so complex that humans can only perceive minute and sometimes apparently self-contradictory aspects of it...

What a contrast this is to what Jesus promises to all who accept his message.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Jesus came so you and I may KNOW this true God. He does represent him as a self-contrdictory enigma, distant, aloof and unknowable. Jesus and the Apostles present God as a loving, merciful FATHER, rather than a distant, unapproachable deity.

(..and when he sleeps at night..)

So this god Brahma gets tired at night?
Contrast that with this:

Isaiah 40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow weak nor weary?

Revelation 22:5 And there will be no night there. And they need no lamp, or light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light.

1 John 1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

The God of the Bible doesn't need to sleep because he doesn't get tired. He is a God of light and is surrounded by light. The Bible associates darkness with evil. The Devil is called the prince of darkness. Maybe that is who this Brahma really is?

Re:Interesting work

[arminw]

....When did god create metaphorical language, before or after the creation of "heavens -- space" and "earth -- matter-energy"?...

God used language that can be understood by everybody, including those who lived long before modern science. We still use that kind of language today in everyday conversations. We still talk about sunrises and sunsets, even though science has since shown that this is an illusion created by the rotation of the Earth. God says that we are made of the dust of the ground. That is still true. Your and my bodies are STILL really dirt clods. Our food grows in the soil (dirt) and takes up the elements you are made of. So this is still scientifically true. The elements in your body are the same as the ones in fertile soil. Even the proportions of the elements are roughly the same.

So this language was designed to be understood by the ancients as well as us, who think of ourselves so knowledgeable compared to those ignoramuses who lived a long time ago.

In the book of Job, God finally talks to Job. Read chapters 38-41 sometime. Here the Creator God give Job a science quiz. Job flunked. Modern scientist given this test might be lucky to barely get a "D". The more we discover about nature, the more we realize how little we really know.

Re:Interesting work

[Copid]

As Mark Twain, a disbeliever once said: "I don't have trouble with the parts of the Bible I don't understand, but the parts of the Bible I do understand very well, but do not wish to be obedient to".

Speaking of different versions of historical text, I don't think that I've ever seen a version of that Mark Twain quote with the clause in bold on the end of it.

Re:Interesting work

[johanatan]

Regarding the third bullet:
Haven't you heard of the New King James Version? NKJV is exactly what you want.

Regarding the last bullet:
It's quite remarkable that a so-called 'error' in the Septuagint's version of Isaiah mentioned that the messiah would be born to a virgin (not exactly an error but more like an ambiguity introduced in the translation from Hebrew to Greek if I'm not mistaken). Could it be that it was no error at all? ;-)

And, I think that when you look at the original Hebrew, the word which the Septuagint translates as virgin is less easily translated that way directly into English (though still reasonably so--i.e., the virgin definition is 3rd or 4th on the list in a Hebrew -> English dictionary).

Re:Interesting work

[johanatan]

GP covered both bases. 'God within our time-space-matter-energy universe' is known as pantheism and the clause 'or as a part of it' covers panentheism (which seems to fit your description of Hinduism).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

A problem with both of your posts is that you fail to consider that all of the major religions are well represented in both camps (and Hinduism particularly has a somewhat strong pantheist aspect to it as well). I, myself, am a Christian and fall into the panentheism camp (and I do not see how the GP can claim that Christianity does not have room for God within the universe as [at the very least] Jesus came in the flesh and His Spirit remains manifest in the natural world until this day--that's about as much a 'part' of it as you could ask for really ;-)).

Re:Interesting work

[Weedlekin]

" 'God within our time-space-matter-energy universe' is known as pantheism and the clause 'or as a part of it' covers panentheism (which seems to fit your description of Hinduism)."

It does indeed fit Hinduism. Their "Great One" is a being of unlimited power that exists outside time and space, but has an extremely wide variety of different manifestation that, with the notable exception of Brahma, are only present within a universe, and therefore cease to exist when it's destroyed. This isn't entirely dissimilar to the Kabbalistic Schemhamphorasch, where God has 72 names, each of which represents a specific aspect of the universe and an associated group of angelic beings that look different from the ones connected with other names, and have dominion over whatever the name itself represents.

"A problem with both of your posts is that you fail to consider that all of the major religions are well represented in both camps (and Hinduism particularly has a somewhat strong pantheist aspect to it as well)."

Where did I fail to consider this?

"I do not see how the GP can claim that Christianity does not have room for God within the universe as [at the very least] Jesus came in the flesh"

The many Old Testament accounts of God both speaking to people and directly causing a wide variety of physical phenomena indicates that the god of the Hebrews must have at least had what the Hindus would describe as "avatars" within the universe long before the events described in the New Testament. Multiple avatars would also provide a neat explanation for some of the terms in the old testament that point to the Hebrews originally having a polytheistic religion e.g. the "Beni Elohim" (Sons of the Gods) who mated with human women to produce the giant Nephalim.

Re:Interesting work

[Weedlekin]

Your obvious inability to answer my points with anything except a childish "my dad's better than your dad" pissing contest disgraces the many, many intelligent Christians who do not hide from debates by squawking bits of memorised doctrine like demented parrot.

Re:Interesting work

[johanatan]

The reason I said you failed to consider it is because your post sounded like Hinduism contained only a panentheism faction and not also a pantheism one. If you look exclusively at the pantheist camp, then the GP makes more sense--though yes, panentheism may be the more proper 'Hinduism' (I certainly have more fondness for it). ;-)

Good points though about Kaballah and the OT. All of the major religions in fact have a lot in common in this respect. It's a shame that more Christians do not recognize that.

As for the Nephalim though--what do they have to do with polytheism? As I understand it, the 'sons of God' were simply fallen angels with physical earthly bodies. Anyone worshipping them would not have been true 'Hebrews' but rather pagan. And, in fact, the Hebrews did not exist until Abraham who came rather a long time after the flood destroyed the Nephalim. If, however, you mean the line of godly men including Enoch and Noah--they were monotheistic and had nothing to do with these or any other 'gods'.

Re:Interesting work

[Weedlekin]

"As for the Nephalim though--what do they have to do with polytheism? As I understand it, the 'sons of God' were simply fallen angels with physical earthly bodies. "

As I said previously (but perhaps not clearly enough), the polytheistic reference is in the Hebrew term "Beni Elohim" for those that mated with human women. Elohim is the plural of Eloah, so Beni Elohim literally means Sons of The Gods, not Sons of God.

Elohim (and singular forms "El" and "Eloah") occur quite frequently in Genesis, so there's a considerable amount of debate among scholars about both their derivation and meaning when it's not obvious from context. I'm far from alone in thinking that they point quite strongly at the ancient Hebrews originally having the same polytheistic religion as the Canaanites, but I also realise that there are others with differing opinions, and that we'll probably never know for sure (unless of course we invent time travel).

Re:Interesting work

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, right. This is actually one piece of evidence that Christians interpret as the Trinity--God in three persons. And, in fact, the Trinity itself could be thought of as separate 'avatars'.

Also, you can hear the Trinity communicating amongst themselves when they say 'Let us make man in our image.' I don't interpret Elohim to mean any more than those '3-in-one' but obviously, there are other interpretations.

Questions about Creationism?

[thefolkmetal]

That seems slightly ironic in this particular case, simply because these protocells were "created" by this Jack fellow. I don't believe in Jack.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[religious freak]

Well, just pick up the phone and call him then :)

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[the_humeister]

But Jack believes in you. We should all be grateful for his holiness, Jack. I pray to Jack every night and sometimes wonder if He hears my prayers? Well, Jack works in mysterious ways...

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[jgarra23]

Do you ever tell Jack off?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you don't know Jack! (say it with emphasis on the Jack)

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[aliquis]

Yeah, I don't get that line either, this creates questions about creationism HOW?!

Sure life may evolve into being able to create more life, but what the fuck does that have to do with creationism? There is no fucking proofs or anything pointing for that religious bullshit, how could this possible make some made up story about the invisible, never possible to test, never to be observed, non-existant piece of bullshit true or worth discussing at all!?!

Stupid fuck who submitted this story. There is no questions about creationism, there is nothing to be discussed, there is no topic whatsoever.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[nawcom]

Hey! at least Jack has a damn answering machine. Way better than the 20 something other gods and goddesses out there who won't even effectively manage all of the prayers... I'd rather burn for eternity rather than serving some person who is out of date by a good amount of decades when it comes to telecommunications.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Chris Burke]

Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things, right now: Jack and shit... and Jack just left town.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[aliquis]

First rule of jack club: You don't talk about jack off.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[glittalogik]

Did you mean my uncle Jack? Because I once helped my uncle Jack off a horse.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Tweenk]

Please mod parent Flamebait

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do but Jack never answers. :(

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[hairyfeet]

Heathen! You feeble Jack is puny and fails before the might of the Great Bob! Does YOUR deity have an entire Operating System based on his word? No! All he has is a wimpy game based on knowledge of the lame like Britney Spears! Denounce your failure of a deity and repent! Jack...PFFFT! I fart in his general direction!

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Joe Pesci you insensitive clod!

Beware the bat.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[pitchpipe]

I don't know Jack (well, and maybe neither do you), but I think you're really pissing Hank off.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

I Jack off every night, does that count? :)

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[VanGarrett]

To the contrary, I submit that God's telecommunication system is really quite sophisticated, in that you can successfully send Him a message without any special equipment, and all you have to do is speak, or by some doctrines, think it. Where the complication comes in, however, is that He is apparently mute, and must therefore reply with subtleties.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Junior J. Junior III]

So, you're saying you don't know Jack?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Barradrewda]

Man, I can't stand God. He has such a Jack-complex lately.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what? Why do people continue to give any kind of notice to so stupid an idea as creationism? Creationism isn't a scientific idea and as such has no business being in any part of any serious conversation. It is and has been thoroughly disproven as even possibility so enough already!

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[duckInferno]

Hey, that worked!

Please mod parent offtopic.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Molochi]

Also, prefacing each prayer with the holy word "SUDO" helps.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Right stop talking and just watch me.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[houghi]

Is that Jack Bates? The stable boy called him Master Bates.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[ikkonoishi]

I think you missed a comma or two there. Or did you?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[glittalogik]

It's a pretty famous example of the value of both commas and capitalisation, I figured I could add one and leave off the other for equivalent effect.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[nospam007]

>That seems slightly ironic in this particular case, simply because these protocells were "created" by this Jack fellow. I don't believe in Jack.

The real question is: Does the greasy blob believe in Jack?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[dreamchaser]

Does Jack have noodly apendages?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, just pick up the phone and call him then :)

What if he never answers, like that other one?

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[jellomizer]

Perhaps not, lets take the history of communication with command officials.
1. I hit you with a club, you instantly respond.
2. I talk to you directly, you respond unless you really don't want to.
3. I talk to your servant, who will decide to talk to you or not about my request then you have a decision either to respond or not.
4. I write to your servant, who will take his time getting to you if he feels like it then you get the letter and decide to read it or not then to respond to it or not, then you get it back you decide to read it.
5. I telephone your servant the servant will decide to or not to answer the phone, Then he will write it down if he feels like it and .....
6. I telephone to the servants voice mail. Who will decide to check the message or not..... .... .... ....
Finally we get to the future of Communication were we can sit down and think of our message in hope that there is a chance that the person in charge will respond telepathically to our request.

God isn't behind the times he is well ahead of the times where communication has become so efficient that no one will bother listening anymore.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[kat_skan]

WELCOME TO HELL, MORTAL.

Aw shit.

EVERYONE HERE HAS FIBER!

Hey, cool.

YOU HAVE TO GET IT FROM COMCAST.

Aw shit.

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jack off!

Re:Questions about Creationism?

[Balforth]

Well you obviously don't know Jack.

Intelligent design

[suck_burners_rice]

If this experiment is successful, it will finally prove, once and for all, that life was not created by intelligent design. How will it prove that? Well, if an intelligent being (the aforementioned biologist) succeeds in creating a life form, then it follows, logically, that the life form he creates is not the result of the work of an intelligent being. It's simple logic, and any idiot can see that.

Incidentally, all the generations that came before ours thought that life came from some intelligent being, but they were all stupid because they didn't live in the enlightened world that we live in today. There were no cars, computers, airplanes, and other technologies. They didn't have the Internet or Wikipedia. Thus, they were stupid. Today, we're much smarter than that and we know better than to believe in such nonsense.

Re:Intelligent design

[moderatorrater]

the life form he creates is not the result of the work of an intelligent being

I wouldn't say that to his face.

Incidentally, all the generations that came before ours thought that life came from some intelligent being, but they were all stupid because they didn't live in the enlightened world that we live in today. There were no cars, computers, airplanes, and other technologies. They didn't have the Internet or Wikipedia. Thus, they were stupid. Today, we're much smarter than that and we know better than to believe in such nonsense.

What an awesome troll. I was going to actually respond, but then I realized that your post discredits itself rather well :D

This neither confirms nor denies any religious beliefs. If your religious beliefs rely on science not being able to do something, then you're almost certainly going to be shown to be wrong.

Re:Intelligent design

[religious freak]

It's a shame I share your conclusions when your thinking is so fundamentally flawed.

You should look up the word 'logic' in a dictionary.

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

Today, we're much smarter than that and we know better than to believe in such nonsense.

      You speak as if you personally have invented "cars, computers, airplanes and other technologies". I submit that you are just as stupid as your ancestors.

Re:Intelligent design

[Legion_SB]

Well, if an intelligent being (the aforementioned biologist) succeeds in creating a life form, then it follows, logically, that the life form he creates is not the result of the work of an intelligent being. It's simple logic, and any idiot can see that.

Exactly! It's like, last week I made a burrito, and I'm white. Then it follows that all burritos made before me must have been created by white people too. The stupid "burritos came from Mexicans" theory will be dead in the water. Finally, no more Mexationists.

Re:Intelligent design

[QuantumG]

Awesome sarcasm +1.

Seeing as we're having the inevitable Intelligent Design conversation (I'd much rather be discussing how we can use the awesome power of nanotechnology to change the world, but hey), I guess I should discuss my sig.

Why are all Creationists so uncreative? They don't seem to have any opinions of their own, they just regurgitate whatever they've been told. Are we to believe "it looks like someone made it" is the best argument they can come up with? Or maybe the "random chance couldn't have made life" argument? Any reasonably intelligent person who knows a few things about evolution can come up with some examples of predictions that are made by the theory and yet are just not true, and yet this kind of legitimate scientific objection isn't even entertained by the Creationist and Intelligent Design mob.

Let me give you a few examples:

* Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?
* Iron is an essential part of metabolism. Brains and nervous systems are basically electrical systems. Some animals even have a compass. So why do no animals have radios? Not even primitive ones.
* Impressive results have been seen in modeling evolution - for example, genetic algorithms - but all of these systems plateau after a certain amount of runtime. This is the so called "local maxima" problem. Yet biologists claim with a straight face that Darwinian evolution is open ended.
* Horizontal gene transfer has been observed in the lab between multi-cellular organisms.. doesn't this just completely blow away the traditionalist "tree of life" assumption?

and I could go on, and on and on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Creationist.. but if I can think this stuff up, how come all I ever hear from the Intelligent Design people is the same tired old bunk?

Put some effort in crackpots, you're boring me.

Re:Intelligent design

[jmpeax]

Parent is being sarcastic and implying that because as intelligent beings, if we create life, it is evidence that ID is correct.

Your argument is based on a logical fallacy: just because one life form was created by an intelligent being, it doesn't mean that all life forms were created by intelligent beings.

they were all stupid [...] Today, we're much smarter than that

Oh! The irony!

Re:Intelligent design

[mcsporran]

The word you are looking for is ignorant, and is often due to a lack of access to knowledge.
To be stupid you have to ignore, deny and/or not study the current knowledge of the topic.
The world is far from enlightened, and one of the reasons for this, is Creationist Stupidity.

Re:Intelligent design

[timmarhy]

Your side is the one calling creationism "intelligent design" in an attempt to legitimise it. we've never said it's impossible to design or create life, merely that a big man from the sky didn't do it in seven days 6000 years ago and that the animals didn't start out as they are today.

Re:Intelligent design

[pikine]

It is evident that evolution must be taught in school, not as an objective truth, but so people will learn it enough to find flaws in it. However, many schools teach evolution as if it's the Ten Commandments, which should never be the way science is taught.

Re:Intelligent design

[drsmithy]

Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?

How do you propose a non-tasty egg reproduce to pass on its non-tasty genes, given its tastiness is unknown until reproduction is impossible ?

(Personally, I wouldn't say eggs are "tasty" though. They usually need something else with them...)

Iron is an essential part of metabolism. Brains and nervous systems are basically electrical systems. Some animals even have a compass. So why do no animals have radios? Not even primitive ones.

Passive vs active interaction.

Impressive results have been seen in modeling evolution - for example, genetic algorithms - but all of these systems plateau after a certain amount of runtime. This is the so called "local maxima" problem. Yet biologists claim with a straight face that Darwinian evolution is open ended.

I'll have to leave this one for someone more knowledgable in genetics than I.

Horizontal gene transfer has been observed in the lab between multi-cellular organisms.. doesn't this just completely blow away the traditionalist "tree of life" assumption?

In what way is reviewing an assumption in the face of new evidence a problem with a scientific theory ?

Re:Intelligent design

[Ginger Unicorn]

i think the goal of most of the more vocal book-publishing creationists is to convince the layman there are obvious "common sense" contradictions that kill evolution stone dead in its tracks.

anything more subtle and technical is a waste of time, as we see when creationists make more specific rigorously defined claims that are consistently shredded by informed rebuttals from the only audience that could even appreciate any significance in what they are trying to say.

Re:Intelligent design

[suck_burners_rice]

a big man from the sky didn't do it in seven days 6000 years ago

Are you sure about that? I have proof it did happen that way -- in writing. It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal.

Re:Intelligent design

[aliquis]

You can't prove anything for religions morons because it's not science and nothing lets itself be tested. All you can do is tell them to fuck off and shut the fuck up because there is nothing to discuss, no theories, no what if, no maybies. It's just like arguing on the Internet, even if you're not the christian it still makes you retarded. They are not worth it, just hope they all die and burn in hell so we don't have to hear them any more.

Re:Intelligent design

[aliquis]

Maybe we could use nanotechnology to develop some new bullets or something to help us get rid of the ID-people?

Re:Intelligent design

[drsmithy]

I wasn't making an argument against evolution.. I was suggesting some remotely sensible arguments against evolution and asking why people who are against evolution never come up with anything similar.

I was merely making the point that your examples *aren't* particularly good.

Fuckwit.

Re:Intelligent design

[aliquis]

And if god was so fucking smart why did he made two sexes? Why not just make one or make us hermaphrodites? If there are no heritage of mutations and ongoing evolution of the species why have two sexes? Seems like such a waste of potential partners. Not very intelligent.

If we made a robot army would we waste our time doing two different models and make it in such a way that you needed both to generate a new one!?!

Re:Intelligent design

[QuantumG]

They're certainly better than "looks like God did it".

Surely you can agree with that. So why argue beside the point?

Re:Intelligent design

[ichthyoboy]

So why do no animals have radios? Not even primitive ones.

Both gymnotiformes (South American knifefishes) and mormyrids (African elephantfishes) produce electric fields that are used for electrolocation and electrocommunication. It's not as powerful as radio waves, but they still are generating and manipulating electric fields for communication.

Re:Intelligent design

[QuantumG]

Well that's just too easy. Human intuition about the physical world is pretty good, so long as you stand well back. Take a closer look and most all human intuition falls apart. That's kind of the point of science.

Re:Intelligent design

[dgatwood]

I have proof that the Earth was destroyed to make way for an hyperspace bypass. It's all there in black and white.

The Bible is no more proof of something than the Hitchhiker's Guide is. Ultimately, it comes down to a question of faith. Do you believe that the Bible is the word of God, of men, or somewhere in-between? In the absence of proof of the Bible's divine creation, the Bible cannot in and of itself be considered proof of anything except for its own existence as a literary work. It is like hearing expert testimony from someone who has not yet presented his or her credentials in the field of inquiry.

As for myself, I feel that while the Bible is inspired by God, it cannot reasonably be taken as the perfect, unblemished work thereof. It contradicts itself too much, the time scales are too absurd (humans living how many thousand years?), and there's too much overwhelming evidence that contradicts the exact literal interpretation of parts of it. IMHO, Genesis is best interpreted allegorically---an explanation of evolution written very simply so that the relatively primitive people of that era would have a prayer of understanding it. Expecting to read a book from thousands of years ago and read words like "God created the dinosaurs" in a book written more than 2000 years before the discovery of the first intact dinosaur skeleton would be remarkably optimistic to say the least.

In any case, it is not proof, as in the absence of a very strict constructionist view of the Bible, the mere existence of Genesis in print does not compel one to accept its words as truth.

Re:Intelligent design

[lgw]

Small nitpik: one who ignores knowledge is precisely ignorant. Before creating you own pet definition of words, pay attention to the obvious etymology.

Re:Intelligent design

[draco664]

I was merely making the point that your examples *aren't* particularly good.

Compared to the usual drivel IDiots usually spout, they are almost Einsteinian...

Re:Intelligent design

[Cassius Corodes]

I know you are not a creationist but just in case there are people wondering about these questions I will attempt to answer them. Especially as the previous attempt by another commenter was so appallingly bad.

Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?

I would see here two main reasons: one that if eggs changed their taste to discourage predation, predators would be under evolutionary pressure to change their taste sense to ensure they liked the taste of eggs - so this problem could not be directly solved. Some animals develop poisons to discourage others to eat them, but generally this only works for a short while before the main predators develop immunity to that poison, and now developing the poison is a penalty to you as you have to spend resources to make it while giving no benefits. The second part is that for eggs it might be more functional to focus ALL resources in getting the chick to the stage where it can defend itself / run away rather than diverting resources to producing some kind of deterrent.

Iron is an essential part of metabolism. Brains and nervous systems are basically electrical systems. Some animals even have a compass. So why do no animals have radios? Not even primitive ones.

This is an interesting question - but you have to look at what benefits a very weak radio might give a creature over using your voice (Hint: also think about possible downsides)? Generally once a solution has evolved to a problem, better solutions even if they are already in a primitive stage are blocked from evolving by being out competed.

Impressive results have been seen in modeling evolution - for example, genetic algorithms - but all of these systems plateau after a certain amount of runtime. This is the so called "local maxima" problem. Yet biologists claim with a straight face that Darwinian evolution is open ended.

Well I work in genetic algorithms so this one is easy to field. GP/GAs have a massive limit in that they don't have a simple success/failure measure like natural selection. In nature the only qualification is that you can survive, and success is easy to measure. But if you are trying to develop say an better antenna the success can be hard do measure. Now nobody says that evolution can explore all the search space - that is a basic limitation of this search algorithm - but natural selection is still massively better than our implementations of it. Co-evolution is another force multiplier for natural selection that is hard to replicate in GAs - while a GP problem might see a plateau after a while, nature will not as not only do they have to solve a problem (stay alive) they have to compete against other beings that are being evolved - leading to an arms race, and the red queen effect (you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place).

Horizontal gene transfer has been observed in the lab between multi-cellular organisms.. doesn't this just completely blow away the traditionalist "tree of life" assumption?

Well this is not really a question, and all I can say is so what? Hybrids are common in nature as well and a model doesn't fit well in the tree metaphor either. If something doesn't fit any more with data its replaced with something that does.

Not to get at your actual question - the reason they don't pursue these tactics is that their current tactics are successful enough at their target audience. They are not targeting people who will think will logically about this - they want the people who like easy mantras "evolution is just a theory","I'm not related to apes","randomness != order". Evolution can be hard to comprehend as it is a complex dynamic that is not easily understood by our brains which are evolved for solving linear causality - and hence the mantras appeal to our "common sense". And they don't need to disprove it either, they just need to chip away at the confidence people have in it - inserting a bit of doubt so they can have support for introducing their "Alternative theories".

Re:Intelligent design

[suck_burners_rice]

The Bible in its entirety is not the unblemished work of God. The so-called Five Books of Moses were dictated by God and written down by man. The rest of the Bible is made up of many works of man. So my proof is the first five books. And what if I could tell you that it can be shown mathematically that these first five books have certain numerical characteristics not found in any work of man? It has been demonstrated mathematically.

Re:Intelligent design

[StrategicIrony]

Until about 100 years ago, most people ALSO believed that matter existed of a combination of earth, smoke and water.

See, when you burn a solid, it releases the smoke and all that is left is the earth.

And when you dry it, you release the water, so all that is left is earth and smoke.

When you add smoke to it, it clearly also changes its properties.

Obviously wikipedia's entry on the periodic table is wrong, since we're just so full of ourselves to believe in science.

I'm with ya man.

Re:Intelligent design

[PsychoElf]

It would be a lot easier to destroy a robot army based on all the same schematics.

All humans are different and breeding helps to insure our survival by keeping us different...unless you live in Kentucky.

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is that you're looking at creationism as a tenet held by the (overly) religious. Creationism is a religion. Therefore it allows no interpretation or re-examination. Period.

Frankly, I think their God owes them a repeat appearance. They and their children die as much as we, the world is as screwed up as ever in spite of their prayers and their Sedan de Villes can't even get 200 MPG. He owes me nothing because I think He's a fiction. But He owes them a lot. Rather than a people not being deserving of heaven (and, by extension, God), He is a God not deserving of His believers.

Re:Intelligent design

[tompaulco]

How do you propose a non-tasty egg reproduce to pass on its non-tasty genes, given its tastiness is unknown until reproduction is impossible ?
Evolution is a numbers game. If a particular chicken (in the wild, not farm raised) had the bad tasting egg gene and survived to maturity and laid a clutch of eggs that tasted bad, a predator would be more likely to eat a few but not all, whereas it would probably eat all of another chickens eggs. Eventually, the surviving chickens could conceivably weed out all the chickens with good tasting eggs.
However, on an equal footing here is the possibility that predators could develop a taste for bad tasting eggs and the ones that liked the bad tasting eggs would be more likely to survive to maturity.
Then again, there is the likelihood that egg defense is only one small step in the reaching of maturity for a chicken, and probably not even the hardest step. There was more pressure to develop a way to fly short distances than to make bad tasting eggs.
By the way, my belief and defense of this particular possible avenue of evolutionary pressure does not dissuade me in the slightest from my belief in God.

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

And what if I could tell you that it can be shown mathematically that these first five books have certain numerical characteristics not found in any work of man? It has been demonstrated mathematically.

Which translation?

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we need to be different? Why not just have zero diseases? Not a very smart god then now is he? Not to mention your explanation is very close to what evolution is, you're just missing the part where "only the good genes survive".

Re:Intelligent design

[suck_burners_rice]

No translation. You have to use the original, which was in ancient Hebrew. This original has been passed down from generation to generation by specially "licensed" copiers who must adhere to over two thousand strict rules to ensure an exact copy. If a single pen stroke is off, the whole thing is deemed invalid, in much the same way that if you jack up a single bit in an executable image (during a bad copy or by using a hex editor) you'll end up with a program that probably crashes. The extra significance I talk about is this: Every letter in this work has three different dimensions of significance: Its sound, its shape (as written), and its numerical value. Now these letters are combined into words, which each have multiple literary definitions, and which inherit the sounds, shapes, and the sum of the numerical values of the letters. Each word has multiple definitions, and all of the definitions are simultaneously correct. Therefore, the same sentence can be read numerous different ways and significantly more literary data can be extracted from the same amount of text. Think of it as a sort of data compression scheme. Also, if you rearrange the letters of each word in all possible ways, each permutation is a different word which is related to the original. Numerically, their value is equal. Literarily, each word is a metaphor for the others. Therefore, different words written with different permutations of the same letters are related. Words written with completely different letters whose numerical value is equal are similarly related. Thus, by studying these connections, the meaning of each word (and thus the sentences that contain it) can be more closely understood, unlocking even more data from the same quantity of text. Think of it as a data compression scheme that works across multiple dimensions to achieve a very high compression ratio -- sort of like the way video compression takes surrounding pixels into consideration and also compresses temporally, across frames. There are actually algorithms for dealing with the many ways to parse this text, and numerous computer programs around that implement these algorithms. Thus, one can number-crunch through this text to provide the alternate "unwritten" meanings. It has been demonstrated that the same algorithms do not produce coherent results when fed data from other literary works. Any translation of this text loses all of this additional meaning beyond the simplest literal reading.

Re:Intelligent design

[dgatwood]

That still doesn't mean God intended it to be interpreted literally. If anything, it makes it far less likely because it shows a vast intelligence created it---a vast intelligence who presumably would be capable of understanding that primitive man was incapable of understanding something as complex as evolution.... :-)

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

Impressive results have been seen in modeling evolution - for example, genetic algorithms - but all of these systems plateau after a certain amount of runtime. This is the so called "local maxima" problem. Yet biologists claim with a straight face that Darwinian evolution is open ended.

Look up "Simulated Annealing"...

Re:Intelligent design

[aliquis]

If you accept the fact we are different and some attributes get mixed/copied/(can't find a good word for it) from your parents you is also accepting the fact that mutations in genomes get copied as well. Except a big enough amount of mutations and you also except that life evolve, and then you probably have no use for old gods and stupid stories since it could be explained without them.. And well, then you aren't into intelligent design at all.

Re:Intelligent design

[nospam007]

>* Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?

Your mother hid hers in her womb and most birds put theirs on high tree in places where most carnivores can't get at.

Re:Intelligent design

[lena_10326]

That post was very odd, illogical, and ambiguous. You are saying this.

1) Let intelligent being = IB
2) Let life form = LF
3) IB created LF

which you then conclude one or both of the following (the ambiguous part):

4) LF was not created by IB
5) IB was not intelligent

#4 violates statement #3. Either IB created LF or not. Choose only one please.
#5 violates statement #1. IB was intelligent and now he's not. Choose only one please.

These are your statements which represent your logic. Your logic is invalid because your statements conflict. It's also funny because you declared anyone who doesn't understand your broken logic is an idiot.

Regarding your second paragraph: you stated previous generations were stupid and our current generation is smart, which is why previous generations believed in intelligent creation of life. Your proof was in the fact past generations did not possess modern technology. Of course you've drawn a connection there between technology and religious belief. You're saying the intelligence of a person is measured by the nature of the technology he creates. I challenge that by asking you these questions:

• A lot of our technology is merely a refinement of old inventions and breakthroughs. For example: modern sailing ships versus wood sailing ships. The theory and practical use are the same, but one is a refinement over the other. How can we be smart and our ancestors be dumb if we're still using technology they created?
• Technology is abundant and highly available for the majority of people on the planet, yet religions still thrive. Also, many of our greatest inventions were created by devoutly religious people who believed there was an intelligent creator. How can this be? I thought technology and belief in intelligent design were mutually exclusive.
• Bees and ants create complex living structures. Their complexity rivals that of modern engineering, yet we don't consider bees and ants to be smart. We consider them dumb. How can a dumb creature create something complex?

Now. I'm not asking these questions because I don't know the answer. I'm asking them to illustrate just how vacuous and illogical your statements were.

Re:Intelligent design

[Weedlekin]

" Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?"

Egg-laying animals may well have done so many times in the past, but the lack of any objective measure of tastiness that is common to all species (or for that matter, all members of the same species -- consider for example the wide variety of human foods that are considered to be delicacies in one culture, and repulsive in another) is always producing a situation where those who didn't find the "new variant" egg intolerable ended up displacing the ones who were incapable of utilising these valuable sources of nutrients.

"Iron is an essential part of metabolism. Brains and nervous systems are basically electrical systems. Some animals even have a compass. So why do no animals have radios? Not even primitive ones."

There are some animals that have what amount to radio receivers, e.g. sharks, who can detect the small electrical impulses in their prey's neuro-muscular systems from a considerable distance. if predators already have receivers, you definitely don't want to be the animal who is broadcasting high-powered electromagnetic signals all over the place, because everything with sharp teeth and any amount of sensitivity to electrical impulses will be coming your way to see what's producing this interesting new tingle in their sensor circuits. This is an excellent explanation for the fact that the animals we know about which have harnessed electricity for uncommon applications use it to give those curious toothy things with receivers (and indeed ones that use other senses to find prey) a massive tingling in the sensors that they won't forget in a hurry.

"Impressive results have been seen in modeling evolution - for example, genetic algorithms - but all of these systems plateau after a certain amount of runtime. This is the so called "local maxima" problem. Yet biologists claim with a straight face that Darwinian evolution is open ended."

Anybody who has to deal with local maxima (and indeed local minima) problems in models knows that these are artefacts of the models themselves, not reflections of any limitations in the thing that is being modelled.

"Horizontal gene transfer has been observed in the lab between multi-cellular organisms.. doesn't this just completely blow away the traditionalist "tree of life" assumption?"

No, because biologists don't pretend that such trees are anything other than convenient human abstractions of a continuum, just as metres, Kelvin, grammes, seconds etc. are convenient human abstractions of continua (or more correctly, things that might as well be continua at those scales).

Re:Intelligent design

[Anonymous Coward]

Fundies say the darnedest things, eh? If you probe the text of any work of fiction enough, you're going to find some goofy shit. Every other work of fiction has "certain numerical characteristics" not found in any other work of man, and the Bible is no exception. But even if it was anything more than just a bunch of bullshit, it still wouldn't prove the existence of any type of deity.

Re:Intelligent design

[alexj33]

I hope you are being sarcastic and don't actually believe your post. It is difficult to tell.

So let me get this straight. If an intelligent scientist in a lab creates something, it will prove that those things aren't created by an intelligence. Your logic is stunning.

If a bug is created in a lab by a scientist (i.e. an intelligence), such a scenario will support ID theory, not disprove it.

Re:Intelligent design

[Ginger Unicorn]

I agree what everything in your post but it sounds almost like you're disagreeing with me somehow but i can't quite follow your point - what's too easy?

Re:Intelligent design

[oliderid]

Why are chicken eggs so tasty? Animals have been stealing eggs from birds for millions of years, shouldn't they have evolved some non-tasty additives by now?

Change your point of view: why do "you" find eggs so tasty (because you are the predator in this scenario). Taste is subjective, most common repulsive things are bad for your health or are a danger. You like it because there a lot of proteins and fat. You are "programmed" to like it. Key ingredients for your survival (27% of fat, 12% of protein, the rest mostly water...How could you resist?).

why are those eggs so rich? Because the embryo needs it in order to grow, they don't appear ex nihilo. The prey and the predator are both living being. Both consumes the same thing.

A defence isn't always "material. Why such a short incubation? And after blossoming Why do they grow so quickly? Why such a burden on both parents? Why so many eggs and not just one?

the last part of the answer: parent habits. Why do they use nest? Why do they defend their young ones? Why do their parents stay alternatively inside the nest? Why those maternal instincts are so powerful? Instincts and "cultures" are also part of the evolution.

Let me guess...

[not already in use]

He tried to create a phallic looking creature.

Re:Let me guess...

[Aussenseiter]

And soon the world will be flooded with them!

... Someone call Japan.

Re:Let me guess...

[hotdiggitydawg]

He tried to create a phallic looking creature.

Just in case anyone doesn't get it...

Re:Let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this really humorous because yesterday when playing Spore, i noticed a penis creature loading up when i entered the creature stage.

Funnily enough, i haven't actually came across it anywhere...

What questions exactly?

[Itninja]

This obviously raises some questions about creationism..

Since the scientist did the (almost) creating here, what questions would this raise? Now if the (almost) alive protocells had popped into existence by random chance and from a void of nothingness, that would raise some uncomfortable questions.

Re:What questions exactly?

[religious freak]

Um, absolutely none. If he managed to create the actual organic molecules, the atoms in those molecules, the quarks, (presumably) the strings, and the fundamental forces governing those physical objects, then there would be some uncomfortable questions. But I'm not holding my breath for that day.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Renraku]

Questions?

How to make what he created better?
How to make the technology viable to the military?
How to make the technology profitable?

The second part sounds a lot more like a function of quantum mechanics than it does religion. God wouldn't be so obvious if they were trying to remain incognito.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Chris Burke]

Since the scientist did the (almost) creating here, what questions would this raise? Now if the (almost) alive protocells had popped into existence by random chance and from a void of nothingness, that would raise some uncomfortable questions.

Because it would show that life can be created from basic non-living components using simple chemical reactions, and that it didn't require some magical "zap" from heaven to do it? Yes, in this case it would be a scientist doing it intentionally, rather than it occurring by chance in the primordial soup, but it shows that in principle it is possible. At that point you would have a pretty solid theory of abiogenesis if you can show that earth had in the distant past these basic components and sufficient energy to cause the necessary reactions, and then just like with evolution you have millions of years and trillions of molecules to handle the "chance" part.

Re:What questions exactly?

[naoursla]

It might raise some uncomfortable questions for creationists. There is little that science can do to shake the faith of those of us who believe in God and study science.

Tricky, uncomfortable and assumption-challenging questions arising from science are to be considered a success. Again... very little to do with theology.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can someone have questions about creationism with Sarah Palin around? Our PILF is the proof that God created the universe and also decided to kill Saddam Hussein by sending our boys over there to do the job! Quit questioning! Sarah Palin is hot!

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

I'll tell you what questions this "raises" -- but prepare to be dissapointed. I had a high-school science teacher, who was a great teacher, but was a creationist. Yes, he really was a great science teacher. He spent half a class one day explaining "questions"* about cosmology and creationism. He didn't proselytize, didn't say that he had the answers, or that the Bible did. He just asked some questions that got the students thinking. IMHO, I think that's good -- though questions early on are like inoculations of skepticism. And, there are good, scientific answers that sufficiently motivated students looked up ( this was before widespread internet)

Anywho, one of the questions was something like "Suppose a scientist creates life from scratch in a test tube. Is that evidence of abiogenesis, or creationism?" One answer, that most scientifically minded people choose, is that the scientist isn't doing anything that couldn't have happened in nature without the scientist, so therefore it's evidence of abiogenesis. Other people, those more creation minded, say that an intelligent being, in this case a scientist, created life from raw materials, so therefore, its evidence that life is created by intelligence.

Please, don't shoot, I'm just the messenger. You're asking what questions would be raised, I'm telling you the questions that people get out of this.

* He also posed another question about radiometric dating of rocks that I never got a satisfactory answer for. For instance, say they date some rocks, and there is 0.03% lead to uranium, or some such ratio, and therefor the rock is X million years old. How do we know that when the rock was originally formed, it was 100% uranium in the sample that we are now taking from the rock? If a rock cools from molten lava, aren't active and decayed isotopes mixed together, thus throwing off the dating scales based on that ratio?

Re:What questions exactly?

[mcsporran]

There is only one Creationist question

Do you believe in fairy tales ?

Re:What questions exactly?

[JohnyDog]

Since the scientist did the (almost) creating here, what questions would this raise?
The biggest question of all ages: Given that God created all life as we know it, and that this scientist also created life, would you like a toasted tea-cake?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Greyfox]

One would be "What exactly can your God do that we can't?"

We have harnessed lightning to do our will.
We can inflict a plague upon our enemies.
We can fly faster and farther than any bird.
We can strike a man dead from a huge distance.
We have unleashed the power of the sun, burning our enemies from the earth.

Once we check "Create life" off our checklist, our resume will look pretty similar to His.

Re:What questions exactly?

[sumdumass]

It might raise some uncomfortable questions for creationists. There is little that science can do to shake the faith of those of us who believe in God and study science.

I don't think your getting the big picture. If someone is playing god by manipulating something, what does that say about life being created? Nothing... If it happened naturally, then that's a little different.

If it makes creationist uncomfortable, it would be because someone is playing god and of the fear of what can happen. In other words, it would be the same reasons others would be uncomfortable about it.

Tricky, uncomfortable and assumption-challenging questions arising from science are to be considered a success. Again... very little to do with theology.

Your right, very little at all. Because the reality of the situation is that a creator attempted to create something and almost succeeded. I understand how almost doing something could be a success, I understand how people can confuse this. But it doesn't do anything to creationists outside of your minds. It is almost as if in some demented and out of touch way, people are saying "take that religion" and doing science with only that in mind which is the farthest from what science is about. I'm having a hard time watching all the perversions of science and actually believing that creditable work is being done. If overstating a case was a crime, quite a few people would be in serious trouble here.

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

The trick with uranium dating is that when zircon crystals form, uranium is trapped but lead is excluded. So you know that all of the lead was created AFTER the crystal formed.

This is cross-checked against other forms of dating, too.

The disappointing thing is that your science teacher was spreading doubt on the subject when the answers were out there to be found. When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion, but he was spreading doubt about a well-founded science, as if the scientists themselves were ignorant of it. They are not, and it's extremely bad form to imply that they are.

Re:What questions exactly?

[smussman]

It might raise some uncomfortable questions for creationists.

No more than the fact that we weren't/haven't been able to create life raised uncomfortable questions for evolutionists. Which is to say, not at all.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Eil]

Because it would show that life can be created from basic non-living components using simple chemical reactions, and that it didn't require some magical "zap" from heaven to do it?

I don't foresee this causing any problems because (to my knowledge) the bible says "God created life," not "Only God can create life."

Of course, I've been wrong before.

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

Thanks for the answer. I'd always wondered about that one.

The disappointing thing is that your science teacher was spreading doubt on the subject when the answers were out there to be found. When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion, but he was spreading doubt about a well-founded science, as if the scientists themselves were ignorant of it. They are not, and it's extremely bad form to imply that they are.

I'm a scientifically-minded skeptic, but I gotta say I disagree with you 100% here. I think that the essence of science is doubt, skepticism, and inquiry. These theories are not so fragile that we have to protect them with a shield of awe. If the science is well-founded, then it should be able to clear these hurdles easily. It should be able to withstand the most withering lines of inquiry -- And it does.

If you teach kids to blindly accept what "the authorities" tell you, whether those authorities are the Bible, or well-respected grey-bearded scientists, then you will get adults who accept whatever the authorities tell them -- in other words, people who can't be scientists, because they don't know how to think for themselves, and therefore can't use the scientific method.

