Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer.
Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.”
“It’s going to be a big deal and everybody’s going to know about it,” said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. “We’re talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways””in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict.”
That first cell of synthetic life””made from the basic chemicals in DNA””may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you’ll have to look in a microscope to see it.
“Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe,” Bedau said. “This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role.”
And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.
When they create something out of nothing I will be impressed
God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, “Lord, we don’t need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the ‘beginning.’â€
“Oh, is that so? Tell me…†replies God.
“Well, †says the scientist, “we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man.â€
“Well, that’s interesting. Show Me.â€
So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil.
“Oh no, no, no…†interrupts God,
“Get your own dirt.â€
Some in the Episcopal hierarchy have every attribute of being artificial life.
Matt,
Thanks for the input. I recall several prior instances of splashy, eye-grabbing headlines for some breathtaking development that was never heard from again.
I’m in neither field so I don’t know, but I’d guess the problem is publicity-hungry (and grant-hungry) researchers playing off journalists who are largely unschooled in the subjects they cover.
Dead wrong, #6. Read Sci Am. I am astonished that we can go on fretting about adiophora and TEC when these issues above are real, present, continuing and, for the church, unanswerable.
We are worried about how many angels on the head of a Schori when she is merely the topmost member of a dying body. But this! Gene spliciing has already put human genes in living animals. Do they become is some sense human? And when such gene additions increase in number, scope and effect, is the dog, the mouse, partly human? When we make artificial life, we become God, do we not? And it WILL be made. And when we set that artificial life on its evolutionary path just to see what becomes of it……..what then are we? I am amazed and frightened that we continue to scuffle in the dust when the scientists are posing new flights of creation for which mankind has not the faintiest preparation and for which Christianity is has no answers. Wake up, Anglicans, and see the real world coming at you! Larry
#7
‘For the church, unanswerable.’
Depends on the church, Larry. There are Christians who are thinking about these things, Larry, and – as I’ve pointed out before – some of them are … Anglicans. Prime example is Keith Ward, a serious theologian, as opposed to mere bible-thumpers such as Ratzinger, Wright, even Williams, et al.
Still, it is always a pleasure to read you and it is an even greater pleasure to see that you (or rather, one part of you) recognises the gay houha as being among the ‘adiaphora’.
I love reading these predictions by scientists…someone I no not made a list of the “predictions” from our scientific elite and it was laughable. This falls into the same category…a more realistic prediction would probably be “pigs will fly by 2050!”
#10 Ah yes, the Porcine Pilot Program; not to be confused with ‘Pigs in Space’ from the Muppets.