Posted by
Hemos
on from the or-better-yet-should-we dept.
baglunch writes "There's a story at The Express that says a scientist has figured out how to create artifical bacterium. " I've never really thought it would be that hard to do - articially create a bacteria, but it does make for an interesting debate of whether life was made/created or not.
Can humans create life? No. It's already been created.
Can we copy it? Probably.
Really not all that surprising
by
Masem
·
· Score: 4
Well back before the genetic code was being worked on, some experimenters demonstrated the ability to create the basic amino acids (the building blocks of protiens) can be made in lab conditions that simulated the Earth millions/billions of years ago (namely, lots of H2O, CO, NOx, and methane).
The only difference between this particular experiment and evolution is a few million years of experimental time to allow natural selection.
Now that mankind can understand what specific genes do, they can use this basic experiment to guide the evolution of life in the right direction.
Now, specifically on the article, I did not see mention if this artifical bacteria is based on an existing one or not. Chances are, it is, and all the researchers are doing is instead of manipulating existing DNA strands, they will build their own DNA stand that should be a clone of the above, one nucliotide base at a time. It's impressive, definitely, but it's still a far cry from developing species that are specific for a task, as we yet still don't understand the genetic makeup perfectly.
--
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
You will see that baglunch got it badly wrong. All that is being discussed is a plan to create such an organism. While Dr. Ventner is a good scientist, he is also a notorious publicity hound, and what he has is more likely a list of problems that have to be solved before an organism can be created, rather than an actual method for creating such a thing.
As far as higher organisms any time soon, I am VERY doubful. After all, the great breakthrough of mammalian cloning was later shown to have a number of flaws, like the fact that Dolly wasn't actually a true clone because the mitochondrial DNA wasn't duplicated. It's a FAR FAR bigger step to actually making such a creature from scratch.
Personally I think this is a puff piece triggered by the fact that Dr. Ventner likes to see his name in print, and he suckered in a couple of unwitting journalists.
The Problem's In Defining What Life Is
by
madjack
·
· Score: 4
Before we can know that we've created life, we should reach some consensus on what life is. Self-awareness would seem to be too high of a standard, for surely a single-celled bacterium has no idea it exists, or that a universe of other entities exist. It's doubtful even higher order plants and animals have such awareness, though my cats seem to possess an inordinate sense of self-awareness. On the other hand, reproduction would seem to be a requirement for all life. So would a requirement that the entity engage and manage some internal and external processes. Breathing, eating, foraging, mating, waste disposal, etc. are examples of processes. Rocks just sit there and engage or manage no process, so we say they are not alive. Conversely, the tiniest thing that does something, we immediately recognize it as living. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure life hasn't been already created in software form. That fact that a software entity may only survive in the virtual environment it was created in, hardly seems to exclude it from consideration as a life form. My tomato plant can't survive outside the soil I planted it in, but still, it's alive. So what if we can we create a something that consumes ever-more resources, bloats in size, mutates, and experiences exponential growth in its distribution? Bill Gates and company have been doing that for years.
Re:amino acid production not (really) demonstrated
by
JetJaguar
·
· Score: 4
I'm not a chemist, I'm an astronomer, but one of the things an astronomer knows is that oxygen is fairly reactive. In this context, this results in a rather short "life-time" for free oxygen...the oxygen gets bound up with other atoms fairly quickly so that what you end up with *is* a reducing atmosphere. Oxygen did not become a significant component of the earth's atmosphere until life (algae, etc) began producing large quantities of free oxygen. Hence, prior to the formation of plants, the earth *did* have a reducing atmosphere.
And if you want an astronomical argument... you never see free oxygen in the atmospheres of the cooler stars, it will always be bound up with carbon or in a metal-oxide (depending on the carbon/metal abundance ratio). In other words, you don't normally see free oxygen in a dense atmosphere unless there's something producing it in large quantities (eg plants).
--
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
amino acid production not (really) demonstrated
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
> Well back before the genetic code was being worked on, some experimenters demonstrated > the ability to create the basic amino acids (the building blocks of protiens) can be made > in lab conditions that simulated the Earth millions/billions of years ago (namely, > lots of H2O, CO, NOx, and methane).
Yes, they could generate amino acids, but under totally unrealistic conditions. And what they did produce was useless for life.
The Miller(?) experiment relied on a reducing atmosphere, but as far back as we look, we find OXIDIZED material (Oxygen being totally destructive to the nature of the test).