When we teach science, we shouldn't say "Believe this because a bunch of scientists believe in it!". Instead, we should teach them to ask questions, develop a hypothesis, and think about ways to prove or disprove it. When they're old enough, they should be doing experiements. Think, ask questions, make observations, and do experiments to test your theories. That is science, not the consensus of elites.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Idiomatick]

It raises questions about souls to a degree. But really the idea of the soul is already in dissarary and in shambles if you follow even remotely updated science. Same goes for creationism. Science laughs at creationism since we have a whole wing of science (Biology) which essentially has the precept creationism is BS. Evolutionary biology, biochem, bioengineering, biophysics, biotech ..... all require you to not believe in ID before you step into the classroom or nothing will make sense and you will indeed fail. Note the lack of highly educated biologists/IDers.
  We aren't asking any new hard questions here we are just throwing another book on the overwhelming mound of evidence against ID and the soul.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Chris Burke]

I don't foresee this causing any problems because (to my knowledge) the bible says "God created life," not "Only God can create life."

Of course, I've been wrong before.

Well yeah, that's what the Bible says. So it won't cause any problems for your average Christian; it doesn't cause me any though I'm not sure if I count as average. But Creationists have decided that means that He magically poofed life into existence 6,000 years ago and that evolution and geology and astronomy are all wrong because it contradicts their literal interpretation. Life arising from "natural" causes isn't part of their accepted world view.

Re:What questions exactly?

[modmans2ndcoming]

not to mention,

It kinda shoots a hole in the whole "God had to do it" type of thing.

If Humans can manipulate matter to such a degree as to create life from non-life, it proves that God was not nessisary to create life.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Citizen of Earth]

just like with evolution you have millions of years and trillions of molecules to handle the "chance" part.

Why limit yourself so severely? You have billions of years, sextillions of planets, and decillions of molecules to play with on each planet. If we had evolved on some other planet than Earth, we would call that Earth and we wouldn't even know about this planet. Also remember that the dice are loaded.

Re:What questions exactly?

[modmans2ndcoming]

Doubt that we have the correct answer is good. Doubt that what we know might not be a good model for what we see in the face of the evidence that points to that model is not good.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing devil's advocate, it also shows that life can be designed intelligently. And perhaps we puny humans can only create such small creatures, and only God can create noble beasts.

No matter how much science you throw at someone, if they already have faith in a super-powered invisible man in the sky, you'll never convince them otherwise.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the real question:

If we can evolve little organisms to do our bidding what happens when they finish their job! It would seem to me that the first generation of these guys would be developed for very specific tasks. When they finish we no longer have a use for them. Can we kill them? Avoiding death is probably pretty high on list of life like properties they are attempting to replicate, but maybe not. We use various bacterium in labs routinely today. But we have to find them in nature, culture a petri dish full of offspring then freeze them for later use.

In light of this engineered organisms used in industry doesn't seem too weird. After all we use all sorts of weird naturally occurring organisms (think extremophiles).

For me this will put an even deeper question on sounder footing. Consciousness, Self-awareness, whatever you wanna call it. When we start experimenting with this idea things will really start to get spooky. Personally I think there is a discrete continuum of self-awareness which organisms may possess. It's probably proportional to the complexity of the network of neurons in the neocortex. If true what would be the artificial "protocellular" analog of this?

 

Re:What questions exactly?

[aliquis]

Just kill their family, convince them their god hates them, don't exist or have failed one them. Why is he so cruel!?! :D
Why do they as the very good christians they are get punished so bad!?! :D

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

Skepticism is good and necessary, but it must be followed up by research. Saying that you don't know the answer is valid. Implying that scientists don't know, when they DO know and you don't, is not.

You can encourage the kids to go double-check the answers, and then expand on them. I'm just concerned that his statement was taken as "Those scientists make a lot of statements that they can't back up," and that's wrong.

Re:What questions exactly?

[et764]

The disappointing thing is that your science teacher was spreading doubt on the subject when the answers were out there to be found.

I disagree. From the GP, it sounds like this teacher raised some good thought questions, such as "what if a scientist creates life in a test tube?" These types of questions would prompt some of the students to go seek out answers on their own, and very likely the ones that do this and find answers come away with a lot better understanding. Sure, there are questions that we really don't have answers to that the teacher could have asked instead, but many of them would be beyond a high school science student's ability. The thing is, even if these questions already have answers, the students don't know them, and this exercise gives them the chance to develop their own research skills while learning the information. Many students won't go on to get a Ph.D., and to just say "here are all the answers" up until then will further the idea that they should take the scientists' word on blind faith, which is the exact same behavior that many fault religion for as well.

Re:What questions exactly?

[The Famous Brett Wat]

So what you're saying is that anything a scientist can do intentionally in a lab can happen all by itself given a lot of time, energy, and matter? Is the argument behind that something like, "anything which is physically possible at all can, in principle, happen by chance?" If so, that seems entirely logical, although it waves aside lot of interesting probability considerations. However, the OP asked, "since the scientist did the (almost) creating here, what questions would this raise?" You haven't actually raised any questions for Creationism -- you've only pointed out that the experiment does not necessarily refute Naturalism. (Congratulations on making a defensive manoeuvre sound like an attack, by the way.)

So the meta-question still stands: what questions does this raise for Creationism -- or for Naturalism, for that matter? It seems to me that both sides will consider this very same act to be further evidence of their own views -- which is pretty much status quo, isn't it?

Re:What questions exactly?

[SpinyNorman]

Well, for one thing his protocells self-assembled - they weren't assembled by the scientist. This at least proves that if those same fatty acids existed someplace in the primordial soup they could have self-assembled into protocells back then just as surely as they did in the lab.

The fact that the scientist was smart and recreated one of the chemical experiments that may have been a step towards life rather that any of the other billions upon billions that didn't doesn't invalidate it.

Now, if the scientist had assembed the protocell, THAT would not raise many questions.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

'..."What exactly can your God do that we can't?"

[most of your examples are things any smart created being
would learn to do, but notice they mainly use and redirect existing
forces and materials - and we seem to major in destroying things]

    "We have harnessed lightning to do our will"

Pretty neat, until you consider that God is said to have spoken into existence
the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

    "We can inflict a plague upon our enemies"

Well duh! But can we heal the effects of said plague from upon our friends?

    "We can fly faster and farther than any bird"

And when we do we generate a carbon footprint the size of Rhode Island. Can we reverse
our own global warming stupidity?

    "We can strike a man dead from a huge distance"

Okay, but can we then raise him back from the dead? What's so godlike about that?

    "We have unleashed the power of the sun, burning our enemies from the earth."

Aparently we are very good at all the bad stuff; which 'god' does that make us very much like?
There's this fallen angel named Lucifer...

    "Once we check "Create life" off our checklist, our resume will look pretty similar to His."

Of course you really should define 'Create' a little better. Any half-assed artist can come up with a passable imitation of a nice painting, and to a yokel from [pick your spot] it may look fantastic. Any decent programmer can stitch together pieces of code cribbed from all over to do a specific task. Is this what you mean by 'Create Life'? Because it sounds to me like the guy in the article is cobbling together a lot of existing bits and pieces to make a simulacrum of something living, (almost). And this is exactly what would be expected of created beings trying to duplicate other created things/processes in their environment. There's a kernel of something in what you say - we have been made in the image of our creator, so we will naturally try to emulate him. But dude, how can you put us in the same class as the one who upholds all things by the power of his word? Who is the ground of existence? And who can just say it and there stuff is? Sorry to burst your bubble but simply generating electricity and inventing gunpowder and building nuclear missiles doesn't cut it.

  Cheers.

Anonymous Coward

Re:What questions exactly?

[naoursla]

Ever read the book of Job?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did all the basic non-living components come from? Where did all that sufficient energy come from?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Burning1]

Yes, in this case it would be a scientist doing it intentionally, rather than it occurring by chance in the primordial soup, but it shows that in principle it is possible.

I'm not a big fan of the "Chance" line of reasoning behind evolution. Much like the term "theory," it is very easily abused to confuse people.

What is improbable on a small scale becomes almost inevitable when we look at the kind of time periods and the amount of opportunity available in 5 billion years. It's not unreasonable to believe that the formation of life on earth isn't only probable, but virtually assured.

Here's a great example: It's improbable that either of us will die in a car accident. Possible, but not so likely. But, if you look at slash dot as a whole, it's almost inevitable. Expand that to humanity, and for all practical purposes it's assured to be a common phenomena. Now, expand a small probability over 5 billion years, and by the number of proteins in the ocean and the formation of life starts seeming like less a matter of random "chance."

The only real question is what are the exact odds, and what truly is required...

Re:What questions exactly?

[sonnejw0]

Urey and his student Miller showed in the 1950s that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, can spontaneously form from hydrogen, methane, and ammonia with an electrical current applied to mimic lightning (ScienceMag http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/130/3370/245) (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment). Fox later showed that amino acids can spontaneously form small proteins. Of course, many postulate the primordial Earth's atmosphere was carbon dioxide and nitrogen, but that's beside the point. The point is that these chemical reactions happen, and can happen spontaneously given thermodynamics and probability. It's not a matter of IF these reactions occur, just how often they do. They seem to have happened often enough to form life at least once on one planet ... that is unless His Noodly Appendage is to blame for all this. Sonne Times: Political and Social Commentary http://jsonne.blogspot.com/

Re:What questions exactly?

[holywarrior21c]

that would raise some uncomfortable questions.

Being a Christian doesn't mean that i suddenly witness the creation of the universe. Also being an college student taking some science classes doesn't mean that i suddenly know how molecules really stick together. I am not afraid to question the most uncomfortable questions out there. In fact, i always had pastors as good friends whom i asked many many would-be-uncomfortable questions if i were someone else. In fact, being a pastor at the church doesn't mean that he knows the answers straight from God. NOBODY DOES. Finding out about how universe was created won't change my belief toward God. This is not about what i see. My understanding about Christianity as my religion is that it is all about God(jesus) being well, God and it is all about my sin and my eternal afterlife. so that my focus is not how and why things happened, i rather accept scripture as is. To question how and why is not a sin. This is my curious nature to ask so. And in fact, i am encouraged to do so in the Bible. I always question myself, 'what if all this is wrong and what if i am totally wrong?'. That's what 'being reborn again' is about. This is one of the reason why i don't like too conservative people while being conservative also. I hope people understand better about Christianity and at least avoid blatant bias. (not that the parent did wrong) Being a baptist, i distinguish Christianity and catholic. not doing so, will be offensive to baptists.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Belial6]

Your teacher was NOT a good teacher. He was an ass who was abusing his position to try and push his religion. Did he ask you to question gravity? Did he ask you to question whether the earth was round or flat? Did he ask you to question if electrons really orbit protons? Unlikely. Instead, he tried to trick you and his other students. When the term "creation" is used as the origin of life, it is universally meant "creation by magic". He tried to twist the term to confuse that with the creation of one life form by another life form. Being in a position of authority, and using that authority to try and indoctrinate a bunch of naive kids into your cult through deception is not what I would call 'good'.

The correct answer to his question would simply be that it would prove that abiogenesis is a valid theory, and lends 0 credence to magic creatures forming life from mere will alone. Since the question is not, "how did a single life form start". It is "How did life start".

Re:What questions exactly?

[Swampash]

It may raise some questions, but they're not new ones. Creationists will say "look! a designer was required!" while those opposed will say "look! all with simple chemicals and physics, no supernatural powers required!"

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

Your teacher was NOT a good teacher.

Bullshit. He was the best science teacher there. He taught his students more about science, real science, than any of the other teachers. He got them to think, got them doing experiments, and got them to learn, using the scientific method. You're trolling.

Did he ask you to question gravity?

Of course he did, just like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein did. If you think science is about accepted wisdom versus questions, observations, and experiments, *you* need to go back to high school science class, 'cause you didn't learn a damn thing about science.

Instead, he tried to trick you and his other students.

How is posing a question 'tricking' anybody? If the scientific method really does work ( and I believe that it does ), then you *can't* trick anybody who's learned it.

...and using that authority to try and indoctrinate a bunch of naive kids into your cult through deception is not what I would call 'good'.

More bullshit. I don't know who're you're railing against, but it isn't good old Mr. D.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, that is the whole point of Intelligent Design. It takes hard work from a very smart Person to create life.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what the bible says? The bible is a book. Or do you believe everything you read?

Re:What questions exactly?

[drsmithy]

Anywho, one of the questions was something like "Suppose a scientist creates life from scratch in a test tube. Is that evidence of abiogenesis, or creationism?" One answer, that most scientifically minded people choose, is that the scientist isn't doing anything that couldn't have happened in nature without the scientist, so therefore it's evidence of abiogenesis. Other people, those more creation minded, say that an intelligent being, in this case a scientist, created life from raw materials, so therefore, its evidence that life is created by intelligence.

Science dictates you take the simpler answer - the one that doesn't require a certain set of environmental conditions that can exist naturally *and* a man in a white coat to actually provide them (a rather massive, additional variable in the equation).

People of a certain bent might see evidence for Creationism, but that simply means they are not following the principles of science, in that instance. Further, a teacher who doesn't highlight this flawed reasoning, either a) doesn't understand what they're teaching, or b) is pushing an agenda.

Re:What questions exactly?

[StrategicIrony]

I don't think your getting the big picture. If someone is playing god by manipulating something, what does that say about life being created? Nothing... If it happened naturally, then that's a little different.

Well, to be fair, our ability to manipulate genetic and cellular-level features and structures is close to zero.

Genetic manipulation basically comes down to educated guessing.

Almost anything we could do in a lab today, could probably also happen by random chance, given a few quadrillion random iterations.

We just aren't at all good at that sort of nano-scale technology yet.

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

The teacher did raise good questions.

I'm merely objecting to the false statement that scientists are promulgating something as fact (uranium dating) that they don't understand when in fact they DO understand it.

Re:What questions exactly?

[ceoyoyo]

"doubt, skepticism, and inquiry"

But you need all three. Be skeptical, yes. Doubt, yes. But don't stop there.

Also note that the correct attitude in a state of doubt and skepticism is not "it is not true" but rather "I don't know whether it's true or not."

Re:What questions exactly?

[johanatan]

Amen to that. [Well, everything but the 'strings' nonsense.]

Re:What questions exactly?

[im_thatoneguy]

These theories are not so fragile that we have to protect them with a shield of awe. If the science is well-founded, then it should be able to clear these hurdles easily. It should be able to withstand the most withering lines of inquiry -- And it does.

You're 100% right and 100% wrong at the same time.

Yes it should be able to withstand scrutiny and it does withstand scrutiny however most people do not scrutinize. And most people even after scrutiny are incapable or unwilling to learn.

I for instance do not have a formal education in earth sciences--I defer my opinions to the majority until I find evidence to the contrast. I am incapable of forming a sound argument or opinion of my own because it would require an increase in knowledge and background which I have not acquired.

Under proper scrutiny quantum mechanics as we understand it can be determined to be likely or unlikely... but not under my scrutiny.

The important discrepancy in this whole parable is that the teacher himself evidently didn't understand the topic and was unable to provide an answer to the class. And based on circumstantial evidence of the student not understanding (and prior school experience) the teacher probably left it open as a mystery instead of HIMSELF managing to find an answer. "If the teacher can't figure it out and he's a teacher then 'other' scientists much also not really understand it."

I've had so many teachers in my life tell me something is "impossible", "a mystery" or "nobody knows" when in reality the answer was "I don't know". I once had a teacher of astronomy insist that every object in the universe is moving away from the earth. I objected and offered them an opportunity to correct a misspoken statement but the next day had to bring in a search summary from NASA which found something like 3.2 billion observed stars which had a negative velocity relative to us.

I'm curious and skeptical too. But leaving open a question and not admitting ignorance is as much a statement of authority as closing discussion without providing reason.

It's a lot like the chief investigator of a homicide going on national television and announcing:
"Isn't it strange that Bob was the only person who didn't show up to work yesterday and the masked shooter had a keycard to the secured building?"

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since all creationism ever has been is sticking your fingers in your ears and going "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" who the fuck cares?

Re:What questions exactly?

[quantaman]

Thanks for the answer. I'd always wondered about that one.

The disappointing thing is that your science teacher was spreading doubt on the subject when the answers were out there to be found. When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion, but he was spreading doubt about a well-founded science, as if the scientists themselves were ignorant of it. They are not, and it's extremely bad form to imply that they are.

I'm a scientifically-minded skeptic, but I gotta say I disagree with you 100% here. I think that the essence of science is doubt, skepticism, and inquiry. These theories are not so fragile that we have to protect them with a shield of awe. If the science is well-founded, then it should be able to clear these hurdles easily. It should be able to withstand the most withering lines of inquiry -- And it does.

If you teach kids to blindly accept what "the authorities" tell you, whether those authorities are the Bible, or well-respected grey-bearded scientists, then you will get adults who accept whatever the authorities tell them -- in other words, people who can't be scientists, because they don't know how to think for themselves, and therefore can't use the scientific method.

The theory could withstand those lines of inquiry if those students were given the theory. Instead they're given a tiny, perhaps broken, subset of the theory. Then they're told a larger, more elaborate crackpot theory and given "evidence" to support that theory.

Perhaps they learn a tiny bit of critical thinking in discarding the "conventional" theory, but at the cost of incorrect knowledge. Even worse people have a very strong tendency to defend the first opinion we learn on a subject, chances are a lot of them are going to learn a good deal more about rationalizing their incorrect beliefs than skeptically discarding them and arriving at the correct ones.

When we teach science, we shouldn't say "Believe this because a bunch of scientists believe in it!". Instead, we should teach them to ask questions, develop a hypothesis, and think about ways to prove or disprove it. When they're old enough, they should be doing experiements. Think, ask questions, make observations, and do experiments to test your theories. That is science, not the consensus of elites.

True though at the end of the day it's also a good thing to realize that science is about evidence, and if a bunch of scientists believe a theory to be true I think that's pretty damn good evidence that it is true.

Re:What questions exactly?

[johanatan]

I wouldn't be so quick to accept his 'explanation' of uranium dating. There are big problems with carbon dating and I'm sure that uranium is not immune either. [For example, geologists and their methods of dating assume that certain rates of decay are constant (or have been for the last umpteen billion years)].

Re:What questions exactly?

[glitch23]

Because it would show that life can be created from basic non-living components using simple chemical reactions, and that it didn't require some magical "zap" from heaven to do it?

So the lightning bolt often mentioned as the trigger for biogenesis/evolution/ didn't come from heaven?

Yes, in this case it would be a scientist doing it intentionally, rather than it occurring by chance in the primordial soup, but it shows that in principle it is possible.

It shows exactly what it is, that a *human* can initiate life from non-living material. Nothing more.

At that point you would have a pretty solid theory of abiogenesis if you can show that earth had in the distant past these basic components and sufficient energy to cause the necessary reactions, and then just like with evolution you have millions of years and trillions of molecules to handle the "chance" part.

I'm still waiting for that chance to occur again. If it happened once then there is no reason why it couldn't happen again and yet there is no proof that in the millions of years since it supposedly occurred once that it ever occurred again to make 2 completely separate evolutionary trees. So how to prove it even happened the first time in that manner (without invoking the anthropic principle of circular logic)? We are guessing at events that we were not around to witness to prove 100% correct but are taught as being gospel nonetheless. The smoking gun is still missing: that the conditions alone, without any intervention from a higher power, can spark life while a scientist (providing the intervention) in a lab still only *almost* can.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Belial6]

He was the best science teacher there.

That's very sad.

He taught his students more about science, real science, than any of the other teachers. He got them to think, got them doing experiments, and got them to learn, using the scientific method.

Your posts speak to the contrary.

Of course he did, just like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein did.

You are honestly claiming that he gave gravity and the structure of the atom, the same treatment as the origin of life? Because all things being held down on earth by the sheer will of a magic sky god holds the same scientific weight as life being created by a magic sky god. And, unless you went to a VERY wealthy school, high school students simply do not have the resources to prove the structure of an atom. Even then, the nutball creationist excuse that devil is just tricking you can always be thrown in.

How is posing a question 'tricking' anybody?

You have never heard of leading questions? As the saying goes, if you don't know who the mark is, then it is probably you.

If the scientific method really does work ( and I believe that it does ), then you *can't* trick anybody who's learned it.

If you believe that, then you clearly do not understand the scientific method and are an easy mark for exactly the kind of trick your teacher pulled on you.

I don't know who're you're railing against, but it isn't good old Mr. D.

That comment just reeks of authority worship. Just the kind of thing that creepy religious wackos use to help con the nieve. The creep had no business dragging "theories" about invisible supernatural beings into a science class, and trying to pass it off as science.

Re:What questions exactly?

[tompaulco]

If Humans can manipulate matter to such a degree as to create life from non-life, it proves that God was not nessisary to create life.
No, in order to prove THAT you would have to create the VERY FIRST life from non-life, which is impossible to prove both because of the logistics and the paradox.
Also, what they created does not meet the scientific criteria for life.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, nearly all of the wacky christian anti-evolutionists currently dog the theory of evolution (or what they falsely seem to think it's about), and one of their key points is that life must have been created by god, because if you put all the right materials in the right place (primordial soup), and zap it with electricity, little bacterias don't instantly start popping out from amino acids... and therefore because life (currently) can't be created artificially, it must have come from god.

This is great precisely not because it's going to burst their bubble, but it's going to make them come up with even more idiotic arguments.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

When we teach science, we shouldn't say "Believe this because a bunch of scientists believe in it!".

Indeed. We should say "Believe this because a bunch of scientists have produced very good statistical and empirical evidence that you should believe it."

