Zamboro: Baryogenesis: "I think we have to create entirely new matter from literally nothing."

Apparently we can. It occurs all the time in large scale particle accelerators, spikes in vacuum energy resulting in a particle and it's antiparticle twin splitting out of nothing. You might know it better as the principle component of hawking radiation.

Anyway, if we developed the technology necessary to sequester the two particles and prevent them from colliding (and annihilating) shortly after their division, sure, we could start generating them on demand.

Yeah, smart guy, where did you get the energy to run the particle accelerator?

Zamboro: guadetmi: "Technically, it wasn't "already living". It didn't even have a cell wall, per the article. Once they removed the old genome, it was a cell capsule... a sphere of lipoproteins, if you will. That you can make yourself by whipping up some cream."

Precisely. We've synthesized a replicating DNA strand, and these people are quibbling over the membrane. For fark's sake, that's the easy part.

Actually, the technology for manipulating DNA is fairly mature. Proteins, it's good but not quite like DNA, and lipids, even less. DNA is the easy part right now. But that's only because of the inspired work of thousands of scientists over the last several decades.

/shoulders of giants and all that

Zamboro:
A very very small scale change. You won't see huge morphological changes as a result of gene therapy, like six limbs or compound eyes. Once your Volvo is out of the factory, you can maybe stick some new rims and a spoiler on it, but you're not gonna turn it into a Lamborghini

I wasn't talking about changing a fly into a human. i was talking about changing the skin tone of a human being, over a period of >6 months.

Bevets: Created at a cost of $30 million, this experimental one-cell organism opens the way to the manipulation of life on a previously unattainable scale... David Magnus, director of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics, said, "It has the potential to transform genetic engineering. The research is going to explode once you can create designer genomes."... Already several companies are seeking to take advantage of the new field, called synthetic biology, which combines chemistry, computer science, molecular biology, genetics and cell biology to breed industrial life forms ... To make the synthetic cell, a team of 25 researchers at labs in Rockville, Md., and San Diego, Calif., led by bioengineer Daniel Gibson and Dr. Venter essentially turned computer code into a new life form. They started with a species of bacteria called Mycoplasma capricolum and, by replacing its genome with one they wrote themselves, turned it into a customized variant of a second species called Mycoplasma mycoides, they reported... To begin, they wrote out the creature's entire genetic code as a digital computer file documenting more than one million base pairs of DNA in a biochemical alphabet of adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. They edited that file, adding new code, and then sent that electronic data to a DNA sequencing company called Blue Heron Bio in Bothell, Wash., where it was transformed into hundreds of small pieces of chemical DNA... To assemble the strips of DNA, the researchers said they took advantage of the natural capacities of several types of existing cells to meld genes and chromosomes... They transplanted that master set of genes into an emptied cell, where it converted the cell into a different species... They are so primitive they even lack a cell membrane... More importantly, these genetic watermarks allow the researchers to pick out their cells from among more natural varieties and, eventually, to assert ownership.

It seems like it would have been much easier to use the atheist method:

Step 1: Mix up a bunch of mud and crystals
Step 2: Add sunlight.
Step 3: Its ALIVE!!!!

IF they'd done that and it had worked, they'd have a random organism and no way to customize it, thus making the whole exercise a pointless case of institutional masturbation. But you would have been more upset, so there's that.

So if at some point they create a synthetic human being, I would be incredibly interested to find out what type of personality it would have. To articulate, I really just want to know if it would have what most people consider a "soul."

Unless the religious right decides to give up, I don't think there is any way they will ever let it get that far. Wouldn't that pretty much negate the idea of a god? I would assume that if there was a god he wouldn't let us imitate him in such a way.

/Stupid thought, bro.

GilRuiz1: Zamboro: [cartoon]


A brilliant designer could be responsible for the natural forces responsible for ice crystal formation. The fact that science understands those forces doesn't refute or disprove the first stick figure's statement in any way.

But we can explain the mechanism completely without using a supernatural entity. It does not require a designer. There's no reason to add this "brilliant designer" other than wishful thinking that one should exist.

s2s2s2: I wonder if it will believe in us.

nah, it will just say naturedidit and build a religion entirely on that belief

/prove it wrong! the burden is on yoos

Barakku: Arwydd: Two words: Totally badass.

/anybody else getting GATTACA vibes?