As soon as the amino acids were formed, they had to be drained and isolated from the spark chamber lest the sparks that created them destroy them.
Last, but certainly not least, the amino acids produced were evenly split between left and right hand varieties, whereas all life uses strictly the left-handed variety.
In short, even with an unrealistic setup, they still couldn't produce viable building-blocks.
Re:amino acid production not (really) demonstrated
by
Masem
·
· Score: 3
True, it's unrealistic, but because the chamber was continuously charged as to accelerate the process (At least, of what I can remember of the details). They postulated that during the time life was created, the earth had much more in the way of electrical activity than it does now in addition to higher temperatures. Certainly, the 'soup' wasn't charged all the time, and given a few millenia, it would be expected that enough of the amino acids would be formed near the surface, then transported to some point sufficiently distant such that the molecules were not as exposed to the charge, and thus had time to form more complex structures (the proteins). OF course, as scientists, we don't have that kind of time to wait:-).
It's still fascinating how basic chemistry lead to the first reproducing cell. Yes, it was a process that took millions of years to develop, so it becomes a "million monkeys and a million typewriters"-type situation, but it's still amazing how it all came together in the end.
--
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Why give a bigot a 2?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
Why do the moderators encourage such an extreme show of bigotry
> two camps grow. One proclaiming that we are wrong to play God by doing this thing
I didn't see anyone saying we shouldn't do it b/c "we would be playing God". Most opposition came from people talking about the dangers of releasing a new organism into the environment.
The stance of most religious people was either: 1. this just shows the importance of design 2. this is not creating life b/c he's starting with life 3. I don't think he can do it
> The Scientists response to this is to claim that their is no God, and thus no reservation of action can be attributed to him
um, even if there is no God, that doesn't mean we shouldn't think before we do something. If I had the ability to create a disease that will decimate the human population, should I?
> The second claim made by the Believers is that there are certain decisions which, were we to choose one of the options available, we would be playing God. Aborition, Geneticaly Engineered Foods, Euthanasia, and the like are such decsions.
People don't oppose to abortion or euthanasia because "we would be playing God". They oppose it because it's murder.
And I don't know any Christians who oppose genetically engineered foods on those grounds either. In fact, most support it, and those who do oppose it do it for environmental concerns (like gene escape)
>Case 1: I do not know cpr, you have a heart attack, I rage at God for letting you die. >Case 2: I do know cpr, you have a heart attack, I do nothing, I feel guilty (and am prosecuted) for letting you die.
Where do you come up with such twisted views of Christians? The movies? Christians (and notice I leave out Scientologists) have absolutely nothing against medical science and in fact, many have contributed greatly to the field.
> The general response of the Scientists is to say "go away you silly Believer, this is just the first claim rephrased".
That is an interesting claim considering many, many scientists are believers.
Characterizing believers as "silly" just shows your prejudice.
First, perhaps I should point out to people that it hasn't been done yet. This is only a plan to do so. I'll believe this guy's claims when I see them.
Second, I don't see how this supplants any creation theories at all; all it would prove is that life could in fact be created by intelligent design. Of course, that fact is going to be ignored by fundamentalists and militant atheists alike, as fundamentalists brand it as something contrary to God's will and the militant atheists (note that I didn't say all atheists) try to claim it as proof for their side.
Personally, I have a lot of qualms about this, though. The potential for abuse is quite high. The article points out the potential for bio-weaponry, which is of course a possibility. What I'm more worried about is that if they ever do get to the point where they can create higher lifeforms they'll mass-produce them to use as slaves (or, in the case of the military, super-soldiers, not that there's much of a difference). Up until fairly recently I thought the world had outgrown that concept, but the recent violence in Eastern Europe (and the more recent violence in East Timor) plus the various hate groups worldwide seem to have proven otherwise.
Re:God's influence shrinking? ..hardly.
by
Gene77
·
· Score: 3
I'm not Catholic either, but I have a degree in theology, so take my opinion with a grain of salt and forgive the slight tangent.
It's not surprising from my end that people can at some point create stable, real life. At some level, it is just a task in biological mechanics. Most traditional theologians believe issues such as sin, etc. are related to a being's moral responsibility as reflected by how that being bears God's image (and therefore a responsibility to be good in a maximal sense, just as God must be maximally good to truly be God).