The idea that this phrase boils down to "Believe this because a bunch of scientists believe it" is one of the biggest problems with the popular American view of science.

Re:What questions exactly?

[The End Of Days]

I did. It made me realize that even assuming "God" is real, he doesn't deserve worship or praise. Being all-powerful is no excuse for being a prick for fun.

Re:What questions exactly?

[duckInferno]

The correct answer is: neither. All it is is evidence that life can be created in a test tube. It conveys no additional information toward determining the reality of either abiogenesis or creationism. To claim otherwise is a logical fallacy ("A created B. Therefore all B is created by A.").

Re:What questions exactly?

[naoursla]

Just wait until you figure out that you are just one aspect of God. You're really going to hate that.

Re:What questions exactly?

[The End Of Days]

Wait until you figure out there aren't any gods - although by then it's likely you won't be doing much figuring anymore.

Re:What questions exactly?

[oldhack]

Anywho, one of the questions was something like "Suppose a scientist creates life from scratch in a test tube. Is that evidence of abiogenesis, or creationism?" One answer, that most scientifically minded people choose, is that the scientist isn't doing anything that couldn't have happened in nature without the scientist, so therefore it's evidence of abiogenesis. Other people, those more creation minded, say that an intelligent being, in this case a scientist, created life from raw materials, so therefore, its evidence that life is created by intelligence.

It's another one of those misguided dichotomies with muddled assumptions, I think. Humans, including scientists, are a part of the nature. We and components of our body follow the same physics that all other things in nature do. "Intelligence" is fuzzy-wuzzy notion. "Creationism" can't even be interpreted sensibly into the domain of science, nevermind contradicting any hypothesis like abiogenesis. They dwell in parallel universes and can't interact, nevermind contradict each other.

Re:What questions exactly?

[oldhack]

The disappointing thing is that your science teacher was spreading doubt on the subject when the answers were out there to be found. When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion, but he was spreading doubt about a well-founded science, as if the scientists themselves were ignorant of it. They are not, and it's extremely bad form to imply that they are.

This sorta low ball fallacy gets some religious people to accuse science people of the same priesthood mentality. Would that teacher's argument have been any more or less creditable if he had a PhD? Like only Vatican Cardinals and above can discuss Roman Catholicism?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Spacezilla]

Or do you believe everything you read?

Only on Slashdot. :)

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

About the radiodating, it might be known that there were no daughter isotope in the rock when it formed (the zircon example mentioned in the sibling post or the potassium-argon clock, where the daughter is a gas and not too much of it should not be caught in solid rock). However, isochron dating is also a possibilty, where you need a daughter element with both radiogenic and non-radiogenic isotopes. Basically, after measuring the several pieces of rock you can use the amount af the nonradiogenic isotope to calculate the original amount of the radiogenic one, making dating possible even if the daughter was present when the rock was formed.

Re:What questions exactly?

[sFurbo]

I'm a scientifically-minded skeptic, but I gotta say I disagree with you 100% here. I think that the essence of science is doubt, skepticism, and inquiry.

Exactly, and your science teacher seems to have understood the doubt and skepticism, but overlooked the inquiry. The answer to the question you raised is widely known and easily found, if you go just a little beyond high-school books.

Of course, I have no way of knowing if this was typical of him or just an overlook on his part. It's not that there isn't problems with cosmology, but the precision of radiodating is not one of them. However, it is a subject creationists are fond of proclaiming to be a problem, which explains why people react so harsh to it.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!

Re:What questions exactly?

[aliquis]

No, never will either. Wasn't that kind of obvious from my post?

Re:What questions exactly?

[aliquis]

At least he'll never think "oh, what? there was no paradise/heaven/..?" (assuming we can't think longer when our metabolism is stopped.)

Re:What questions exactly?

[Weedlekin]

"Also, what they created does not meet the scientific criteria for life."

The same can be said for all the steps postulated by abiogenesis theorists which preceded the eventual emergence of organisms that do fit the scientific criteria for life.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you teach kids to blindly accept what "the authorities" tell you, whether those authorities are the Bible, or well-respected grey-bearded scientists

That's the thing. Science is more like 'it's this way and if you want to study further look into this and that'. The only thing implied there is that you shouldn't criticize if you're not willing to look into it deeper than layman explications.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it disturbing that a science teacher spreads doubt about the evolution theory in that way. The reason creationism shouldn't be thought in science class is due to the fact it isn't a science. This is not about "the oppression and ignorance from the scientist community against the poor creationists" as some creationist claim it to be. This is about the fact that creationism isn't a science and therefore has nothing to do with science.

Re:What questions exactly?

[antirelic]

"I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD. He may not have been spreading religion,

Doesnt anyone else find this ironic?

I'll elaborate for those of you with mod points that dont get it. Its ironic because religion often says you cannot question creation without certain credentials... the parent is essentially creating a religious like environment by saying you need a "degree" from an artificial instution in order to question things... *sigh*

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

It really doesn't show anything yet.... It's more like. In the beginning the paleobiologist had nothing. Then miller came. And there still was nothing. After years of study there is still nothing. Except some crazy therories and a lipid bubble which proves nothing. If you think otherwise you probaby tricked in believing nothing to be too much of something.
And it is to easy to say "chance". I mean.. according to paleobiology it has been 3,7 billion years since life first appeared. It seemed it didn't appear twice. Only once. So there you have all your statistics and all your chance... once again. Proving nothing.

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

You're building a straw man argument.

The theory could withstand those lines of inquiry if those students were given the theory. Instead they're given a tiny, perhaps broken, subset of the theory. Then they're told a larger, more elaborate crackpot theory and given "evidence" to support that theory.

The students *were* given the theory. ( What theory are we taking about here, anyway? Big Bang? Evolution? We were taught all of that). We weren't told a larger crackpot theory. We were just given some questions that seemed not to make sense, like who do we know that the source of radioative dating material was all undecayed at the time of formation.

Perhaps they learn a tiny bit of critical thinking in discarding the "conventional" theory,

Perhaps!? We spend the whole friggin' semester on it!

but at the cost of incorrect knowledge.

If you think the scientific method gives incorrect knowledge, well.. what exactly are you trying to argue here? That we don't know anything, not even in science?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Joey Vegetables]

When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD.

An interesting, but still logically fallacious, amalgamation of "appeal to authority" and "truth by majority vote." As other posters have already replied, science is a method for learning about the universe through experimentation, NOT a fixed and unquestionable body of conclusions.

Re:What questions exactly?

[HungSoLow]

I think the question it would raise (not that it isn't already the case) is why we need God if all life can be explained via evolution AND abiogenesis ? Evolution is a forgone conclusion (what with the mountains of evidence) but abiogenesis is still in hypothesis stage (mind you, far more plausible than God). With experiments like this, you continue to pile on empirical evidence for abiogenesis until it becomes a solid theory like Gravity and Evolution. After which we're still left with explaining the existence of the universe, which might need no answer if we're one of infinite universes, or one cycle of an infinite number of big-bang / big-crunch cycles.

Re:What questions exactly?

[quantaman]

You're building a straw man argument.

The theory could withstand those lines of inquiry if those students were given the theory. Instead they're given a tiny, perhaps broken, subset of the theory. Then they're told a larger, more elaborate crackpot theory and given "evidence" to support that theory.

The students *were* given the theory. ( What theory are we taking about here, anyway? Big Bang? Evolution? We were taught all of that). We weren't told a larger crackpot theory. We were just given some questions that seemed not to make sense, like who do we know that the source of radioative dating material was all undecayed at the time of formation.

Perhaps they learn a tiny bit of critical thinking in discarding the "conventional" theory,

Perhaps!? We spend the whole friggin' semester on it!

In your original post it sounded like the teacher spent at least some time, if not directly promoting creationism, than pointing out perceived (but actually false) weaknesses in radiometric dating and/or evolution and implying the theory was wrong.

Of course it's all in the delivery so he might have been a great teacher who wasn't trying to push those unscientific views on his students, but that's the impression I got.

I was talking about whatever theories you meant in the original post. Regardless, if your teacher did push a theory not supported by scientists than it's almost by definition a crackpot theory. As for whatever theory you did learn it's simply not possible to have learned all of it and the supporting evidence over the semester.

The example of radioactive dating, the answers to those questions are known, if your teacher didn't know, or if he wanted the class to investigate further, he should have made sure the class understood that scientists did know the answer to the question.

To bring up the unknown ratios at formation, then imply that not even the scientists know the answer, that would imply the scientists didn't know what they were talking about and thus indicate a giant gaping hole in the evidence supporting the theory.

but at the cost of incorrect knowledge.

If you think the scientific method gives incorrect knowledge, well.. what exactly are you trying to argue here? That we don't know anything, not even in science?

If he was giving you those questions as unknowns, when they have known answers, then he's giving you bad data.

Bad data + scientific method = wrong conclusion

Re:What questions exactly?

[stardyne]

The students *were* given the theory. ( What theory are we taking about here, anyway? Big Bang? Evolution? We were taught all of that). We weren't told a larger crackpot theory. We were just given some questions that seemed not to make sense, like who do we know that the source of radioative dating material was all undecayed at the time of formation.

Your teacher did not give you all of the any of those theories you mentioned (Big Bang, Evolution). It would have taken years of additional knowledge to fully understand either of those theories. Therefore, you got a tiny subset of the theory (most likely an English summary of the theory). So, you were never given the knowledge that would be required to answer any of the questions your teacher asked. Therefore, the only logical answer to those questions would be "I don't know, let us research the theories and fully understand them before giving you an answer", not "these theories might be flawed."

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

You're correct. I exaggerated. You don't need formal education to question scientific theories or to produce useful research.

The credentials do, however, imply a certain amount of vetting by other scientists that when you speak, you're not speaking from ignorance. When a large number of scientists say one thing, and an uncredentialed person contradicts them, that person is very likely to be wrong unless they can point to specific evidence for it.

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

It's not unquestionable. However, "questions" can be misleading in and of themselves, especially when they come from a teacher. This particular question came with a subtext of "Not only don't I know, but they don't know either," which is false.

The appeal to authority is not proof, but it is a useful heuristic. Science is a time-consuming activity, and when a person without credentials suggests that something is wrong, it's more likely that they are wrong about the state of knowledge than that they've discovered in a short time what many, many other people have devoted a lot of time to.

That's doubly true when the questioner is known to promote an anti-scientific agenda, which has been demonstrated to ignore facts to suit its agenda.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with creationalism is not the idea that life CAN be created by an intelligent force but the lack of any evidence that it actually was so. Creationalists also conveniently ignore the fact that evolution says nothing about HOW life began. Evolution only deals with how life changes over time.

The glaring hole in creationalist propaganda is that creationalism doesn't enplane the origin of life any better then evolution. Creationalism requires a creator but who created the creator in the first place? To accept creationalism you must accept some sentience that exists outside the physical laws of our universe but can still interact with it. Once you accept that tenant you have crossed the line between science and philosophy.

Re:What questions exactly?

[rho]

When a vast number of scientists say it's true, "I don't think it's right" is not a valid answer unless you've got a PhD.

I know you're being a bit hyperbolic, but that isn't terribly different from a priesthood. And honestly, that's the very vibe I get from some of the more vocal scientists--"Sit down, shut up and listen to what I'm saying. I have a Ph.D." I'm not sure we're doing ourselves any favors by swapping one set of gatekeepers for another.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing to suggest that god did not use random chance and evolution to create the universe either.
              But I do hope that any bowl of slime might evolve to something better than George Bush and the republican yo-yos that surround him.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason it won't be a problem is because Religions ignore all evidence stacked against them. What is one more piece of evidence going to matter in an already gigantic mountain?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the population are not scientists. In fact most are what we classify as "idiots". Do you really think these induhviduals are capable or willing to research and prove or disprove any hypothesis?

All that teacher did was produce doubt where none should exist. What the people fear, the people stifle; Remember this always.

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can help you with this.
I've simplified this explanation.

The "rock" contains a mineral called Zircon.
Zircon is a crystal lattice, with the formula ZrSi04. This lattice can absorb Uranium, or Thorium. But will NOT absorb lead.
If you find lead in a Zircon Lattice, then it did not get there in any sort of CHEMICAL reaction. What happened was the uranium atoms decayed alpha particles, and transmuted themselves into lead in a NUCLEAR reaction. This NUCLEAR decay happens at a very controlled rate. We can date this rate back BILLIONS of years, by measuring the RATIO of lead to uranium. (Many different ways to do this, usually spectrally)

There are no PROVEN claims yet that neutrino collisions can affect DECAY rates. If they could, the results would still be skewed by a fraction of a fraction of a percentage, because neutrinos don't like to react with matter much, the earth has a small cross section with respect to sunlight,the inverse square law spreads out the neutrinos, there are several types of neutrinos-only one of which is postulated to have an effect. And many neutrinos decay into electrons over the distance of 1AU.

Unfortunately, creationism is a platform based on pure ignorance and wishful thinking. Sometimes otherwise intelligent people can be creationists. This is attributed to a cognitive dissonance between their training and their upbringing.

Re:What questions exactly?

[jfengel]

You're right, it was hyperbole. But it's an important heuristic for young people to learn: when a non-scientist contradicts what every scientist is saying, you need to probe deeply to figure out why this person thinks they have knowledge that has eluded the experts.

That goes doubly for a non-scientist with an agenda. I'd love to see science students taught how to recognize pseudo-science, but I suspect such a class would step on too many toes.

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

Science dictates you take the simpler answer - the one that doesn't require a certain set of environmental conditions that can exist naturally *and* a man in a white coat to actually provide them (a rather massive, additional variable in the equation).

I believe Einstein said it best: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." I suggest you take this to heart, as I'll show you:

People of a certain bent might see evidence for Creationism, but that simply means they are not following the principles of science, in that instance.

Suppose I were thinking logically, and were asked to draw a conclusion about evidence of abiogensis or intelligence creation when presented with the thought experiment of a scientist who created an organism in a test tube. The only evidence of non-reproductive biogenesis we have is what the scientist created; note that we have no evidence of spontaneous biogenesis from non-living material, except that which came from human intervention. We suppose that life originated on Earth at some point, but we don't have any evidence whatsoever of how it did so originally; it may have spontaneously generated, it may have been introduced by intelligent space aliens, it may have arisen from a space-faring spore, or it may have been molded from clay by the hand of God. But nobody was around to observe it, so we have no evidence about the genesis of life on Earth. So, the only evidence we have for the genesis of life, at least in this thought experiment, is that a human being was required to create it -- after all, we don't see it popping up out of dirt, do we? No, the only genesis of life that comes not from re-production was the artificial creation by a human being.

So, if you say that life can arise on its own, without descending from existing life, you would be arguing a position with no evidence. In Einstein's terms, you've made it too simple. But to argue a position that life can be created by a human being, or an intelligent being in general, is to take a position with evidence, as in the case of our thought experiment.

If we suspect that life may arise without intelligent interference, we have no evidence for our suspicions, but it we suspect that life requires intelligent interference, we do have evidence of that when a scientist creates life.

Re:What questions exactly?

[lawpoop]

Of course, I have no way of knowing if this was typical of him or just an overlook on his part.

Well, you do have a way of knowing -- you could read what I wrote. First, I said that he was a good science teacher -- okay, maybe I have a warped view of what a good science teacher is. Second, I said that "[h]e spent half a class one day " ( 22 minutes out of a 45 minute class period ) -- but maybe you misread that as "half the class", meaning half the total semester of class time .

But if you're taking my word for it that this guy existed and even taught a class, why would you doubt the rest of my story? Why would you believe one part of my story but not the whole story? You don't think there can be creationist teachers that can still teach good science classes? They're all raging, proselytizing evangelicals?

Re:What questions exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that the essence of science is doubt, skepticism, and inquiry.

Not quite. "Doubt, skepticism and inquiry" are useful methodological tools, not ends in themselves. From a practical point of view, predictive value IS the end; from a theoretical perspective, explanatory power; and for the aesthetically-minded, there's simplicity a la Occam (or in Einstein style, "as simple as possible but no simpler). The point is that doubt for doubt's sake isn't worth any more than art by art's sake or gin by gin's sake. Science is not a purely negative effort of deconstruction and de-mythification, regardless of how much we love the Myth Busters.

These theories are not so fragile that we have to protect them with a shield of awe. ... It should be able to withstand the most withering lines of inquiry -- And it does.

Absolutely. What it does not withstand is laziness, stupidity and the perennial search for *easy* answers. Since by necessity the time and effort a school teacher can devote to his/her pupils is limited, a full-fledged scientific education with skepticism and all is simply not feasible. A version simplified for easy consumption is then necessary, and much better than the alternative (i.e., unjustified doubt).

That is science, not the consensus of elites.

Nice one-liner, but hopelessly mired in naivete. In fact science as a discourse is *exactly* the consensus of the (scientific) elites, and that is a *good* thing since otherwise the effort required to refute the endless crackpot theories would slow actual science to the proverbial crawl!

Re:What questions exactly?

[drsmithy]

So, the only evidence we have for the genesis of life, at least in this thought experiment, is that a human being was required to create it -- after all, we don't see it popping up out of dirt, do we?

"Present" != "required". Someone needs to flip a light switch to turn it on, that doesn't mean the element won't glow when a current is passed through it in the absence of said human.

No, the only genesis of life that comes not from re-production was the artificial creation by a human being.

So, if you say that life can arise on its own, without descending from existing life, you would be arguing a position with no evidence.

Exactly which part of the proposed experiment, do you feel involved life "descending" ?

In Einstein's terms, you've made it too simple. But to argue a position that life can be created by a human being, or an intelligent being in general, is to take a position with evidence, as in the case of our thought experiment.

Only if there is some reason to consider the human a dependent variable. What is the rationale for doing so ? What contribution does the human make, that could not occur in nature ?

If we suspect that life may arise without intelligent interference, we have no evidence for our suspicions, but it we suspect that life requires intelligent interference, we do have evidence of that when a scientist creates life.

We have no evidence that "interference" is "required" (unless some unique contribution from the "interference" can be hypothesised and supported). OTOH, we have compelling evidence that in a certain set of environmental circumstances, live can arise spontaneously.

Re:What questions exactly?

[ScreamingCactus]

Humans already create life on a daily basis (although many of them shouldn't). This is (or will be) just a different form of life. It doesn't answer any questions about anything though, IMO. It doesn't prove tha God exists or doesn't exist. It doesn't prove that life could have or did occur by random chance. All it proves is that some guy in a laboratory can create lipids, polypeptides, and nucleotides, and hope they all come together properly and start reproducing and eventually take over the earth (isn't that every scientist's dream? To create an unstoppable super-race that takes over the world?) I think he is just trying to beat CERN to worldwide destruction.

Re:What questions exactly?

[ErkDemon]

True though at the end of the day it's also a good thing to realize that science is about evidence, and if a bunch of scientists believe a theory to be true I think that's pretty damn good evidence that it is true.

No, if a bunch of scientists believe that something is true, that's an indicator that the thing is probably considered by consensus to be a more efficient or more useful proposition than the well-explored alternatives currently available.

Just because a theory is very successful it doesn't mean that it's necessarily true. Many theories in the past have been very successful and then have been overturned by even better theories that have wider ranges of applicability.

"Scientists believe ..." is a problematic phrase. Of course scientists, as human beings, tend to believe certain things. But the perfect scientist would have no beliefs at all, only working hypotheses.

Re:What questions exactly?

[quantaman]

True though at the end of the day it's also a good thing to realize that science is about evidence, and if a bunch of scientists believe a theory to be true I think that's pretty damn good evidence that it is true.

No, if a bunch of scientists believe that something is true, that's an indicator that the thing is probably considered by consensus to be a more efficient or more useful proposition than the well-explored alternatives currently available.

Just because a theory is very successful it doesn't mean that it's necessarily true. Many theories in the past have been very successful and then have been overturned by even better theories that have wider ranges of applicability.

"Scientists believe ..." is a problematic phrase. Of course scientists, as human beings, tend to believe certain things. But the perfect scientist would have no beliefs at all, only working hypotheses.

Well I'd consider the best theory we have to be true to a degree, it may not be absolutely true but there's a wonderful Asimov quote on that topic.

"â¦when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

Creationism?

[Anachragnome]

"This obviously raises some questions about creationism..."

Such as?

"Maybe there is no God? We were some experiment?"

The fact that life may be "creatable" does NOT infer that WE were. At least not at the hands of "gods" or other lifeforms.

Re:Creationism?

[moderatorrater]

Actually, I believe that they were talking about how it might shake some creationist theories because so much religious belief is based on the idea that science can't explain and do everything. Showing that lifeforms can be created in the lab can lead to discoveries that show that life could be created through natural processes that existed in the primordial goo. In other words, this could be a fundamental step in showing how evolution could have happened.

The fact that life may be "creatable" does NOT imply that WE were created

There, fixed that for you. I guarantee that if science continues to develop the way that it is, then at some point in the future a scientist will be able to create an organism as intelligent and complex as a human being. We're approaching that with computers (although we're still quite far away).

Re:Creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I believe that they were talking about how it might shake some creationist theories because so much religious belief is based on the idea that science can't explain and do everything. Showing that lifeforms can be created in the lab can lead to discoveries that show that life could be created through natural processes that existed in the primordial goo. In other words, this could be a fundamental step in showing how evolution could have happened.

