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

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?

[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: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.