I don't think anyone has ever said that doing the nasty is a prerequisite to having a soul (maybe a lopsided reading of Augustine would leave you with this idea), or to really being "alive" in the same sense as the rest of natural creation....we're a part of nature too, so our work in it is itself a natural thing, so I agree that we can fiddle around with them, but I also understand that we need to consider moral responsibility with them as well (I don't see a whole lot of debate on that, but maybe how "moral" is defined).
People create stuff all the time. We've just managed to form a hysteria around creating certain types of things....keep in mind that there was a time that making fire labeled someone as having the power of the gods (or something similar), but today I can hardly impress anyone with that ability. Much of what we are working with is simply convention.
Anyway.. so what do I do with my theology degree?? Why, I write software of course!:-)
-- "Man has always been his own most vexing problem." --Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Nature and Destiny of Man"
First, as a few people have already pointed out, no artificial bacterium actually has been created -- Craig Venter just threw an idea at some journalists and the media decided to run with it.
Second, as a microbiologist, the major difficulty with the idea is gene regulation. To use a programming analogy -- genes are subroutines, and a program is an organism. You just can't throw a bunch of useful subroutines together and get a working program. The subroutines need to be called at the right times and and at the right amount. So do genes. We really only have a vague idea of how gene regulation works at the moment. If the gene regulation is off, the cell just won't live.
Thirdly, if an artificial bacterium gets created, Venter himself will not have have done it. He is a scientific administrator (although quite a successful one) rather than a practicing scientist. His basic purpose is to organise scientific teams to tackle different tasks, to talk to the media, and to get venture capital.
First of all, this guy didn't do anything yet, and even if he did what his plan says, it wouldn't be creation of any sort. The article says his method calls for the use of dead cell parts. If you took a computer that didn't work because the monitor was broken and the power supply blew, and replaced the monitor and power supply, you didn't create it. Real creation is something from nothing or from things naturally occurring in an environment without life (as someone said, from dust).
Second, this is not creation like God did. In order for God to have created life, He had to be outside the universe, because if He was in the universe He would be living and someone would have had to create Him, and if THAT someone was in the universe, he would have had to be created by someone... ad infinitum.
Anyway, creation doesn't work when God is inside the universe. The guy in this article is definitely inside the universe, so what he's doing is not creation, it's merely perpetuation.
Just my $/50.
--
-- Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
"short step" from bacteria to animals -- NOT
by
ToddScheetz
·
· Score: 3
He must have been talking about a short ethical step. The difference between assembling a bacteria such that the proper genes are added to previously "killed" cell and building a bacteria de novo is itself a huge technical challenge that we're not capable of (yet). We're a long way from understanding what the basic role of most genes are, even in such simple organisms as yeast. The problems in that understanding come both from the increasing number of genes and from their interactions. It always blows my mind when I see a pathway drawn where A->B->C->D, because that's ignoring so much of the detail it's laughable. Those genes are interacting with a couple other dozen pathways each! (As with anything in biology, there are no absolutes. Likely there are genes that only work in one pathway, but those are few and far between.)
The other point that this article mentions in an off-handed manner is the use of "parts salvaged from dead bacteria". Before you can "make" the bacteria, you have to start with a dead one. My understanding is that they remove the DNA from the bacteria, and throw in their own. (Which, by the way, is essentially what was done to make Dolly.) You have to have the necessary pieces pre-assembled for any of this to work. The best analogy I've ever heard is to that of boot-strapping a computer. You need the hardware, but you have to have the BIOS (in this case the RNA and proteins already present in the "killed" bacteria) in order to _do_ anything.
And as a last note, I'll add my agreement to one of the previous posters. Craig Ventor is a HUGE publicity hound. He may or may not be in it for the money, but he is definitely in it for the glory. I understand that at one point he was actually lobbying the Nobel people on behalf of himself! Sheesh!
Re:What does "religion" has to do with it ANYWAY??
by
Max+von+H.
·
· Score: 4
I've watched the movie "Contact" about a month ago, and the religious zealots infuriated me (in the context, of course, but also as they do in general). The thing is, whatever the scientific challenge is, there's always some bible-buggers who will find something against it. See what happens, even now, with Evolution in Kansas!
On a rational point of view, IMHO, religion has mostly led to destruction, murders and such. See the catholic chuch's attitude towards condoms and birth control, and the way they manage to enforce it in poor, overpopulated countries in Africa and South America. They're doing a wonderful job at indirectly killing millions of people. Same goes for science. Every time science goes towards dicovering or re-creating the conditions for the origin of life, religious zealots start screaming.