The fact that life may be "creatable" does NOT imply that WE were created

There, fixed that for you. I guarantee that if science continues to develop the way that it is, then at some point in the future a scientist will be able to create an organism as intelligent and complex as a human being. We're approaching that with computers (although we're still quite far away).

"then at some point in the future a scientist will be able to create an organism as intelligent and complex as a human being"

Even non-scientists can do that now. It's called "sex".

Re:Creationism?

[sumdumass]

I think they were going for the "we don't need a god" aspect not the it means "we needed a god or creator".

I know how this can be confused, it is a weak argument at best and it isn't directly obvious without inferring some resentment purposely aimed at religions.

Re:Creationism?

[nawcom]

"This obviously raises some questions about creationism..."

Such as?

"Maybe there is no God? We were some experiment?"

The fact that life may be "creatable" does NOT infer that WE were. At least not at the hands of "gods" or other lifeforms.

Remember - Creationists do not accept questions - only answers, and answers that agree with what their parents told them.

They aren't supposed to question their god, for it's considered an unforgivable sin.

Personally, I believe (yes, an atheist with a belief) that the day humans stop questioning everything is the day that science, technology, and discovery will halt. These people, like Jack Szostak, are questioning life. "God" isn't an acceptable answer.

Re:Creationism?

[et764]

Even if we can take atoms and molecules and arrange them in such a way that they exhibit all the same behaviors of life, there will always be the question of where these atoms came from, and why do they exist in such a way that it's possible to arrange them into life forms. Of course, creationism has a parallel question of where the creator came from and why did the creator feel the need to create everything exactly as it is.

I saw a comment on Slashdot a while back, possibly quoting someone else, that seems relevant. Unfortunately, I can't quite it with quite the same eloquence, but it was basically that even if scientists manage to completely duplicate abiogenesis and evolution under laboratory settings, they've simply shown that it's possible. They haven't shown that it actually happened, but since they are also presumably intelligent beings conducting the experiments, they've also not ruled out intelligent design. In the end, the whole thing ends up exactly where we are now.

Re:Creationism?

[Silicon Jedi]

Umm, questioning God isn't an unforgivable sin.
David questions God, Jesus questioned God, and he was completely without sin.
The only "unforgivable sin" is "blasphemy against the holy spirit" which amounts to seeing evidence of God's power and love and decrying it as the work of Satan. It's big theological mess to really wade through.

Re:Creationism?

[Anachragnome]

Ah, yes. I misunderstood the intent of the statement. I stand corrected.

I suppose it was the knee-jerk reaction I have honed over the many years of being subjected to religion.

Re:Creationism?

[Weedlekin]

"much religious belief is based on the idea that science can't explain and do everything."

Whereas the entirety of science is based on the idea that science can't explain and do everything because there's far too much of everything for us to ever be able to know about all of, let alone explain it or do it.

Do you hear that, sonny?

[jcwayne]

That's the sound of 100,000 /.ers trying to come up with the perfect obscure movie reference. We'd better get out of here before it gets ugly.

Too late...

Church of the White Coat

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortly after their creation the cells formed a new religion declaring their white coated man God. Also that their world/petri dish was in fact flat and that on Sunday their God did in fact rest/got drunk and watched football.

Man (Almost) Bites Dog

[Anonymous Coward]

The dog was actually corn on the cob, but the implications for future man-dog relations are staggering.

Artificial Life

[kilodelta]

I was just reading about this in The Living Cosmos by Chris Impey. Very good book btw, worth checking out from the library or even buying.

I'm glad Szostak is doing this though, it starts to fill in the gab on how cellular life started.

Get your own dirt!

[umrguy76]

This reminds me of a joke:

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"

But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Butisol]

Thanks for the stupid pulpit joke.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Rie Beam]

So God's role has been relegated to making dirt?

That's kinda boring.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Boring maybe, until you try making some, out of... well, out of nothing.

And re the article: Whence came the snippet of source code allowing for replication? Whence came the programming LANGUAGE that allowed the source code to mean anything besides random gibberish? Good programming doesn't write itself.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Idiomatick]

LHC anyone? I believe it is trying to find the 'god particle' if that works then we CAN make our own dirt, at the cost of many trillions of dollars per kilo but still...
 
Also if you look at our genetic code, it was made by a total total moron. There are no standardized aps to read it. NOTHING is commented. There seems to be no good order of things. They use pointers and everything EVERYTHING is hack ontop of hack. We seriously need a complete rebuild of our genetic code. There is garbage that has been in the code for millenia. And don't get me STARTED on bugs, toooons of them, the things go down all the time with fatal errors without user input sometimes. As for uptime, 70years? PAH for something thats been a WIP for millions of years you think you could have hacked together something better than that.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[arevos]

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"

I find jokes like this interesting, because they demonstrate quite neatly humanity's obsession with modesty. Humans have relatively little power to alter their surroundings. We have hands and fingers that can manipulate small objects, but nothing much beyond that. We're a creature who's first resume could be summed up with "Skills: Can throw rocks" and "Hobbies: Enthusiastic hooting". We live short lives and die horribly easily. Compared to the vast energies of quasars, or the intricacies of quantum particles, we are powerless and clumsy creatures; small sacks of meat with little more natural skills than the ability to pick up small stones.

But in a blink of the cosmic eye, our species has constructed, well, this. Technology of unfathomable intricacy, abilities far beyond the dreams of our forebears. When you consider what we started out with, and where we are now, and how much work goes into everything we take for granted, it's too much for a single mind to comprehend. But rather than reflect on our amazing achievements, we exhibit an enviable modesty, making jokes comparing these achievements to a hypothetical perfect being. We ever hold in our minds how far we have to go, almost never considering how far we have come.

It's akin to leaving a child on a beach, and coming back an hour later to find he's accepting a Nobel Prize for the particle accelerator he build out of sand and seaweed. You might be amazed, but the child would merely shrug depreciatingly, and say something like "Well, it's not as good as the one at CERN."

Conversely, our concept of God is a entity that is inherently incapable of performing impressive actions. He might make impressive things, or be impressive to behold, but because his power is, by definition, unlimited, there can be no effort, or possibility of failure involved in his manipulations of the Universe. God creating a human being is no more impressive than a human picking a pebble off a beach; both are inherent skills that require no effort or risk of failure. But for a human being to create life, for a being of our meager abilities to succeed in reproducing, even in part, the awesome forces of nature and the cosmos... now that's impressive.

In summary, that joke makes God look like the asshole parents who try and win races against their 5 year old children. It's not a flattering image.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to see us as a timely instance of a natural system, designed by God at the most infinitesimal and grand scale for this one perfect place to produce and sustain life. What other miracle would you demand from God that's as wondrous or meaningful? Anything else seems like a cheap parlor trick by comparison. That humans can create artificial life is nothing but the continuation of evolution that began by this miraculous chain of events. So humility is the correct response given our small place in nature and the cosmos.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Jason Levine]

In summary, that joke makes God look like the asshole parents who try and win races against their 5 year old children. It's not a flattering image.

Hey, I try to win races against my 5 year old child all the time. I almost won the other day.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[arevos]

Well sure, if you see humanity as a mechanism set into motion by God, then it's a little difficult to take credit for any accomplishments when we are but clockwork aspects of a greater whole. And, assuming I've understood your position, humility may very well be the correct position in that case.

However, many religions that have a divine creator go to great lengths to separate us from him, to have our motivations and actions as independent of our deity. The Christian Bible, for instance, has many instances where humans go against God's wishes, and even if one believes this is merely a ploy, a creator playing with the cogs in his machine, it makes little sense to have a concept of heaven and hell in order to punish human actions that are all part of a greater design.

It seems to me that if you believe in taking responsibility for one's own actions, then it follows that you can legitimately claim pride over one's successes. To take responsibility for your failings, but to never take pride in your success, seems somehow perverse, or at the very least reveals a deep lack of self worth.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I try to win races against my 5 year old child all the time. I almost won the other day.

If you tell your kid they have to go over the hurdles, I think it'll help even things out.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[LordLucless]

In summary, that joke makes God look like the asshole parents who try and win races against their 5 year old children. It's not a flattering image.

Well, yeah, if you take the punchline out of the context of the rest of the joke. If you read it in full, then you'll hit this line: "One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God."

It's more like the kid has just given the parent the finger and said that he doesn't need him anymore, then tried to drive off in his Dad's car - great show of independance.

The point of the joke, as I see it, is that wrangling over evolution is really avoiding the question. If you want to argue over beginnings, argue over the real beginnings - how was matter, time, energy, etc formed? Until you can answer that, you can't really posit a universe without God (or without some other external force that made reality happen).

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

I still fail to see how a specious argument that advances God as an omnipotent creator contrasts in anyway our ability to manipulate fundamental chemical building blocks constituent to life, and what relation this has to modesty on our part.

And to say we have little power to alter our surroundings seems to contravene the reality of the constructed and artificial environment that we inhabit. I would argue that if it wasn't for our powers of reasoned contemplation and logical analysis combined with empirical learning and observation, the process by which we model the external world in the theater of the mind and then formulate, validate and test hypotheses, there would be no technology. Doesn't this seem like a natural skill, somewhat more potent and consequential than the ability to pick up small stones? Isn't this phenomenal and fantastic?

Why can't life be construed as an inevitable conclusion of the operation of natural laws?

Am I the only one that thinks humans are marvelous, that our triumphs and conquests are awe inspiring and inversely proportional to the tragedy of our collective failures?

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

dude that is poetry

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely agreed. If you compare the history of the modern, intelligent human being with that of the planet, it seems like a drop in the ocean. Yet, humans have managed in their brief existence to take a good number of other races out, lift the global temperature a few degrees and pretty much change a planet into a huge trash can.
So yeah, you're right. I awe at the accomplishments of the human race.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[roman_mir]

Wow, you get Insightful for this? Beginning of the beginning of the beginning etc. There was never a beginning of a beginning, the question doesn't make sense. Before your definition of a 'beginning' there was another beginning (if it makes sense to talk about 'before' in this context.) I don't see any need to ever posit a universe with any god at all, because the idea of god is so much more complex than the simple stuff that we call 'the beginning'. God is completely unnecessary for anything at all.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[LordLucless]

There are three possible explanations for existence. One, that it always has been (which from what I can make of your rambling you seem to endorse). Secondly, that it began at some finite point. Thirdly, that it never existed (and this is all a delusion).

None of those possibilities has any real rational proof behind it. Science is a process for dealing with a causal system. A causes B. If we see B, we can infer A. If we see A, we know B shall follow. It can't answer questions which don't fit that model - like beginnings. If you decide to believe any particular one of those options, your belief is based on faith - there are no scientific means for investigating them.

You claim that reality has always existed - that there was a "beginning" before the "beginning", perhaps that the universe is cyclical. But you offer no proof. You make a claim, and expect it to be believed. That's an assertion, not an argument.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Welcome to my friend list.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[arevos]

It's more like the kid has just given the parent the finger and said that he doesn't need him anymore, then tried to drive off in his Dad's car - great show of independance.

The whole point of the joke is that the scientists were trying to create life for themselves, not steal it from God. And whilst the scientists were a little too cocky, they weren't exactly rude either, so your analogy doesn't seem very accurate.

It's the classic master-student story, where the student attempts to prove himself superior, but is cut down in some unexpected fashion by the much wiser master. But putting God in the role of the master is inherently problematic, because there's a vast gulf between the inherent abilities of man, and the inherent abilities of God.

For instance, if an amputee child managed to produce a working and road-worthy car out of bits and pieces he found in a garden shed, we'd be rather impressed. Imagine someone with such disadvantages succeeding in building a complex device with such primitive tools. Now suppose the child's uncle, a billionaire owner of a luxery car company hears about this. "Ridiculous!" the billionaire cries, "I don't see why everyone is making such a fuss about this! With but a phone call, I can have a car a thousand times better built in half the time! And as I own a number of quarries and smelting factories, I have no need to use scraps made by other people. Surely this proves I am far superior than my ham-fisted, no-legged nephew."

In this case, the uncle comes off looking like an asshole. We notice this because we can clearly judge the successes and failings of other humans; whilst the billionaire can produce a superior car through his company, it takes him no effort to do so, and thus his actions are inherently unimpressive. But if we replace the billionaire with God, our sense of perspective becomes warped. We have an innate modesty, almost a blindness, that prevents us from being amazed at our own achievements.

The point of the joke, as I see it, is that wrangling over evolution is really avoiding the question. If you want to argue over beginnings, argue over the real beginnings - how was matter, time, energy, etc formed? Until you can answer that, you can't really posit a universe without God (or without some other external force that made reality happen).

I can't work out what happened to one of my socks. Until I can work out where it went, am I to posit the existence of a sock-stealing gnome?

Further, you're looking at the Universe from the perspective of a three-dimensional creature, when the Universe has at least four dimensions. You ask how something was formed, but thinking of the beginning of the Universe as an event is inaccurate and misleading. It's better to think of it as a particularly interesting point in space-time. If the Universe could be represented as a sphere, for instance, the Big Bang would be the point in the centre. Asking what caused the centre of a sphere, or what was before the centre, is plainly nonsensical.

Now, one might suppose that our Universe is a structure connected, somehow, to another structure called "God". But why posit the existence of two structures, when we have only direct observations of one? It's like seeing a picture of a sphere, and claiming that there must be a connecting cone hidden behind it, because one simply can't imagine a sphere without a cone attacted to it.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Lost Race]

I can't work out what happened to one of my socks. Until I can work out where it went, am I to posit the existence of a sock-stealing gnome?

I do occasionally posit the existence of a meaningless, irrelevant God because it amuses me, just like the idea of an undetectable sock gnome.

Asking what caused the centre of a sphere, or what was before the centre, is plainly nonsensical.

Subsequent instants are immediately adjacent, and seem to bear consistent structural relationships to each other. That is the nature of cause and effect, a concept we use to help make sense of time. Redefining time in terms of cause and effect leads to absurdities like the First Cause God.

It's like seeing a picture of a sphere, and claiming that there must be a connecting cone hidden behind it, because one simply can't imagine a sphere without a cone attacted to it.

I prefer my perfectly spherical scoop of ice cream resting in a perfectly parabolic bowl.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[roman_mir]

Ok, I'll try to be more coherent. Whatever we call existence does not require any god, anyone who believes that it does and wants to force those believes upon others will have to do better than appealing to the unknown, to their faith and to their fears.

I am not saying anything about the universe being cyclical, that is irrelevant, what I am saying is that I am amazed at one of your sentences, this one:

Until you can answer that, you can't really posit a universe without God (or without some other external force that made reality happen).

You see, the burden of proof is on those, who state that there must be a god for this universe to appear/exist/become what it is today. I guess I am just flabbergasted at your statement. It is those who believe that god is needed to create the universe who must prove this. Of-course it is absolutely not up to the rest of the world to disprove it.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[arevos]

Yet, humans have managed in their brief existence to take a good number of other races out, lift the global temperature a few degrees and pretty much change a planet into a huge trash can.
So yeah, you're right. I awe at the accomplishments of the human race.

I think this very neatly demonstrates our inherent myopia when it comes to what we've achieved. We focus on the worst aspects of ourselves, completely blind to the miracles we've constructed. I suspect this is a survival trait, a way of ensuring that we continually strive to better ourselves, regardless of our achievements.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the most insightful things I have EVER read. Very interesting thought. Thanks for that.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[LordLucless]

No, but you need to come up with an alternative consistent with your own views.

If the universe had some finite beginning, then there had to be some first cause. Science can't examine first causes.

The view that the universe always existed is likewise unscientific. You can't just say "it just is", and claim it as a scientific perspective.

If you believe in a universe that came about without divine intervention, it's just as much an article of faith as believing that God made it. That's what I meant by not being able to posit a universe without God. You can believe it, sure. And no, it's not up to you to prove or disprove God. But unless you have some scientific evidence (which, due to the nature of science, I believe is impossible), then your perspective is just as much an opinion as a deist's.

Re:Get your own dirt!

[roman_mir]

I don't believe in god, you are correct.

However I do have an astronomy minor as one of degrees, I am familiar with the reasoning for the Big Bang well enough to state them without looking them up in the wikipedia but I don't require a believe system to consider them proper scientific theories.

I am considering the Big Bang to be the beginning of this instance of this Universe and I do not require a fairy tale to explain it. Even if there was no Big Bang theory I wouldn't say 'god did it'.

Purely mathematically speaking there was supposed to be a sequence of events that lead to this instance of this Universe appearing the way we see it today. That could be the beginning before the beginning. Subtract another 1 from that, you have your recursive proof. However I do not have a physical definition of what a beginning before a beginning was, but again, none of that needs me to say 'god did it'.

Whoever wants to say 'god did it' has to prove it, I don't need to prove that there is no god anymore than I need to prove that there is no magical unicorn of the FSM.

Higgs Again

[Tablizer]

Just like the guys who keep ALMOST finding Higgs Boson. They should award an Almost Nobel. (I've qualified for the Almost Darwin Prize a few times as a teen. I don't know why I let them talk me into blindfolded skateboarding.)

Re:Higgs Again

[Chris Burke]

"Attempted murder, now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?"

- Sideshow Bob.

Questions?

[jawtheshark]

This obviously raises some questions about creationism

There were questions about creationism? I mean, despite all the facts that say it can't be true. Mmmmmkay...

Re:Questions?

[Mesa MIke]

Facts don't say anything at all.
Conclusions are drawn from the interpretation of facts.

And interpretations are a bit dynamic, and often in error, no?

Self-replication and solar energy-harnessing

[phorm]

Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating...

I'm no bioscientist, but could this project be modified to something which harvests energy from the sun and then can discharge it in a was in which electrical or bio-mechanical energy could be generated?

Re:Self-replication and solar energy-harnessing

[jackchance]

We already have solar-powered self-replicating organisms.

Not sure if you have heard of them. they are called plants.

Phytoplankton in particular have been pretty handy at self-replicating in the oceans and being responsible for about 1/2 of all oxygen production.

This Raises Questions!

[Rie Beam]

"This obviously raises some questions about creationism, not to mention some scary bio-research-gone-wild scenarios."

For the sake of brevity, we will not, however, be listing these questions here.

I have one of these

[gregbot9000]

Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system

It's called a Lava Lamp.

We call it...

[specific_pacific]

Voight-Kampff for short.

Re:We call it...

[thermian]

Voight-Kampff for short.

Sadly, it appears few people got the reference.

I worry for the geeks of today, I really do. I mean, you'd think Daryl Hanna in a leotard would be enough reason to watch the film, if nothing else..

I guess also reading the book would too much...

Almost?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying "biologist (almost) creates artificial life" is like sating "slashdotter (almost) gets a date"... it could be completely meaningless.

Re:Almost?

[im_thatoneguy]

Just because you only almost accomplish a specified goal doesn't mean you only almost succeeded.

I can almost create cold fusion but perhaps create an efficient and sustainable hot fusion reaction.

The working being done is interesting and of consequence to scientific study regardless of the outcome.

Umm. What?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why does this raise any questions about creationism? To the best of my knowledge, there are essentially no creationists who argue that life was created by humans or any other intelligent organisms(unless they are squirming around on the stand, trying to avoid the establishment clause). And nothing in any current evolutionary hypothesis precludes artificially constructed organisms any more than they preclude artificially constructed computers and hammers. The fact that we can, almost, produce simple organism analogs doesn't mean anything one way or the other, though I suspect that it will be a very convenient mechanism for exploring the capabilities of (relatively) low complexity structures, and will provide the opportunity to do evolutionary experiments from well defined baselines.

As for the bioresearch gone wild scenarios: all advances in knowledge create the potential for trouble; but I suspect that it will be quite some time before any synthetic organism becomes much of a threat. The world outside is an incredible hostile place, crawling with microbes that have been slitting each others' throats in innumerable horrid ways for millennia. The interaction will be something like this:

[Synthetic wimp organism]:"Hi, I'm synthetic."
[Hardbitten wild bacterium]:"I fucking killed my own family over a nanogram of glucose."
[SWO]:*gulp*
[HWB]:"Hey, look, one of the thousands of antibiotic compounds secreted by fungi as part of the brutal chemical war of all against all."
[SWO]:*Dies horribly*

Re:Umm. What?

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree your scenario is the most likely by far, there is a (significantly less likely) second option:

[HWB]:"Hey, look, one of the thousands of antibiotic compounds secreted by fungi as part of the brutal chemical war of all against all."
[SWO]:"Oh, you mean one of the compounds the fungi evolved to secret in order to kill bacteria that has been fighting that war for millions of years? Yeah, doesn't affect me at all, it didn't evolve as a result of my environmental pressure, since I didn't exist until 10 days ago."

Re:Umm. What?

[johanatan]

You must not be familiar with panspermia. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia Intelligent design theorists make no assertions about just who the designer(s) is/are.

Re:Umm. What?

[johanatan]

Also, this:

http://www.panspermia.org/

has a more 'alien' slant to it.

Re:Umm. What?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I know that they allegedly "make no assertions". However, that is almost universally a mealy-mouthed, disingenuous, cover story that comes up when they are trying to worm their way past the establishment clause.