IIRC GATTACA was genetic selection (which is more of a matter of ethics and discovering which genes accurately predict what) as opposed to actual creation and manipulation of life/DNA.

yeah, with this tech, someday we could just cure Ethan Hawks character's heart defect so he could go into space without using someone else's ID.

im2lagged2frag:
I wasn't talking about changing a fly into a human. i was talking about changing the skin tone of a human being, over a period of >6 months.

Baryogenesis: A brilliant designer could be responsible for the natural forces responsible for ice crystal formation. The fact that science understands those forces doesn't refute or disprove the first stick figure's statement in any way.

But we can explain the mechanism completely without using a supernatural entity. It does not require a designer. There's no reason to add this "brilliant designer" other than wishful thinking that one should exist.

I can explain how bacon gets to my house but no one can explain why something so bad for my biological system still tastes so damn good.

madmann: Thisbymaster: 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!"

Ignoring the fact that this joke has already been told in this very thread.... what's the point? That if we make anything out of any substance that already exists that we're not "creating life"?

I'll buy that if you can definitively answer me this question: Did any of the matter that currently exists predate "God"? If not, please explain the mechanism that created God before matter existed.

the concept of a 'God' is that God exists external to time. God or Gods, if he/she/it/they exist, would have no origin or end.

im2lagged2frag: Zamboro: Thisbymaster: "God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"

In other words, theists won't consider it real synthetic life until we make it out of organic molecules that we sythesized ourselves. As if that were the hard part. Not as if we haven't done that before. But that's not the point, it's really just a stalling tactic. When we whip up a batch of organic molecules, they'll demand that we make our own inorganic molecules.

By the time we're manually assembling subatomic components to build the atoms necessary to build those inorganic molecules, I hope we collectively realize that nothing will ever satisfy the religious. You can never prove anything to them that contradicts their beliefs, because they'll always move the goalposts. And when they're out of places to move them to, they'll become hostile and accuse you of scientism.

but you have to make the subatomic particles from nothing. and get the energy from nothing as well. no cheating by converting existing energy into matter or anything like that.

Your argument is as paradoxical as the existence of God himself and rests on the assumption that God manages to make everything out of nothing, which if he himself existed would mean that there was not truly nothing.

Retinue:

How anybody can without prejudice or preconception deny the intelligence and design inherent in the complexity of the cell escapes me. It is as if we were to look through an electron microscope and see a bustling automobile manufacturing plant and still deny that it was the result of intelligent action.

No, it just means you're small minded and can't handle the fact that something that occurs in nature is beyond your limited grasp. Rather than admit your limited capacity, you feel compelled to invent a simplistic answer to questions you can't grasp. This is not a rational approach: it is purely emotional.

I'm not claiming to know everything: in the big picture none of us can know all the answers. However, I'll be damned if I gloss over my own ignorance of the universe with simplistic fairy tales.

This is not to claim that there is no God; rather, that God made stuff in a manner more complex than I can full understand at the present. I can admit that. Glossing over it with a disingenuous claim that "he waved a magic wand" is an insult to both God and his universe on a whole.

RE entropic_existence
"Meh, for anything interesting you want to do chemically/biochemically, all of the action is in single celled organisms. Far more diversity there in terms of biochemistry. Multi-celled organisms mostly started getting more diverse in things like body plan. And synthetic biology is totally focused on the same sorts of goals as nanotechnology is, and will likely get there sooner, and thats doing interesting chemical reactions."

OK, sure, if it results in a cure for cancer or any other seriously shiatty disease (like ALS), then I guess it's $30 million well spent. But if it results in "designer" genes so someone can have the genetically perfect child of their dreams, not so much.

LavenderWolf: bales: this has some vast implications. are we ready to let private enterprise use this stuff for profit?

i don't know if the world needs flying chihuahua's or 50 foot giants uprooting tree's with their hands for the timber industry. i can imagine little gnomes locked in buildings with 5 foot ceilings churning through office work in mini cubicles. this could end... weirdly.

The weirder it all gets, the better off we'll all be.

And we're not gonna get what you imagined, from this, anytime in the next hundred or two hundred years at least, more likely thousands. Going from single celled organisms to multi-cellular life on earth took longer than the genesis of those single celled organisms themselves.

as human population increases, the rate of technological advance increases. We discover and create new technology at an ever-accelerating rate. At a rate that is already much faster than the speed of government to debate and regulate.

im2lagged2frag: the concept of a 'God' is that God exists external to time. God or Gods, if he/she/it/they exist, would have no origin or end.