Consider religions as businesses (and they are, in many ways) who are afraid of running out of business because Human Evolution has proved antique beliefs are complete bullshit. Remember Gallileo. Remember the Inquisition. Remember also most christian organizations didn't say a word when the Nazis were developing and using Zyklon B to exterminate the Jews. Remember how the American government tested nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on its own citizens, although they keep swearing by a "god" in their very constitution. It's not only the christians (I take them as an example here), but religions have that nasty tendency to only protect what may serve them best as a way for them to be able to say "see, we were right!" later on.
Now, back to "Contact", I believe that if there's any advanced alien civilization out there, they'd think the human species is damn primitive on behalf of those 90% religious people who'd rather stop the human scientific evolution than trying to solve all the problem humankind is afflicted with, and all the ways to go forward.
I leave religion to those who refuse to admit the very facts that run the Universe.
This fascination for religious dogmas is so dangerous it blinds people from seeing what humankind is missing. I recall a comment made by the Dalai-Lama (very wise guy) in which he declared "If science can prove the Holy texts are wrong, and if the Texts get against progress, we have to change the Texts, not stop science. A stop in evolution is a regression since the Universe keeps going on." (I'm not quoting litterally here, I fon't have the book on sight). I think this is an excellent attitude, considering it comes from one of the most prominents spiritual leaders of the planet. Spirituality has to evolve along with life itself, otherwise you find yourself thinking with a 15th century mind in a near 21st century world. Basically, you live *outside* of reality.
I hope I have made my point a bit more clearly than in my first post.
-- --
It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Environmental Affects of Bioengineered Bacteria
by
slinted
·
· Score: 3
As a student of genomics, I think this research is a smidge beyond premature and more importantly, potentially dangerous. Much research has been done into the "minimalist bacteria" ie. what is the fewest number of genes needed to create a viable bacteria. This method includes removing genes and seeing if the bacteria is still viable, this has been done....but... The factor involved in this research that differs from this (and what truely bothers me about the research) is the mixing of many differant genes from many differant bacterial strains into a "new" organism. In many ways, one could say that it isn't going to be a "new" life, just a novel one, but the synergetic affect of mixing all these genes could have some tremendously bad affects on the environment (at least in my opinion). When one looks at the affects that foreign species (zebra muscles and gobi's in the great lakes ecosystem, rabbits in australia, etc.) one sees that things which don't belong, while doing *quite* well in these environments, often do so at the cost of other organisms survival. The human genome quite possible only consists of 100,000 genes...when you *really* think about this, that isn't that much at all. One wouldn't think that 100,000 specific enzymatic reactions would be enough to explain human complexity, and inteligence, but it does, which again lends evidence that the 100,000 genes aren't 100,000 independent reactions at all, but the combined affect of 100,000 actions/reactions at once. Being that Dr. Venter (who's been quite busy lately, finishing the Drosophilia genome, squaking about finishing the human genome project before everyone else, etc.) cannot possible know the *combined* affect of the genes he's planning on combining, I can't see how he can know its going to be safe were it to be released into the world at large... Ok, just my 2cents...
Slashdot Mirror
Can humans create life? No. It's already been created.
Can we copy it? Probably.
The only difference between this particular experiment and evolution is a few million years of experimental time to allow natural selection.
Now that mankind can understand what specific genes do, they can use this basic experiment to guide the evolution of life in the right direction.
Now, specifically on the article, I did not see mention if this artifical bacteria is based on an existing one or not. Chances are, it is, and all the researchers are doing is instead of manipulating existing DNA strands, they will build their own DNA stand that should be a clone of the above, one nucliotide base at a time. It's impressive, definitely, but it's still a far cry from developing species that are specific for a task, as we yet still don't understand the genetic makeup perfectly.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
You will see that baglunch got it badly wrong. All that is being discussed is a plan to create such an organism. While Dr. Ventner is a good scientist, he is also a notorious publicity hound, and what he has is more likely a list of problems that have to be solved before an organism can be created, rather than an actual method for creating such a thing.
As far as higher organisms any time soon, I am VERY doubful. After all, the great breakthrough of mammalian cloning was later shown to have a number of flaws, like the fact that Dolly wasn't actually a true clone because the mitochondrial DNA wasn't duplicated. It's a FAR FAR bigger step to actually making such a creature from scratch.