The Wedge Document is perhaps the clearest statement of this intent(unsurprising, since it was a leaked internal internal memo); but evidence is scattered throughout the sordid history of "Intelligent design theory". It has been made abundantly clear that "Intelligent design theory" is nothing more than creationism warmed over, with enough god removed, and nonsense added, to sneak it past constitutional standards

I cannot say that 100% of "intelligent design theorists" are of this stripe; but it is unequivocally the case that intelligent design as a movement is simply a less honest flavor of creationism wearing a fake mustache.

Re:Umm. What?

[firewrought]

Why does this raise any questions about creationism? To the best of my knowledge, there are essentially no creationists who argue that life was created by humans or any other intelligent organisms.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian school. We were taught that evolution was false because: (1) cell theory means ALL cells came from other living cells ("God" was a valid exception, apparently, while abiogenesis wasn't); and (2) life is so unbelievably complex that humans have not even been able to recreate it in a lab--so it MUST require a God. A solid counterexample would limit these arguments and prove that godlike intelligence is not a prerequisite for life.

I think it would also help build better intuitions about how life and similarly complex phenomenon work. Consider the philosophy of vitalism, for example, which regards life as being magically different from non-life in some way that transcends pedestrian physics. Although science disregarded this long ago, the human intuition is still there, and non-scientific arguments can still play on it to support religious preconceptions. A "life-from-scratch" recipe would be useful in demonstrating the merits of emergent behavior over vitalism so that people realize... hey yeah, life is special, but it's special due to certain properties of internal organization, not some unfathomable magic.

Why does this matter? Most people don't know the academic terms, but everybody has intuitions about these things, and these intuitions influence their acceptance of scientific advances and new medical technology, which in turn influences the wellbeing of humanity.

Re:Umm. What?

[johanatan]

Well, I think there's a significant portion of ID adherents who believe that aliens planted the 'seed' (hence my link to the panspermia folks).

And, unfortunately (for you it seems) science (and the law for that matter) can only decide on evidence. No matter how much one man hates another, if he did not kill the man, Columbo rules him out based on the evidence--motive is not the only factor.

With the 'god' now removed, it should be possible to impartially address the ID ideas on their own merit, no (or is that not possible given the establishment's philosophical assumptions and prejudice)?

[And, besides, the establishment clause has absolutely nothing to do with this except for the fact that our benches are occupied with ideological sell outs who neither novelly nor innocently use it as an excuse to exclude true 'science' (or should we say critical thinking) from being done in our classrooms].

Re:Umm. What?

[plasmacutter]

then there's the synthetic super organism 100 years from now.

SWO: hi, i'm synthetic
HWB: I killed my own family over a nanogram of glucose
SWO: My breathren and I have eaten everything world-wide containing carbon.
HWB: *GULP*
SWO: MMMM, lipids
HWB: *Dies horribly*
Rock: disintegrates as carbon is ripped from it's atomic structure.

Re:Umm. What?

[Anivair]

Bioresearch Gone Wild makes me think of single celled organisms showing me their breasts and getting really drunk. can we make this happen?

Re:Umm. What?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Thanks, that makes the question clearer for me. While I've done some reading on the subject, I have no personal experience with creationist educational claims. And, as it appears in this case, there can be a distinct difference between what theoretically makes a difference, and what would seem convincing one way or the other.

Re:Umm. What?

[steelfood]

Millenia? Think eons. Today's bacteria ares not all that different from the ones that existed 2 billion years ago. Only, 2 billion years ago, there wasn't much else.

Even if said artificial organism is capable of survival beyond a clean room (it is impervious to attack by existing organisms for whatever reason), it would be many, many generations before it could become interesting, and I mean interesting beyond the novelty factor of it having been created by a human being.

Says nothing about creationism

[phonicsmonkey]

Creationism is based on faith, not arguments. Mountains of proof are enough to convince those who believe in what they wish were true, rather in what the evidence suggests.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[c_forq]

What exactly are the mountains of proof regarding the origin of the universe? I would most thoroughly enjoy reading about what caused the big bang, how the initial conditions came to be, and then fast forward to how living matter came into existence from non-living matter (probable conjecture will even do, as long as it has plenty of relevant research cited). This isn't evolution we are talking about (and even if it were, creation is not necessarily against evolution, kind of like how not all rectangles are squares).

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[jstomel]

Well, if you would like to read about what caused the big bang and how the initial conditions came to be I would recommend the book Cosmic Jackpot by Paul Davies. It's a good layman's description of the current state of theory. As for how living matter came into existence from non-living matter, you could do worse than review the last fifteen or so years of Jack Szostak's publications. Andy Ellington and Eschenmoser have also published extensively on the subject, as has Joyce. Pop into Medline and search for review articles with "pre-rna world hypothesis" in the main body text. I might start with the following review: Nature 2002 vol. 418 (6894) pp. 214-221. This information is out there. All it takes is a little effort to find it.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

>what caused the big bang, how the initial conditions came to be...

Exactly, I've always wondered about that. People so quickly dismiss creationism, but I haven't heard any real alternative besides 'in the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded', and that seems nearly as much of a non-answer to me as 'in the beginning was some intangible being, and he opened his mouth, and stuff appeared'.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[c_forq]

I am familiar with the pre-RNA hypothesis, but think it falls just as flat as the abiogenesis theories it is trying to replace. Particularly I have seen nothing explaining the gap between RNA molecules and reproducing cells. Not exactly a trivial step(s).

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[rrohbeck]

Note that these are about the only major questions left in science. OK, and if there's life in other places. The rest is details.

When there were a lot of open questions, "God did it" did make some sense. What are you going to say when these remaining questions are answered in a couple of years or a few decades maybe?
"We don't know yet" makes far more sense than "God did it" given the track record of science vs theism.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[vell0cet]

I am not and atheist. I am not a christian, nor do I belong to any denomination. What I believe is that there is a reason that everything "makes sense", and to a certain degree this is a belief that scientists MUST share. Because they seek to understand the rules that everything abides by. My "faith" as it were, is that these rules are benevolent to us, if not for the pure reason that we are a part of these rules, that these rules created us, as well as the lake that I like to sit by to watch the sun set that brings me so much comfort (which those laws also created). You can argue whether or not these laws were "designed" by some creator or some other alternative, but I prefer to sit and watch the sunset and enjoy how these laws work. Whether we've discovered them or not (however, I do enjoy the pursuit). A biologist who can create artificial life is not disproving the existence of God, but is a testament to how well the laws of the universe work and the ability of man's reason to make use of them.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

The origin of the universe is entirely irrelevant, the point of contention is the origin of species.

That's what most people refer to when talking about creationism, and if you want to avoid confusion, you should too.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

You are one of those nasty european christians, aren't you...?

Seriously though... Your attitude is the one shared by the majority of christians worldwide. I know that it is exactly what the church (Evangelic Lutherian, a protestant church shared by most of the northern Europe) teaches here. That god created the world through creating the laws of physics, etc. and "Seven days" are just metaphoras and such.

It works out pretty well. We don't get any conflicts at all between teaching religion and teaching science. I don't think you would find many priests who would deny evolution, etc... The teachers of religion don't even need to belong to a church.

I don't believe in that either but... It doesn't matter. You don't need to know about what I believe in to find out what I think about science and such.

Hell, even Pope has gotten towards these lines, stating that there could be life outside earth, etc...

Only two questions remain, then. Why does USA have so much fundamentalists? Why are they elected to lead the country?

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

>what caused the big bang, how the initial conditions came to be...

Exactly, I've always wondered about that. People so quickly dismiss creationism, but I haven't heard any real alternative besides 'in the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded', and that seems nearly as much of a non-answer to me as 'in the beginning was some intangible being, and he opened his mouth, and stuff appeared'.

Science gives a few suggestions on the origins, but mostly states "We aren't quite sure as we can't know for sure.

Creationism has no proof behind it. It has all the same logical problems as big bang and some more. There is no logical reason at all to choose "God created it all" over "We just don't know, yet." if the "These points suggest it could have been like this but it still has some logical holes..." doesn't fit you.

Even if science has no ideas at all, the logical point is to go to "We don't know, then" and not to "God created it" when there is no evidence pointing to latter.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[jstomel]

Well, Jack Szostak's most recent work is an attempt to bridge that gap. He has nucleic acids self replicating inside of lipid protocells. This self replication drives the incorporation of new lipids into the membrane, which expands until it spontaneously divides.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[c_forq]

I found the website of his lab, and an article on him on wikipedia, but none have obvious links to papers. If you could link to a paper or article or at least the journal it is in I would be grateful.

Re:Says nothing about creationism

[jstomel]

Honestly, I saw him talk a couple of months ago at a conference and my adviser studied under him, so I'm probably more up to date on his research than the published work. His most recent nature paper is a good start (I can get the pdf, but it won't be available publicly for a number of months (goddam closed access journals). Is there a way I can post the pdf here?). I guess the important thing is that while we have not yet completely and totally bridged the gap you speak of, every year we make more and more progress towards providing a complete story. Jack hopes to have a completely functional protocell sometime in the next 20 years. The one he has now only replicates two of the four bases and requires a fairly rigid set of laboratory conditions. He believes (and I believe he can do it, he's already done the most difficult part) that he can turn this into a fully functional freely living synthetic cell in 15 to 20 years (such is the pace of science). At which point he will most likely win the nobel, if not before. Not that that is why he does this, he is one of the most humble and truly devoted people I have met in science and it was and honor and a pleasure to meet him. At any rate, watch this space closely for the next few years and hopefully your questions will be answered. An end is in sight now and that which seemed impossible to reduce has a game plan laid out to finally solve it. These are exciting times.

To all worried about "grey goo"...

[rdwald]

Recall that bacteria have had around 4 billion years to turn Earth into a nanopocalyptic wasteland. Sure, they're everywhere, but they aren't dismantling everything else for parts. If this were a real risk, it would already have happened.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[zermous]

Perhaps we are as lucky in this not happening as we were to get the evolution of life to begin with. Perhaps it could happen at any time, just like a self-replicating molecule could have at day minus one.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[Vegeta99]

Recall that bacteria have had around 4 billion years to turn Earth into a nanopocalyptic wasteland. Sure, they're everywhere, but they aren't dismantling everything else for parts. If this were a real risk, it would already have happened.

What do you think every bacteria that can't manufacture its own food is doing to all the ones that can?

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[jeffb (2.718)]

Recall that bacteria have had around 4 billion years to turn Earth into a nanopocalyptic wasteland.

You mean like the Oxygen Catastrophe, where uncontrollably replicating microbiomachines saturated the atmosphere with a waste product so caustic that it rotted the very rocks out from under them?

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[plasmacutter]

This is because they are not faced with a varied enough environment.

If a bacteria were lab engineered with the capacity to function between near absolute zero and upwards of 5k f, then it would be able to replicate continuously and be virtually impervious to the environment.

Something may begin to prey on it, but that would simply replace its dominance with the new species.. the earth would still be eaten, all be it more slowly.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[rdwald]

> If a bacteria were lab engineered with the capacity to function between near absolute zero and upwards of 5k f

We have tardigrades, they haven't taken over yet. 'Nuff said.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[Anonymous Coward]

We ARE they gray goo.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.743095,-74.045105&spn=0.869827,1.235962&t=k&z=10

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your linked article reads like bad science fiction. I fail to see how anyone can, with a straight face (not to mention a clear conscience), claim to *know* what happened 300 million years ago and then try and account for some hole in the theory.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[plasmacutter]

Your linked article reads like bad science fiction. I fail to see how anyone can, with a straight face (not to mention a clear conscience), claim to *know* what happened 300 million years ago and then try and account for some hole in the theory.

it's in the geologic record, among other observations.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[meringuoid]

what happened 300 million years ago

You might want to re-read that article. The events described took place over a 300 million year period, from 2.7 billion years ago to 2.4 billion years ago, when life on earth consisted exclusively of single-celled organisms. 300 million years ago, the amphibians were well along in the job of colonising the land.

To be fair to you, it's an easy mistake to make. 300 million years, 2.4 billion years... the difference is only about 300 times more than the time between modern man and our common ancestor with the chimpanzees. Not much at all.

Re:To all worried about "grey goo"...

[Weedlekin]

"I fail to see how anyone can, with a straight face (not to mention a clear conscience), claim to *know* what happened 300 million years ago and then try and account for some hole in the theory."

The Great Oxidation happened 2.4 (American) billion years ago, not 300 million. Evidence for it exists in "banded iron" deposits, which are various iron oxides that aren't found prior to that period (you need oxygen to oxidise iron), and more recently, the results of high-resolution chemostratigraphy also confirm that it occurred.

'Almost alive' is fairly generous

[Kurofuneparry]

As a biochemist I'm surprised with the 'almost alive' statement in the article: they're still a long way to go. However, the work they are doing is interesting and is proof-of-concept for many elements of the RNA-world theory. I, like others, am surprised by the 'questions about creationism'. This show improper bias where this article doesn't approach creationism, but rather supports the validity of the evolutionary origin theory. The author has assumed that origin is a zero-sum game, and this is flawed and biased logic.

Insane

[Reality Master 101]

Whenever I start contemplating DNA (!), self-reproduction and the utter insanity of how complex the machinery of a single cell is, much less multicellular life, much less an animal, much less a self-aware brain, I just shake my head in wonder. There can only be one conclusion, really.

No, not God, that's utterly absurd. No, the conclusion is that life is really, really, really, REALLY unlikely. That's the answer to the Fermi Paradox. We are utterly unique, and I suspect that intelligent life is so improbable, that it requires 1e85th power cycles of the universe(s) for it to happen *once*. Of course, we have no idea how much "time" has passed since the last time it happened. We just wake up as a species and assume it must be happening everywhere.

Really, just contemplating the whole idea of DNA when it's really just a wet, sloppy pile of chemicals blows my mind.

Re:Insane

[domatic]

Really, just contemplating the whole idea of DNA when it's really just a wet, sloppy pile of chemicals blows my mind.

Maybe that's the problem "everybody else" has with us:

http://baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

Re:Insane

[QuantumG]

You look around and see something that is everywhere and you conclude that it much be very unlikely.

Makes perfect sense.

Re:Insane

[Yunzil]

We are utterly unique, and I suspect that intelligent life is so improbable, that it requires 1e85th power cycles of the universe(s) for it to happen *once*.

Show your work.

Re:Insane

[Reality Master 101]

You look around and see something that is everywhere and you conclude that it much be very unlikely. [...] Makes perfect sense.

Life is a complete, closed system. To get to intelligent life, the world has to start with lower forms, and thus you're going to have a huge amount of other life as offshoots with one finally making it.

Or to put it another way, there's really only one lifeform on earth, and it's billions of years old. Pieces of it break off now and then and die, but it continue on.

The fact that life is common on Earth tells us absolutely nothing about anywhere else.

Re:Insane

[QuantumG]

The fact that the universe looks the same no matter what direction you look tells us that the earth is nothing special and, as such, if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

Re:Insane

[SpinyNorman]

Try reading (ex. Santa Fe Institute member) Stuart Kauffman's "At home in the universe", where he convincingly argues for the inevitability of the simplest forms of life, given enough time.

The simplest form of life needn't be anything more than self-assembling membrane/fatty bubble containing self-replicating (i.e circular chain reaction) chemical soup. The role of controlling such a "cells" chemistry wouldn't have been filled by simple catalysts - no need for anything remotely as complex as RNA. Reaction components admitted by the semi-permiable membrane would be it's "food". Replication could have been mechanical via large cells being broken up by phyicical agitation (e.g. wave/wind action) and smaller ones then self-assembling...

Re:Insane

[Reality Master 101]

The fact that the universe looks the same no matter what direction you look tells us that the earth is nothing special and, as such, if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

Sorry, but that's simply illogical. We *do* *not* *know* how probable life is or isn't. You're making a fundamental reasoning mistake: it's called the Anthropic Principle. The Earth is the way it is exactly because we're here to perceive it... if it wasn't the way it was, we wouldn't be here. Our very existence colors our perception.

Let's say the odds on any particular planet having intelligent life are 1e159 to 1 against. And then let's say it 2 to 1 against. How is our perception of our world any different between those two extremes? We don't perceive when it doesn't happen.

Just because the universe looks very similar in all directions doesn't mean that everything happens everywhere. I could create a machine to spit out random numbers (using a Geiger counter, for example), and given enough length, the sequence of numbers that I generate would be totally unique in the universe. It's entirely possible (and probable, in my opinion) that life represents another sequence of random chance that happened to create something that can analyze itself.

You know its coming...

[ZosX]

And I, for one, welcome our new artificial protocell overlords.

Got a bridge to sell you too!!!!

[gsgriffin]

Look at this carefully. He is mixing ingredients...not creating anything. He is using "source code" from something else. There is no way he is going to create DNA or recreate the processes that each living cell goes through without stealing from something else. Let's get real and past the hype. He's trying to get headlines somewhere from people that are willing to get excited. Every heard of the car that runs on water!!!!

Science is scary

[Anonymous Coward]

We have to stop these mad scientists before they destroy the earth with their Large Hadron Colliders or create some sort of sentient goo that could destroy us all!

Arrrrgh! Run away!

Yeah, I'm being silly. Mod me down.

bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

give me cells that reproduce and evolve and demonstrate that and then you'll raise questions about creationism. Otherwise you're just showing how desperate you are to disbelieve.

now the question is

[Anonymous Coward]

will their self replicating code be open source?

20-something Kelly LeBrock

[syousef]

Call me when he can create an 20-something Kelly LeBrock and I'll be more interested.

(Disclaimer: Actually I find this kind of science fascinating, but that doesn't aid in making a joke)

Wait, lemme get it straight ...

[winomonkey]

... a possibility to get large amounts of fatty molecules to get energy from the sun and other external sources? And this might be bioengineering gone wrong?! Sounds to me like we have a chance to use the obesity in America to create artificial life ...

Capcom consumes us!

[Satanboy]

Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School

So when is it discovered that Harvard is another front for The Umbrella Corporation?

HOW is more important than if

[forsey]

Isn't HOW the scientist creates life more important than IF the scientist creates life when considering it's relevance to proving or disproving Creationism. If the scientist creates life using methods which have a decent chance of naturally occurring, wouldn't that be evidence against creation. Where if it took more extraordinary and unnatural methods to create life wouldn't it be evidence in favor of creation?

Source code?

[Sockatume]

Does that make transcription JIT compilation?

Re:Source code?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that make transcription JIT compilation?

More like a clone() method where every getter can have side effects.

Isn't this potentially stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is just one (or even a few) step away from being alive, isn't this pretty stupid?

Lets just assume, for the sake of argument, that something happens that converts this from inert, but close to life, to actually alive, as must have happened at some point in the past (because we are here as proof, sorry creationists I don't buy your broken argument), then if this stuff become alive we have some serious potential problems.

What if this new protoplasm (for want of a better, more accurate word) is better in the antibiody/germ warmfare division that "life as we know it"? What then? We have no antibiodies for this stuff, neither does any other living creature. How do we defend ourselves?

Its not a case of this is organic life as we know if, but no antibidodies, but we can work on it, this is, we haven't a clue how to react to this, we can't work on it territory.

Yes, I guess in all liklihood w'll be OK. But what it, just what if, a combination occurs that is dangerous to us, what then? Well frankly we're screwed. People shouldn't be messing with this until they know what they are doing. Its more important that just curiosities sake. A lot more.

And finally, yes, I think its seriously impressive that someone has done this. But I don't think its clever at all. Different things entirely.

Creationism?

[blair1q]

Are there still actually questions about Creationism?

I mean, beyond, "why do we still allow human beings to be to believe in Creationism?"

This here is nanomachine engineering. Arranging molecules. Making devices that perform certain functions.

If it's life-like, then yay, we can check that box, and get on to finding profitable uses for the technology.

Creationism?

[Asterra]

The only places where it may raise "questions about creationism" is in Western society, and even then I would limit that to the most backward countries, or country. Most nations are too forward-thinking to permit their children to be allowed, in mass numbers, to be raised with such brainwashed, useless perceptions of the world.

Almost?

[commodoresloat]

No Nobel prize for you, Jack! We don't give awards for attempted chemistry, do we? Or punish people for attempted murder! Wait a minute...

This threatens what?

[ricegf]

Surely the OP doesn't believe that an intelligent being almost creating life is somehow threatening to those who believe life was created by an intelligent being?

Re:This threatens what?

[justinlee37]

Correction; those who believe as such believe that life was created by a supernatural, omnipotent intelligent being. Showing that just any regular old intelligent being can create life might poke a hole in that. Of course, then you have the whole chicken-and-the-egg dilemma ...

Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[pitchpipe]

Speaking of self replicating, I had sex last night with a supermodel (almost). Well, I guess that depends on what is meant by almost. Also, the definition of supermodel might be relevant here 8^)

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[seededfury]

"I had sex last night with a supermodel (almost)."

almost..... shes not really a supermodel until you drink the whole keg.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[repapetilto]

Have you ever drank an entire keg by yourself? More will happen than you can imagine.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[Tuqui]

"I had sex last night with a supermodel (almost)."

almost..... shes not really a supermodel until you drink the whole keg.

In slashdot "(almost)" refers to sex obviously.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[duckInferno]

That's because in that state you don't have much brain left to imagine with. You'll actually just be sprawled over the floor sleeping in your own vomit for most of it.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[Urkki]

"I had sex last night with a supermodel (almost)."

almost..... shes not really a supermodel until you drink the whole keg.

In slashdot "(almost)" refers to sex obviously.

And "supermodel" refers to a professional porn star, probably of the "teen amateur" type.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[malcomreynolds]

The physical contact to whom is actually only your hands touching the DVD as you insert it into the player.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[baKanale]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) (Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary):
supermodel [soo-per-mod-l]
-noun
an extremely prominent and successful model who can command very high fees.

American Heritage Dictionary:
supermodel
n. An extremely successful and internationally famous fashion model.

Unfortunately, I don't think either of those definitions cover your hand.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of self replicating, I (almost) had sex last night with a supermodel (almost). Well, I guess that depends on what is meant by almost. Also, the definition of supermodel might be relevant here 8^)

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[CarlosM7]

I guess anybody is a supermodel compared to this.

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[be951]

Have you ever drank an entire keg by yourself?

Almost!

Re:Biologist (Almost) Creates Artificial Life

[bar-agent]

The physical contact to whom is actually only your hands touching the DVD as you insert it into the player.

Hey, if there's something being inserted into something, that counts as sex as far as I'm concerned.

"Unlimited" is logically impossible.

[plasmacutter]

If god is omnipotent, then god should be able to make something he cannot understand.

If god can, than god is not omniscient, because he would be able to understand it.

The same can be said in reverse.

Omnipotence and omniscience are mutually exclusive, thus a truly unlimited being is not possible.

Re:"Unlimited" is logically impossible.

[plasmacutter]

If god is omnipotent, then god should be able to make something he cannot understand.

If god can, than god is not omniscient, because he would be able to understand it.

The same can be said in reverse.

Omnipotence and omniscience are mutually exclusive, thus a truly unlimited being is not possible.

whoops, not presented properly..

omnipotence means being able to make something you can't understand.

Being able to make something you can't understand nullifies omniscience.

Therefore, a truly unlimited being is logically impossible

Re:"Unlimited" is logically impossible.

[LordLucless]

Only because you're playing silly buggers with definitions. It's just like saying "God can't create a round circle - look I've disproved omnipotence". Omnipotence doesn't make the claim that God can do everything - there are explicit examples in the Bible of things God can't do. Sin, for example. It's a description of potency, not capability.

Re:"Unlimited" is logically impossible.

[Anonymous Coward]

there are explicit examples in the Bible of things God can't do. Sin, for example.

Heh...now, THAT'S playing with definitions. God can't sin, because it is God that defines what sinning is. Thou shalt not murder, but He can flood the earth and it's nor murder, it's getting rid of sinners.

Re:"Unlimited" is logically impossible.

[Weedlekin]

It's also not murder to kill people God has told you to kill, e.g. the entire population of Jericho. This means that anyone who reckons God has told him or her to kill any number of others for any reason in any way is covered, which I'm sure is a source of great comfort to those in organisations such as Al Quaeda.

Probability takes time!

[robmarms]

I have actually followed this labs work for some time. The simple truth is that the whole evolution/origin of life concept has a whole lot to do with probability. In fact there is a great argument for life owing much thanks to the moon for it's tidal forces and thus increasing of concentrations of substances in tidal pools. That being said probability of chemical change increases vastly with time and there was a whole lot of time before life arose. I do not think we can even fathem the amount of time to create life from scratch and we certainly will not do it. However, this offers understanding as to what steps were likely taken to reach where things are now.

Re:Probability takes time!

[Weedlekin]

"there was a whole lot of time before life arose"

We don't actually know that there was a whole lot of time. Stromatolites for example go back at least 3.5 (American) billion years, and we only know about the organisms that made them because they laid down rocky deposits (similar organisms exist today). The vast majority of micro-organisms (and indeed the vast majority of organisms of all sizes) have left us with no permanent record of their existence, so all we can say is that life goes back _at least_ 3.5 billion years, not that it didn't exist for a considerable period beforehand.

Igor ...

[PPH]

... go down to the cemetery and fetch a brain for my creation.

Its pronounced "Eye-gore".

Re:Igor ...

[ErkDemon]

Shouldn't that be iGore, the Apple-rebranded android once known as ALGore (short for "algorithm")?

God or Spore

[incognito84]

"Men shouldn't play god!" "Can we play Spore, then?"

not quite there

[globaljustin]

These guys aren't anywhere near making anything as complex as actual biological life. What they're doing is more like biological engineering than biology. TFA reports they are close to making a very simple self-replicating system...

it's important to note that this thing they haven't made yet wouldn't be able to self-replicate without 'help' from the researchers once they actually DO make it. Of course, down the road they would like to get something that could be autonomous, but even then it wouldn't be able to survive outside the lab.

From TFA:

The replication isn't wholly autonomous, so it's not quite artificial life yet

and

What we're looking at is the origin of life in one aspect, and the other aspect is life as a small nanomachine on a single cell level

So we're really far off from what you're speculating about...but, to address your concerns, alarmism about this research along the same lines as the people who are afraid that CERN will open a black hole that will swallow the earth (not saying you are alarmist...but some are).

Bottom line is, once they make a self-replicating artificial organism that can also exist outside the lab we should put it in the same level of quarantine that we give the nastiest of the nasty biochem. weapons or diseases we keep for research. It's not like we don't know how to safely work with dangerous substances/organisms.

Re:not quite there

[Khyber]

What prevents something from becoming autonomous? You fail to explain that so your entire statement makes no sense to me. Please explain your position with reproducible facts.

Re:not quite there

[Urkki]

If something becomes autonomous on it's own, it does it under same restrictions of biological evolution as everything else now living.

What defence against bacteria would this new life have? None. Could it develop some? I don't think it'd have time... Bacteria and archae have biochemical machinery for attack and defence, predation, battle and digestion, that has evolved for and survived almost 4 billion years. Protists have inherited a lot of that machinery and developed new more complex machinery to do the same over last maybe billion years. What we have now is best of the best, the stuff that has been able to beat everything that no longer exists.

So if this new life would start spreadig enough to make a food source, it would be eaten. And it would not have time to develop any defences, and it would not be the only food of microbes eating it, so it would be eaten to extinction.

Re:not quite there

[jimdread]

These guys aren't anywhere near making anything as complex as actual biological life. What they're doing is more like biological engineering than biology.

It'd be interesting to see what happens if somebody did try to create something alive from scratch. Here we have one guy adding proteins to a lipid membrane to see if it can replicate itself. The article also mentions somebody else doing genetic engineering on some bacteria. But both of them are using parts made from living organisms.

Here's a report of some people who made some polio virus out of gene sequences they bought by mail order. Presumably the gene sequences they bought would have been made by some genetically engineered bacteria. So that is not really built from scratch. And also it's a virus, so many people don't consider it to be "alive".

It would be very interesting if somebody could work out how to make bacteria out of some simple organic chemicals, such as methane, ethanol, or sugars. Hooking together DNA made by a genetic engineering isn't really the same. The real test would be if somebody could make some bacteria, and those bacteria started growing and reproducing. This would possibly give some insight into whether life is just chemistry, or if there is something else required. It would also be a great boost to the theory of abiogenesis.

Meh....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just viral marketing for Spore.

Easy, Neither...

[raftpeople]

Is that evidence of abiogenesis, or creationism?"

That's pretty easy to answer, it's neither. It's a scientist creating life from scratch in a test tube. Abiogenesis is when there is no scientist involved.

Additionally, creationism is when God is required, so while it's not either, it does demonstrate that God is not required to form a living organism from non-living raw materials.

Re:Easy, Neither...

[lawpoop]

Additionally, creationism is when God is required, so while it's not either, it does demonstrate that God is not required to form a living organism from non-living raw materials.

Gotta disagree with you there. It does not demonstrate that God is not required. You haven't shown that God was present or not present during the synthesizing of life, so therefore you can't say that God wasn't there doing some necessary mojo that only he could do when the scientists mixed the right chemicals together.

Re:Easy, Neither...

[raftpeople]

Touche.

Usually this sort of thing would worry me...

[Anonymous Coward]

But tomorrow LHC will wipe it all out ... so I'm cool...

The Epitome Of Anthroegotism

[DynaSoar]

"some scary bio-research-gone-wild scenarios."

Nature is far better at producing far more and more diverse potentially lethal hazards far faster than all the bio-labs on the planet. Plus, nature has been at it for billions of years. If he could do it, nature probably already has, and we're still here.

Besides, if he builds something not related to Earth life, the possibility that it could affect Earth life is virtually nil.

I remember once there was a science related story on /. that didn't devolve into sCaRy mOnStEr sci-fi speculation. Once. It's amazing what mischief the mind can get up to when it's working with very little information, except no, it's not at all amazing.

No problem if you contemplate RNA instead.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Whenever I start contemplating DNA (!), self-reproduction and the utter insanity of how complex the machinery of a single cell is, much less multicellular life, much less an animal, much less a self-aware brain, I just shake my head in wonder.

Doesn't bother me. Evolution is a massively parallel computation and has been going on for a LONG time.

If you skip DNA and just look at RNA it all gets easy:

  - RNA caries genetic information and can be copied by an appropriate enzyme. (It's less stable than DNA, but quite stable enough to form the genomes of viruses. At the early stages, with no competition yet, being error-prone is actually good.)

  - RNA has enzymatic activity. (It's not as strong or as versatile as protein-based enzymens. But it is quite capable of folding itself up into structures coded by its sequence, sticking together at appropriate places and presenting controlled patterns of charges on outer surfaces of a controlled shape, to become a little molecular machine.

Nucleotides line themselves up on a strand of either RNA or DNA to form the complimentary code sequence. They'll bind themselves into a strand given enough time and jostling. But if you have a RNA strand that also sometimes folds up into a little zipper-tab that runs down the lined-up RNA bases and sticks them together into a fresh strand you're all set:
  - You'll eventually have both that and its compliment hanging around in the same container.
  - At some point the strand that folds up into a zipper will zip up the new bases stuck to its complimentary strand. Then you have TWO zippers tab strands plus a complimentary strand.
  - Now the zipper strand(s) start churning out new zipper strands and complimentary strands.

Slow at first, because rev 0.1 probably doesn't work well and it's completely dependent on randomly occurring bases for "food". But with the exponential under way the errors start to accumulate. Now you get some that are better at zipping than others - and they dominate the regions where they occur. And you get strands with multiple copies and other noise sequences - which can now evolve separately within the strand and evolve new functions.

Whenever a strand evolves one of its "spare" "genes" into a machine to help out, it becomes more successful.

From there you can evolve:
  - Machines to make components of the system from other "useless" stuff.
  - Machines to string amino-acids into useful structural stuff - and eventually better machines.
  - Machines to control a container, creating the "cell" and its division mechanism.
  - Machines to make backup copies of the RNA code in more stable DNA and then make more RNA from that.
and so on.

There's plenty of suggestions that this is what happened. For instance: Most of the machinery of RNA-directed protein synthesis - both most of the parts of the ribosome (the stringing factory) and all of the transfer RNA (the amino-acid carrier/code reader mechanisms) are RNA enzymes.

So, no, contemplating the current complexity doesn't bother me at all. It can all be explained by evolution from a single, simple, mechanism that could easily be produced in millions of years of random abiotic chemical reactions in a planetary scale vat of solar-irradiated, weather-stirred chemicals.

Re:No problem if you contemplate RNA instead.

[Reality Master 101]

If you skip DNA and just look at RNA it all gets easy:

With all respect, you know what all that reminds me of? The people back in the 50s who used to wave their hands saying artificial intelligence was 5-10 years away. :) Easy? Better call the Nobel Prize committee, I'm sure they'll be interested in your paper on "easily" solving the whole abiogenesis question.

If it were that simple, we'd have demonstrated abiogenesis by now, or at least written a computer simulation that caused a self-reproducing machine to spontaneously erupt.

Re:No problem if you contemplate RNA instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd make a change to your last paragraph. It's not a planetary scale you need to consider. It's a universal scale. Assuming that there's trillions or quadrillions of planets in the universe where this can happen, that drastically improves the odds of life occurring somewhere.

Ummm, is this "replication'?

[jdevivre]

I may have missed this bit, and the work is unpublished, but I read this article as saying this guy put chunks of RNA into a big fat glob, added water and saw the big fat glob break into smaller fat globs with bits of RNA in them. Is that not just a kitchen-sink-dishwater effect of division, not replication?

Why does this have to raise questions...

[okmijnuhb]

Why does this have to raise questions about Creationism?
I'm an atheist free-thinker, and even I know that Creationists do not have any questions.

They only have answers.
Just ask them.
Why can't we just keep this about science, learning and knowledge?

Just let people think what they want, Creationism, mysticism, voodooism, you'll never change the beliefs of the irrational, no matter how much hard science you come up with.

Re:Why does this have to raise questions...

[The End Of Days]

That's not very us against them. You should get with the program around here. Slashdot is composed of the intellectual elite and they deserve to be in charge of the world, controlling even the way people think.

Re:Why does this have to raise questions...

[okmijnuhb]

Well, it was baited with sarcasm, and I did call them irrational, but maybe it was too subtle.

carl sagan

[Anonymous Coward]

One of Carl Sagan's ideas was that a reason we might not see so many alien civilizations out there is because after reaching a certain level of technical proficiency, they would eventually blow themselves up with nuclear weapons.

Maybe biology running amok is more plausible. ...now here come the slashdot pedants who can't distinguish between fun speculation, a serious hypothesis, and a statement of fact.

the last straw

[theleoandtherat]

god damn outsourcing

anonymous coward

[Anonymous Coward]

life always finds a way......

Questionable Creationism

[Doc Ruby]

This obviously raises some questions about creationism,

What questions? Like whether Creationists are really babbling on about some aliens creating life on Earth as some kind of "live action videogame" or something?

Or some ridiculous question about whether having a fabulous chemistry set makes someone a god, and science that dumb people understand equal to a bona fide "miracle"?

Not even close

[Iowan41]

A living cell is profoundly more complicated than the lipid shell this individual designed. And then he takes already formed nucleic acids, that already have code invented and written upon them, and in the end, has has made the equivalent of a plastic box that he stuck pieces of a floppy disk in. Talk about hype!

There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Molochi]

"Having not been made by natural evolutionary forces..."

A dude in a lab is just as much a force of evolution and nature as a comet fueling a primorial soup or whatever you think triggered life on Earth. You don't GET to go outside the system. There is no unnatural .

When the researcher adds the next improvement to these globs of goo that allows them to survive better they will have evolved inside the system of nature which includes the petri dish they may someday live in.

And if it comes to pass that one day they evolve into a symbiotic arm for amputees or a blob that eats chicago, that will be natural as well.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't GET to go outside the system. There is no unnatural .

What about burning fossil fuels? That's unnatural and evil, isn't it? Be careful how you answer, because any theory that doesn't include the concept that burning fossil fuels is unnatural and evil, is automatically wrong.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Khyber]

Everything will be burned in the end - whether you do it now or later REALLY doesn't matter in the Universal Grand Scheme.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Urkki]

You don't GET to go outside the system. There is no unnatural .

One completely valid definition of "natural" is "not made/influenced by humans". That is in fact the most common meaning of the word "natural". Or to put it another way, if it is "made", it is not "natural". If it is "natural", it was "formed" or "evolved".

Then of course "unnatural" has additional meaning, something like "extraordinary in a bad or sinister way". Like "unnatural weather".

I'm sorry (well, not really), but you have no authority to decide what words mean...

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Urkki]

Everything will be burned in the end - whether you do it now or later REALLY doesn't matter in the Universal Grand Scheme.

Who cares about universal grand scheme? I personally would be satisfied if my children and even grandchildren won't have to become climate refugees or face a famine or a war. Beyond that, I don't think it's not really my business any more, but for the next hundred years or so, I'm partially responsible (and so is everybody else now living).

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Anonymous Coward]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Life has become too stable and boring. You're giving your grandchildren the opportunity to take part in the largest LARP event of an apocalyptic world ever.
You may have some concerns that they'd die because they couldn't handle their environment or because of competition for scarce resources, but they were going to die anyway weren't they? Besides, our species needs a good challenge. Even if they are just playing against themselves.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Zenaku]

When the researcher adds the next improvement to these globs of goo that allows them to survive better they will have evolved inside the system of nature which includes the petri dish they may someday live in.

Uh, no. . . I agree with you that it will not be unnatural, but they will also not have "evolved" when the researcher "adds the next improvement." Natural or unnatural, that doesn't fit the definition of evolution, but of genetic engineering. A genetically engineered or altered organism may then go on to evolve from there, but the specific improvement added by the researcher would not be an example of evolving.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Nicolay77]

You are totally right. That's the most common meaning of the word "Natural".

I do however think that Molochi is right, and the common meaning is just too simplistic, naive or stupid.

We are animals like any other mammal, there's no magic line separating us from the rest of nature.

Re:There is nothing "unnatural" about science

[Urkki]

We are animals like any other mammal, there's no magic line separating us from the rest of nature.

Yes, there is magic that separates us from the other animals. AFAIK no other animal can even begin comprehend this type of magic.

Of more interest...

[Jack9]

I'm not so astounded by the creation of life, but by the occurrence of the same kind of life in nature (and where) to tell us the chances that abiogenesis likely happened so long ago. Creating a man-made molecule in a collider and making life in a test tube are fun exercises, but I want reassurance that the world happened the way we have been teaching it (YMMV in Arkansas).

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[Khyber]

I'll take the random A+ high school biology student over a Wikipedia article. This is coming from interviewing people for a position at my business - you can see the Wikipedia in the resume and hear/feel it in their oral interviews. If you pay attention to Wikipedia, that is. I prefer free-thinking high school students to Wikipedia whores anyday.

God Wins Law

[Mesa MIke]

"As a Slashdot discussion on any scientific topic grows longer, the probability of it devolving into creationist-bashing fest approaches one."

Self Replicating?

[Justabit]

Birds are warm blooded? Why dosen't anyone tell me these things!

This article was (almost) worth reading

[birdguy]

Not!

In other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

.... a Slashdot nerd almost had sex. Details at 11.

Created life vs evolved life?

[Colin Smith]

Evolved life wins.

We have had billions of years of self replicating machine eating each other for survival. What on earth do you think that they'll do to an organism which doesn't have that background?
 

Re:Created life vs evolved life?

[speculatrix]

vote it into office?

Re:Created life vs evolved life?

[Anonymous Coward]

omglol 5

"I have pretty much no knowledge about dinosaurs"

[hellop2]

Then why are you commenting on the subject? It's called talking out of your ass. Please don't do it.

If there was ever a time...

[Machine9]

...to start a company called Umbrella Corporation, this would be it :D

intelligent design

[shnull]

which brings intelligent design really down to earth doesnt it ... God was not an alien ... but a geek ????? omfg, the truth must be close

Actually, nope

[Moraelin]

Actually, nope, they're quite distinct cases, regardless of the "god" option. Something having a beginning does not automatically imply that it was "created" by something whatsoever.

E.g., there's a rainbow outside. It wasn't "created" by anything. It's just the interaction between a bunch of droplets of water, and the sunlight coming in at the right angle. Both are quite random things, and it seems funny to ascribe the power of creation to them. It's an ephemereal phenomenon.

E.g., the formation of the Earth and solar system that that. It's just a bunch of atoms and mollecules which collapsed under their own combined gravity, and happened to settle in this configuration. Some of them first accreted into smaller bits of stone and ice, but nevertheless it's just physics at work. It wasn't "created" by anything whatsoever. It was just a cloud which re-settled in another, more compact, shape under its own gravity. At best you could say that the solar system "created" itself.

Plus, as was already said, you're already postulating that time itself must have existed before the "beginning", which isn't necessarily a given. It's just another axis of the time-space of this universe. Just because we can mentally extrapolate beyond point zero, it doesn't mean it actually existed.

E.g., I can mentally extrapolate going a billion miles west of here. I mean, I can walk a mile or two in that direction, why not a billion? In reality, there is _no_ point that's a billion miles west of here, on this spheroid we call Earth. It wraps around.

E.g., heck, in the Universe itself, I can easily extrapolate something like "a trillion light years in that direction". In reality, there is no such point because the universe itself is finite.

E.g., I can come up with a mental extrapolation like "the 42'th planet around the Sun." I mean, their distancs and periods are just a number series. There's nothing in it that would prevent you from calculatin how far a 42'th planet would be, and what period it would have around the sun. But there is none. Just because you can calculate something it doesn't mean it actually exists.

Ditto here. Just because our intuition can extrapolate something, it doesn't mean it necessarily existed.

Heck, it may even be inaccurate to extrapolate to infinity in the _future_. There is at least one hypothesis based on string theory that there is no acceleration of the expansion of space, it's the time itself that is actually slowing down. And will eventually stop completely. So there might be a point T, past which there is no more future. Much as you can mentally extrapolate past it.

Etc.

Basically don't let your perceptions and intuitions run your model of the universe. Said perceptions and intuition were made to work at small distances, over limited times, and generally with small numbers. There are phenomena which happen too fast or too slow or over too large distances, to bear any relevance to how the mammal brain evolved to deal with or to even resemble anything that your first hand experience includes.

Re:Actually, nope

[quizwedge]

E.g., there's a rainbow outside. It wasn't "created" by anything. It's just the interaction between a bunch of droplets of water, and the sunlight coming in at the right angle. Both are quite random things, and it seems funny to ascribe the power of creation to them. It's an ephemereal phenomenon.