Personally I think this is a puff piece triggered by the fact that Dr. Ventner likes to see his name in print, and he suckered in a couple of unwitting journalists.
Before we can know that we've created life, we should reach some consensus on what life is. Self-awareness would seem to be too high of a standard, for surely a single-celled bacterium has no idea it exists, or that a universe of other entities exist. It's doubtful even higher order plants and animals have such awareness, though my cats seem to possess an inordinate sense of self-awareness. On the other hand, reproduction would seem to be a requirement for all life. So would a requirement that the entity engage and manage some internal and external processes. Breathing, eating, foraging, mating, waste disposal, etc. are examples of processes. Rocks just sit there and engage or manage no process, so we say they are not alive. Conversely, the tiniest thing that does something, we immediately recognize it as living. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure life hasn't been already created in software form. That fact that a software entity may only survive in the virtual environment it was created in, hardly seems to exclude it from consideration as a life form. My tomato plant can't survive outside the soil I planted it in, but still, it's alive. So what if we can we create a something that consumes ever-more resources, bloats in size, mutates, and experiences exponential growth in its distribution? Bill Gates and company have been doing that for years.
I'm not a chemist, I'm an astronomer, but one of the things an astronomer knows is that oxygen is fairly reactive. In this context, this results in a rather short "life-time" for free oxygen...the oxygen gets bound up with other atoms fairly quickly so that what you end up with *is* a reducing atmosphere. Oxygen did not become a significant component of the earth's atmosphere until life (algae, etc) began producing large quantities of free oxygen. Hence, prior to the formation of plants, the earth *did* have a reducing atmosphere.
And if you want an astronomical argument... you never see free oxygen in the atmospheres of the cooler stars, it will always be bound up with carbon or in a metal-oxide (depending on the carbon/metal abundance ratio). In other words, you don't normally see free oxygen in a dense atmosphere unless there's something producing it in large quantities (eg plants).
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
> Well back before the genetic code was being worked on, some experimenters demonstrated
> the ability to create the basic amino acids (the building blocks of protiens) can be made
> in lab conditions that simulated the Earth millions/billions of years ago (namely,
> lots of H2O, CO, NOx, and methane).
Yes, they could generate amino acids, but under totally unrealistic conditions. And what they did produce was useless for life.
The Miller(?) experiment relied on a reducing atmosphere, but as far back as we look, we find OXIDIZED material (Oxygen being totally destructive to the nature of the test).
As soon as the amino acids were formed, they had to be drained and isolated from the spark chamber lest the sparks that created them destroy them.
Last, but certainly not least, the amino acids produced were evenly split between left and right hand varieties, whereas all life uses strictly the left-handed variety.
In short, even with an unrealistic setup, they still couldn't produce viable building-blocks.
Why do the moderators encourage such an extreme show of bigotry
> two camps grow. One proclaiming that we are wrong to play God by doing this thing
I didn't see anyone saying we shouldn't do it b/c "we would be playing God". Most opposition came from people talking about the dangers of releasing a new organism into the environment.
The stance of most religious people was either:
1. this just shows the importance of design
2. this is not creating life b/c he's starting with life
3. I don't think he can do it
> The Scientists response to this is to claim that their is no God, and thus no reservation of action can be attributed to him
um, even if there is no God, that doesn't mean we shouldn't think before we do something. If I had the ability to create a disease that will decimate the human population, should I?
> The second claim made by the Believers is that there are certain decisions which, were we to choose one of the options available, we would be playing God. Aborition, Geneticaly Engineered Foods, Euthanasia, and the like are such decsions.
People don't oppose to abortion or euthanasia because "we would be playing God". They oppose it because it's murder.
And I don't know any Christians who oppose genetically engineered foods on those grounds either. In fact, most support it, and those who do oppose it do it for environmental concerns (like gene escape)
>Case 1: I do not know cpr, you have a heart attack, I rage at God for letting you die.
>Case 2: I do know cpr, you have a heart attack, I do nothing, I feel guilty (and am prosecuted) for letting you die.
Where do you come up with such twisted views of Christians? The movies? Christians (and notice I leave out Scientologists) have absolutely nothing against medical science and in fact, many have contributed greatly to the field.
> The general response of the Scientists is to say "go away you silly Believer, this is just the first claim rephrased".
That is an interesting claim considering many, many scientists are believers.
Characterizing believers as "silly" just shows your prejudice.
Scientific American article on the guy -
. html
http://www.sciam.com/1998/0898issue/0898profile
L.
First, perhaps I should point out to people that it hasn't been done yet. This is only a plan to do so. I'll believe this guy's claims when I see them.
Second, I don't see how this supplants any creation theories at all; all it would prove is that life could in fact be created by intelligent design. Of course, that fact is going to be ignored by fundamentalists and militant atheists alike, as fundamentalists brand it as something contrary to God's will and the militant atheists (note that I didn't say all atheists) try to claim it as proof for their side.
Personally, I have a lot of qualms about this, though. The potential for abuse is quite high. The article points out the potential for bio-weaponry, which is of course a possibility. What I'm more worried about is that if they ever do get to the point where they can create higher lifeforms they'll mass-produce them to use as slaves (or, in the case of the military, super-soldiers, not that there's much of a difference). Up until fairly recently I thought the world had outgrown that concept, but the recent violence in Eastern Europe (and the more recent violence in East Timor) plus the various hate groups worldwide seem to have proven otherwise.
It's not surprising from my end that people can at some point create stable, real life. At some level, it is just a task in biological mechanics. Most traditional theologians believe issues such as sin, etc. are related to a being's moral responsibility as reflected by how that being bears God's image (and therefore a responsibility to be good in a maximal sense, just as God must be maximally good to truly be God).
I don't think anyone has ever said that doing the nasty is a prerequisite to having a soul (maybe a lopsided reading of Augustine would leave you with this idea), or to really being "alive" in the same sense as the rest of natural creation. ...we're a part of nature too, so our work in it is itself a natural thing, so I agree that we can fiddle around with them, but I also understand that we need to consider moral responsibility with them as well (I don't see a whole lot of debate on that, but maybe how "moral" is defined).
People create stuff all the time. We've just managed to form a hysteria around creating certain types of things. ...keep in mind that there was a time that making fire labeled someone as having the power of the gods (or something similar), but today I can hardly impress anyone with that ability. Much of what we are working with is simply convention.
Anyway.. so what do I do with my theology degree?? Why, I write software of course! :-)
"Man has always been his own most vexing problem." --Reinhold Niebuhr, "The Nature and Destiny of Man"
Second, as a microbiologist, the major difficulty with the idea is gene regulation. To use a programming analogy -- genes are subroutines, and a program is an organism. You just can't throw a bunch of useful subroutines together and get a working program. The subroutines need to be called at the right times and and at the right amount. So do genes. We really only have a vague idea of how gene regulation works at the moment. If the gene regulation is off, the cell just won't live.
Thirdly, if an artificial bacterium gets created, Venter himself will not have have done it. He is a scientific administrator (although quite a successful one) rather than a practicing scientist. His basic purpose is to organise scientific teams to tackle different tasks, to talk to the media, and to get venture capital.
First of all, this guy didn't do anything yet, and even if he did what his plan says, it wouldn't be creation of any sort. The article says his method calls for the use of dead cell parts. If you took a computer that didn't work because the monitor was broken and the power supply blew, and replaced the monitor and power supply, you didn't create it. Real creation is something from nothing or from things naturally occurring in an environment without life (as someone said, from dust).
Second, this is not creation like God did. In order for God to have created life, He had to be outside the universe, because if He was in the universe He would be living and someone would have had to create Him, and if THAT someone was in the universe, he would have had to be created by someone... ad infinitum.
Anyway, creation doesn't work when God is inside the universe. The guy in this article is definitely inside the universe, so what he's doing is not creation, it's merely perpetuation.
Just my $/50.
--
Seeing is believing; You wouldn't have seen it if you didn't believe it.
He must have been talking about a short ethical step. The difference between assembling a bacteria such that the proper genes are added to previously "killed" cell and building a bacteria de novo is itself a huge technical challenge that we're not capable of (yet). We're a long way from understanding what the basic role of most genes are, even in such simple organisms as yeast. The problems in that understanding come both from the increasing number of genes and from their interactions. It always blows my mind when I see a pathway drawn where A->B->C->D, because that's ignoring so much of the detail it's laughable. Those genes are interacting with a couple other dozen pathways each! (As with anything in biology, there are no absolutes. Likely there are genes that only work in one pathway, but those are few and far between.)