Maybe created is the wrong word in this sense, but caused would certainly work. The sunlight and water droplets "reacted" causing the rainbow.

. Said perceptions and intuition were made to work at small distances, over limited times, and generally with small numbers. There are phenomena which happen too fast or too slow or over too large distances, to bear any relevance to how the mammal brain evolved to deal with or to even resemble anything that your first hand experience includes.

Which explains why my brain feels like a jumbled mess when I think about things like this too late at night. :)

Try telling that to creationists

[Moraelin]

Well, that any sane person would interpret you like you did, is fairly obvious. Now try telling it to some of the bible-belt bible-thumpers. Last I've read some of their arguments, it boiled down to exactly that:

- evolution can't possibly happen, a dog will never evolve into a cat

- life is too complicated to have appeared by chance, it's only God / The Intelligent Designer who could have made it

- certain organs are too complicated to have appeared by random mutations and natural selection, only God / The Intelligent Designer who could have made them

Etc.

Heck, there even was this recent experiment where a bacteria culture held on a citrate substrate, which it originally couldn't metabolize, eventually evolved the proteins to take it apart and feed on it. A certain group of bible thumpers outright accused him of fraud.

Again, I'm not saying that _all_ christians are like that, or that the bible is like that. But there _are_ people who interpret it just like that: _only_ God could have created life.

Latest published article on the subject in Nature

[mapkinase]

Mansy SS, Schrum JP, Krishnamurthy M, Tobé S, Treco DA, Szostak JW. Template-directed synthesis of a genetic polymer in a model protocell. Nature. Published online 4 June 2008(PDF warning). Does not require subscription to Nature, because it's straight from his lab page.

Re:Latest published article on the subject in Natu

[mapkinase]

From abstract:

Here we show that such membranes allow the passage of charged molecules such as nucleotides, so that activated nucleotides added to the outside of a model protocell spontaneously cross the membrane and take part in efficient template copying in the protocell interior. The permeability properties of prebiotically plausible membranes suggest that primitive protocells could have acquired complex nutrients from their environment in the absence of any macromolecular transport machinery; that is, they could have been obligate heterotrophs.

Summary of TA

[mapkinase]

So far his lab created membrane bubbles that suck in the nucleotides. Inside those bubbles they had primer-template complexes like:

5'-GATTACA-3'
3'-CTAATGCGATGCCGTAGATC...-5'

Once inside the bubble the nucleotides spontaneously build up at the end of GATTACA... primer (primers are actually longer, 15 bases) complementing template. The proof of that is seen in gel electrophoresis pictures on Fig 4 of the original article in Nature(PDF).

The article is pretty readable, btw.

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[somersault]

Since when were high school students 'free thinking'? At least the ones reading wikipedia are actively searching out information rather than only learning it because they have to. Yeah, I just watched Good Will Hunting for the first time last week ;) While the story is pretty exaggerated it has some truth. I didn't learn anything at university that I didn't already know, or couldn't have just learned by reading a textbook. Seriously. I was in fact much more interested in learning before I went to university, but part of that was just personal circumstances. I spent a lot of time during high school doing coding in my spare time, but since I had to start doing it for coursework/my job I just want to relax in my spare time..

If by a wikipedia whore you mean someone who will only have a cursory glance at the subject and not look into it in any further detail, then I agree though.

For something as nebulous as the definition of 'life' though, you could start in worse places than wikipedia for seeing a few different opinions. I'm seeing a lot of yahoo question and answer sessions whenever I google for info these days, and some of the answers are atrociously wrong, though presented in such a way as to try and sound like the person knows what they're talking about.

wait....creationism!?

[nimbius]

what is there to question about creationism? its not science. in fact, its right up there with scientology as far as im concerned.

heck, opening a can of beans does just as much to call creationism into question as this scientist.

I think I saw this episode

[hesaigo999ca]

Wasn't this the one where captain Oneal goes and tells everyone that bringing the replicators on board is a bad, ...very bad idea....and no one listens, and then the whole ship is taken over.

Or no wait, wasn't this the episode where Scotty brought on one of those little cute furry things on the enterprise and by the end of the episode, they were falling out of the vents and the ceiling and the walls....

Yeah I think that's it....

Artificial?

[AP31R0N]

Does artificial mean "assembled by people" or "not real/authentic"?

If this biologist combine a dash of this and dash of that and life arises, is that artificial? The molecules are just doing what they are supposed to do. If you throw sodium metal into water, it's quite natural for there to be an explosion, even though it was a person getting the whole thing started.

My gf is a geophysicist and she tells me there's no such thing as an artificial diamond. If it was created in a lab, it's a carbon crystal. Diamonds are minerals, minerals come from the ground, not labs. The two materials are chemically identical.

i'm not trying to make either case, just musing on what we mean by artificial.

Protoculture

[skjolber]

I, for one, welcome our new protoculture overlords.

Biomechanical/electrical

[phorm]

Is there a "-1, Duh" moderation? Of course plants/chlorophyll harvest solar energy, but that wasn't the question.

What I was asking was: can we create an organism that produces usable electrical or biolmechanical energy (other than as petroleum-type fuels).

Re:Biomechanical/electrical

[jackchance]

I'm no bioscientist, but could this project be modified to something which harvests energy from the sun and then can discharge it in a was in which electrical or bio-mechanical energy could be generated?

Who gets the -1 duh?

You didn't specify "other than as petroleum-type fuels" in your original post.

The non-sarcastic answer to your question is that in theory, yes, you could make a biological equivalent of a photovoltaic solar panel.

However, it might be more efficient if bacteria just used the sun's energy to make hydrogen gas, and then we used the hydrogen for fuel cells or to burn as clean energy.

Questions concerning creationism?

[joeyblades]

I don't get the connection between artificial life created in a laboratory and creationism...

However, this does seem to lend some credence to the theory of inteligent design...

Re:Questions concerning creationism?

[DigitalSorceress]

So, what you're saying is that there IS a god, and that he/she is a geek in a lab coat who cooked us up in a beaker? I wonder if the scientist lovingly watches over each and every protocell and punishes them for impure thoughts.

I think I'll stick to the Big Bang and/or Brane collission, thanks. :)

Re:Questions concerning creationism?

[joeyblades]

You're not paying close enough attention...

The Big Bang **WAS** a brane collision...

As for God... who's to say he didn't cause the Big Bang in one of his petri dishes?

BTW, no matter how you skin it, it comes down to what you believe. Some believe in a God, some in many gods, some believe in aliens and volcanos, some believe in random acts of cosmic debris, and some believe that none of us and the things around us actually exist except as constructs in some hyper computer. There are even an elite few who claim not to believe anything, yet that in itself is a belief... so there you go.

Re:Questions concerning creationism?

[joeyblades]

BTW, my original comment was intended to be funny, but apparently the humor of it was lost on some people... including the modders ;-)

Thomas Kuhn

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

The following excerpt is from the Wikipedia entry on Kuhn. One important concept which is not mentioned here, but later in the article is what he calls the "dogma of science", referring to the idea that to cause these 'paradigm shifts' scientist must first inscribe themselves to the current scientific dogma, almost blindly , hence the use of the word which is commonly used pejoratively to refer to religious beliefs.

"In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) Kuhn argued that science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions, also called "paradigm shifts" (although he did not coin the phrase),[2] in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed. In general, science is broken up into three distinct stages. Prescience, which lacks a central paradigm, comes first. This is followed by "normal science", when scientists attempt to enlarge the central paradigm by "puzzle-solving". Thus, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher, contra Popper's refutability criterion. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science."

My point here is that scientist are constantly directed in two ways 1) to enhance and confirm existing hypothesis's and 2) refute the existing hypothesis's, sometimes utilizing techniques which extend outside the relevant and 'reliable' realm of science.

Very Close

[trongey]

...very close to satisfying the conditions for being 'alive'

That's the same thing my wife says about me. Hey, I'm a science experiment!

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats unfortunate; I didn't learn anything I didn't know already when i was taking classes in high school. College is where things got interesting and challenging. Coding in class has made coding outside of class a lot more exciting.

College provides such a thorough explanation of subjects. Reading a wikipedia article on linear algebra or the antebellum south or ionic chemistry is nothing to the absolute immersion demanded by college courses in the same subject. Forcing yourself to read a textbook because of an intimidating exam is also a great way to learn;unlike will hunting most people will not fully grasp something they study only casual esp. at such a young age.

I, for one...

[analogkid76]

... welcome our new blubbery overlord.

What'd they eat?

[Dog135]

What I'd like to know is: What did the first living cells eat? The Earth would have been starel(sp) before there was life. Life eats life.

Plus, how long did those early cells live? Was there so much life popping up that it was ok that the cells only lived a few days? I just don't see how a single cell could live long enough to evolve into anything other then it's original form. It would have to be randomly created with the ability to reproduce asexually in order to pass on it's dna to future generations.

Viral at best

[benjonson]

Constructing something that can hijack some or all of a life form is no doubt impressive, but ultimately no more than a virus. And is that creating life? I certainly don't think so, any more than putting some robotic exo-skeleton on a soldier will be creating a human being.

Spore...

[DorkRawk]

Pshhh.... I was going to create life, too but instead I just stayed home and played Spore.

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[InsaneProcessor]

I have been extremely close to being a billionaire for about 30 years now.
I guess that isn't real news either?

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[somersault]

Thats unfortunate; I didn't learn anything I didn't know already when i was taking classes in high school.

I find that very strange - I learned plenty about geography, physics, chemistry, german and even some Maths in high school. For stuff like Computing, Music and English I didn't learn that much that I didn't know, but I certainly learned some things.

When it came to university I perhaps learned a little about interface design, databases, a bit of logic/set theory etc (though I'll admit I've forgotten some stuff like the logical notation). I did find some of these classes interesting but due to personal circumstances like I said (depression due to my dad dying, and he was the one that got me interested in computers and taught me a lot of stuff about coding) I wasn't very well motivated at Uni. Since I started off basically knowing everything for the first 2 years and getting good grades without even trying, the classes in 3rd and 4th year hit me a bit harder because they were starting to cover things I'd never studied before, but I was already in a pattern of not really going to classes or studying. I actually ended up having to read an AI textbook to pass one of my exams in 3rd year! It was the first exam I'd ever failed. Usually I could get by just by reviewing the lecture slides for a day or 2 before an exam. I basically already knew the first half of the content of that class (probably was stuff like graphs, which I knew about because I'd written pathfinding algorithms for my Counter-Strike bots in high school), and so had stopped going to the lectures, but it turns out the second half was stuff I'd never done before :p

I don't find exams intimidating, I rather enjoy them actually. Theory exams anyway. You have time to think in a nice quiet atmosphere, and you can erase mistakes. Practical tests such as driving tests get me pretty nervous, but I passed my advanced driving test earlier this year, so a normal test would probably be piss easy for me now.

Unfortunately, that's mostly ADHD talking

[Moraelin]

Unfortunately, that's only ADHD talking, and I have been guilty of it too. I too used to essentially divide the world into, essentially,

A) stuff i would have learned on myself anyway, and

B) stuff which, OMG, is so unimportant and only some oppressive way to waste my time.

Even if you don't explicitly do that dichotomy in your message, I think that _must_ be the underlying aspect of it. Or are you telling me that you would have also learned Geography, History, Chemistry, Biology and read the classics of literature on your own?

Unfortunately there's a lot of stuff you might (or might not) end up needing later, but you don't know that yet.

As a trivial example, someone who thoroughly understands maths, will have the upper hand in a lot of programming domains, over someone whose only learning was teaching himself (the worst habits of) programming on his dad's C64. I'm not even saying I'm the best example there, because honestly maths was outside my focus of interest at the time, but I grudgingly learned it anyway because even I realized I needed it for physics, which was my main interest in school. But anyway, later I stumbled into programming 3D graphics stuff, and suddenly that maths was actually useful. Just telling someone stuff like "imagine a line in six dimensions" when explaining texturing, and watching him go cross eyed because he lacks the mathematical understanding even for that, is the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Or I see people all the time (and often am brought as a consultant to polish their turd) who spend inordinate amounts of time debuging Java's HashMap, and going "OMG, Java is broken! It replaced my old value with a new one whose key has the same hash value!" and maybe even coding comically absurd "workaround" that are trivial to prove that they can't possibly work. When in reality Java just added a new node to the front of the linked list for that bucket. But they don't really know how a hash table or even a linked list actually work. They too thought they don't need a college teaching them that, and when it bites them in the arse, they just don't know what's happening there.

Or I see people who don't even understand the O notation, and why their O(n*n) algorithm may work well on their 10 records test case, but is going to grind to a halt when fed the two billion records of their production database. (And that's actually a pretty small one.) Or I've spent an hour in a meeting explaining to someone (he's been promoted to architech nowadays, btw;) that, yes, in a table of key/value pairs you can store more than two values. Yes, that table has only two columns (ok, three including the parent ID), but you can still store more than two values in there. He obviously wasn't mentally equipped to deal with key/value pairs.

Now I'm not saying that you're of the same calibre. Some people did learn those concepts on their own. But a lot didn't.

That's basically my point. The attitude that you can just teach yourself everything by just banging on your dad's computer's keyboard, might actually leave holes that you're not even aware of. For some people, it's even the basics of the job they end up in. For others, it's just something which would have come in handy later. The ones who'd really learn everything they need on their own, are, in my experience, far and few in between.

Re:Unfortunately, that's mostly ADHD talking

[somersault]

are you telling me that you would have also learned Geography, History, Chemistry, Biology and read the classics of literature on your own?

Geography and History, probably not. Biology and Chemistry I don't know. I didn't particularly enjoy it in high school so I didn't take it as a subject, just Physics and Chemistry, which I both enjoyed, but I knew would be mostly irrelevant to my job. I knew that I wanted to code for a living since I was about 12.

I actually read quite a lot when I was younger, but that tailed off during high school. I read a lot of children's classics during primary school and then a bit of sci-fi and fantasy stuff during the first few years of high school, but since halfway through high school I've mostly just read DiscWorld books.

So I probably wouldn't have such a breadth of general knowledge if I hadn't attended high school, but I basically already knew about algebra just from my previous coding experience (my dad taught me about strings, booleans and numeric vairables when I was 8, and taught me negative numbers when I was 4 actually), and my reading writing and spelling was very good just from the amount of reading I used to do. I knew a decent amount about computers from using my Amigas and Macs, reading computer magazines and coding. You mention linked lists, my dad taught me about them when I was 15 or 16.

He died when I was 17 (6 weeks before I started my University studies), so that fscked up my plans of going to work for him after University and I was left pretty demoralised, and started wondering about the point in learning if it is all just going to be lost when you die. Not until towards the very end of university did I start to regain an interest in learning, which sucks but it's just the way it has been. I'm now doing my dad's job (IT Manager/Developer) in my uncle's engineering company though, so it wasn't all for the worst.

I do know what you mean by the O(n*n) efficiency notation, though I don't remember much about the classes where I learned it, I think it was probably Operating Systems. I already knew 80% of the stuff we did in that class, though we went over some basic assembly and compiler stuff that I was quite interested to learn. It's generally pretty obvious to me where a program will be getting bogged down, and whether a technique will scale well, but for a large program it would require a bit more of a scientific approach of course, rather than just going with gut instinct..

I did admittedly only learn about databases at University, but linking tables and separating them out to eliminate redundancy is pretty natural for me too (I can't even remember what the terminology for separating the tables out to different derees is called now though).

I think I know enough to be aware of the holes in my knowledge, though sometimes I am shocked by just how easy certain things have become in the time when I looked into them a few years ago and the way things are now. I used to think I'd have to write everything from scratch. For example back in my amiga days I used to write games and was wanting to write a networked game, but didn't know much about networks, and thought I'd have to code things on a really low level. Nowadays there are a lot of frameworks and libraries to do a lot of the hard work for you, but I know a lot more about networks anyway and could probably write my own library to do communications down at binary level if I had a bit of time. In my third university summer holiday I took on a project at work involving sending communications down a drillpipe and then decrypting them on the other end using LabVIEW and C/Delphi DLLs. So after that I understood binary transmission and receiving on a pretty basic level, but then when it came to writing a license server/client combo recently I found out how easy it was to do network communications in the real world using premade libraries/IDE components (I use Delphi for building apps requiring a Windows GUI). Generally things turn out to be a lot easier th

Re:Such a snotty subject line.

[Knara]

Wikipedia is routinely considered to be an excellent aggregator of references in fields where references mean something. (You know, down at the bottom in the "references" and "external links" areas?)

The long and short of it turns out to be: Using Wikipedia as a reference in a hard discipline: bad. Using it as a jumping off point: Good.

Btw, A+ biology students in high school are just regurgitating facts (perhaps gained by carefully structured "experiments"), so they're probably only "on par" with "wikipedia whores".

/me cowers in anticipation...

[g0bshiTe]

of the creation of the dread penis monster.

New Forms of Life will be created in a Bio Lab...

[jameskojiro]

New Forms of Intelligent Life will be created in a Computer Lab!

The future is going to be interesting.

Almost.... it's always almost..

[coryupter]

I almost solved world hunger, brought peace to the Middle East, solved the gas crisis.. I think you get my point.. when was "almost" news worthy? BTW> I *DID* post this ;)

One can hope

[roman_mir]

I was always hoping to hear about this once, that life was fully created in a laboratory repeating natural processes that started it in the first place. This is closest yet to my hopes coming true.

My other hope is that people stop electing politicians into the office who deny such natural occurrences and base their policies on their religions and other superstitions.

Well one can hope.

Bio hacking = Synthetic Biology...

[ufoolme]

Actually these type of sythetic life forms have already been shaped by evolutionary forces. I think it is wrong to think of this new life forms, they are more like biological hacking together a life form, from genes already known.

Even the genes that are artificially designed and built are done so from the knowledge already gain from the study of genetics/protometrics. Its a bit like mixing and matching engine and car parts, to get something that runs.

Still if you believe that this idea would still constitute artificial Life then in essense its already been created by the J. Craig Venter Institute with Mycoplasma laboratorium & Phi X 174. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology

Which have been built with safeguards (e.g., a suicide gene) to stop it from surviving outside a secured lab. By design most of these initiatives are commerical ventures (think synthetic oil/fuel), so while some genetic code has been released - its the techniques and the genetic databases that are the money spinners.

language and knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

We still use that [simplistic] kind of language today in everyday conversations.

Most people aren't scientists by trade, and most people have underdeveloped critical thinking skills. Lay speech is only good for conveying lay thoughts.

God says[you mean "people, who claim to write on behalf of such a god, say"] that we are made of the dust of the ground.

That the plants and creatures living on the earth incorporate* constituents of the earth into their bodies is a trivial observation. This is obvious to any creature of human-level intelligence, and probably predates (and is perhaps pre- or co-requisite with) the dawn of agriculture. Some pre-scientific authors' noticing the fact is deeply mundane and unimpressive.

* Seguing nicely into my next point about language: the word incorporate has Latin corpus as its basis. Its literal meaning is to make something part of the body.

We still talk about sunrises and sunsets, even though science has since shown that this is an illusion created by the rotation of the Earth.

This and other similar examples are artifacts of language. Many counterintuitive properties of nature have been discovered very recently compared to the time it takes any language to thoroughly differentiate from its past form. In this example, even a very easy change hasn't been made because the incorrect lay expression is good enough for most people and their purposes.

[we] think of ourselves so knowledgeable compared to those ignoramuses who lived a long time ago.

We are. We've learned more in the last 400 years than in all prior history; we've learned more in the last 50 years than in all prior history. Those are the facts, and admitting as much is not arrogance, but frankness. Denying as much is servility and false humility.

So this language was designed to be understood by the ancients as well as us...

What a worthless claim. Of course people in the future can understand a thing known in the past; understanding increases over time! The concepts in Newton's Principia have been greatly expanded upon since they were first "understood".

And please don't put sentiments into people's mouths; people aren't as haughty as you would have your readers believe. It's not that our ancient ancestors were savages to which we have some right to feel superior; they just didn't know much about the way nature behaves, because comparatively little work had been done to figure it out. "Ignoramus" connotes "buffoon", and it's shady of you to imply that modern, intelligent people think their ancestors' lack of knowledge makes them worthy of scorn.

In the book of Job...the Creator God [gave] Job a science quiz.

Rubbish. The purpose of this passage was to illustrate to Job his lack of knowledge; not test his knowledge, nor his problem-solving ability, nor to educate him. The authors had no knowledge of how these "questions" could be answered and probably considered them beyond answering. They revealed no knowledge unavailable at the time they were written.

Job flunked.

The authors meant for him to look foolish in this story, and indeed they couldn't have imagined how anyone could possess such understanding. The weakness of their examples in light of two millennia of human discovery is telling.

Modern scientist given this test might be lucky to barely get a "D".

With this false claim you show yourself as an ignorant non-scientist bent on understanding every facet of human nature and the vast universe through the lens of a bronze age manuscript. "After all," your thought process goes, "the holy book that happened to be prevalent in the land I was raised in is a perfect record of fact beyond even the slightest doubt. All understanding that can be twisted to fit its framework will be, an

Elephants can sometimes move pretty fast

[ErkDemon]

The phrase "charging elephant" springs to mind.