The other point that this article mentions in an off-handed manner is the use of "parts salvaged from dead bacteria". Before you can "make" the bacteria, you have to start with a dead one. My understanding is that they remove the DNA from the bacteria, and throw in their own. (Which, by the way, is essentially what was done to make Dolly.) You have to have the necessary pieces pre-assembled for any of this to work. The best analogy I've ever heard is to that of boot-strapping a computer. You need the hardware, but you have to have the BIOS (in this case the RNA and proteins already present in the "killed" bacteria) in order to _do_ anything.
And as a last note, I'll add my agreement to one of the previous posters. Craig Ventor is a HUGE publicity hound. He may or may not be in it for the money, but he is definitely in it for the glory. I understand that at one point he was actually lobbying the Nobel people on behalf of himself! Sheesh!
I've watched the movie "Contact" about a month ago, and the religious zealots infuriated me (in the context, of course, but also as they do in general). The thing is, whatever the scientific challenge is, there's always some bible-buggers who will find something against it. See what happens, even now, with Evolution in Kansas!
On a rational point of view, IMHO, religion has mostly led to destruction, murders and such. See the catholic chuch's attitude towards condoms and birth control, and the way they manage to enforce it in poor, overpopulated countries in Africa and South America. They're doing a wonderful job at indirectly killing millions of people. Same goes for science. Every time science goes towards dicovering or re-creating the conditions for the origin of life, religious zealots start screaming.
Consider religions as businesses (and they are, in many ways) who are afraid of running out of business because Human Evolution has proved antique beliefs are complete bullshit. Remember Gallileo. Remember the Inquisition. Remember also most christian organizations didn't say a word when the Nazis were developing and using Zyklon B to exterminate the Jews. Remember how the American government tested nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on its own citizens, although they keep swearing by a "god" in their very constitution. It's not only the christians (I take them as an example here), but religions have that nasty tendency to only protect what may serve them best as a way for them to be able to say "see, we were right!" later on.
Now, back to "Contact", I believe that if there's any advanced alien civilization out there, they'd think the human species is damn primitive on behalf of those 90% religious people who'd rather stop the human scientific evolution than trying to solve all the problem humankind is afflicted with, and all the ways to go forward.
I leave religion to those who refuse to admit the very facts that run the Universe.
This fascination for religious dogmas is so dangerous it blinds people from seeing what humankind is missing. I recall a comment made by the Dalai-Lama (very wise guy) in which he declared "If science can prove the Holy texts are wrong, and if the Texts get against progress, we have to change the Texts, not stop science. A stop in evolution is a regression since the Universe keeps going on." (I'm not quoting litterally here, I fon't have the book on sight). I think this is an excellent attitude, considering it comes from one of the most prominents spiritual leaders of the planet. Spirituality has to evolve along with life itself, otherwise you find yourself thinking with a 15th century mind in a near 21st century world. Basically, you live *outside* of reality.
I hope I have made my point a bit more clearly than in my first post.
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
As a student of genomics, I think this research is a smidge beyond premature and more importantly, potentially dangerous. Much research has been done into the "minimalist bacteria" ie. what is the fewest number of genes needed to create a viable bacteria. This method includes removing genes and seeing if the bacteria is still viable, this has been done....but... The factor involved in this research that differs from this (and what truely bothers me about the research) is the mixing of many differant genes from many differant bacterial strains into a "new" organism. In many ways, one could say that it isn't going to be a "new" life, just a novel one, but the synergetic affect of mixing all these genes could have some tremendously bad affects on the environment (at least in my opinion). When one looks at the affects that foreign species (zebra muscles and gobi's in the great lakes ecosystem, rabbits in australia, etc.) one sees that things which don't belong, while doing *quite* well in these environments, often do so at the cost of other organisms survival. The human genome quite possible only consists of 100,000 genes...when you *really* think about this, that isn't that much at all. One wouldn't think that 100,000 specific enzymatic reactions would be enough to explain human complexity, and inteligence, but it does, which again lends evidence that the 100,000 genes aren't 100,000 independent reactions at all, but the combined affect of 100,000 actions/reactions at once. Being that Dr. Venter (who's been quite busy lately, finishing the Drosophilia genome, squaking about finishing the human genome project before everyone else, etc.) cannot possible know the *combined* affect of the genes he's planning on combining, I can't see how he can know its going to be safe were it to be released into the world at large... Ok, just my 2cents...