How conveniently unprovable that is. Or as pwhp_67 so eloquently put it,



Also seems to be a fairly modern invention. I remember tons of origin stories for Greek, Roman & Norse gods.

You folks are slipping.

rodeofrog: Hey Science,

What's the deal with antiperspirant? I slathered thirty cents worth of pine-scented chalk into my pit pores, I'm still sweating like a dancing mule.

And I'm still balding. I can't believe science has cured baldness yet ...

Baryogenesis: But we can explain the mechanism completely without using a supernatural entity. It does not require a designer. There's no reason to add this "brilliant designer" other than wishful thinking that one should exist.


True. On the other hand, our knowledge of the natural rules is not a disproof that a creator God didn't invent them in the first place. Sure, we know about water molecules and temperature and ice crystals and atom arrangements, but our knowledge is not the disproof of God that the little stick figure in the cartoon thinks it is.

Snowbowl: You folks are slipping.

Is it just my imagination or is this not the same story from 2007?

Link (new window)

Report: Scientists Create New Life Form in Lab
Saturday, October 06, 2007

"A scientist who built a synthetic chromosome from laboratory chemicals is expected to announce the creation of a new species, the first new artificial life form on Earth, British newspaper The Guardian reported Sunday.

The new species is a form of bacteria, and the announcement, which could come as early as Monday, is expected to provoke a substantial ethical debate about the manufacturing of life forms in a test tube, as well the dangers posed by introducing a new species, The Guardian reported."

From today's article:

"...Although the new cell, a form of bacteria, was conceived solely as a demonstration project..."

GilRuiz1: "A brilliant designer could be responsible for the natural forces responsible for ice crystal formation. The fact that science understands those forces doesn't refute or disprove the first stick figure's statement in any way."

But that doesn't explain anything. You've just moved God back a step, from having designed the snowflake to having designed the natural process whereby snowflakes form. What happens when we understand where the forces responsible came from, and the answer doesn't turn out to be God (which, judging by the history of such discoveries, is awfully likely)? Move god back another step? Where to?

Etropic_Existence





Flagellum motor system for a human sperm cell.

Clearly a purpose built molecular machine. Built for MECHANICAL LOCOMOTION. The one thing that cannot be denied is that a cell is a center of purposeful, directed and intelligent action albeit on a, from our perspective, minuscule scale.

Retinue: Nothing is "handled" by DNA or RNA anymore that you could say that the code in the chip which controls a robotic arm makes a car. RNA and DNA are simply coded instructions nothing more. It requires the intervention of a machine, the arm in the Honda plant, or a ribosome in the bacillus to accomplish anything.

Not quite, RNA can self-replicate. Both being a storage mechanism and the machine that copies it. It's just not very efficient if you can start with more than just some bits of RNA (like a bunch of proteins and other chemicals from the parent cell).

Oh, and I've got one word that completely invalidates the idea of an intelligent designer:

Menstruation.

GilRuiz1: Baryogenesis: But we can explain the mechanism completely without using a supernatural entity. It does not require a designer. There's no reason to add this "brilliant designer" other than wishful thinking that one should exist.


True. On the other hand, our knowledge of the natural rules is not a disproof that a creator God didn't invent them in the first place. Sure, we know about water molecules and temperature and ice crystals and atom arrangements, but our knowledge is not the disproof of God that the little stick figure in the cartoon thinks it is.

But like I said, there's no reason to assume the existence of God other than people want it to be true.

I have no need to disprove God just as I have no need to disprove FSM. And if the only thing you've got going for your argument is saying science can't disprove it then you've got very little.

im2lagged2frag: I'll buy that if you can definitively answer me this question: Did any of the matter that currently exists predate "God"? If not, please explain the mechanism that created God before matter existed.

the concept of a 'God' is that God exists external to time. God or Gods, if he/she/it/they exist, would have no origin or end.

Well that depends on who you ask. Most gods are capable of death in almost all non-christian religions. The Norse gods have ragnarok, Egyptian gods were known to have died, Hindu gods have died, even the Greek gods had a death in the family. Christianity only has one god so he can't die because there would be nothing left to worship. At least so long as there are people to worship him.

Retinue:"Clearly a purpose built molecular machine. Built for MECHANICAL LOCOMOTION. The one thing that cannot be denied is that a cell is a center of purposeful, directed and intelligent action albeit on a, from our perspective, minuscule scale."

But we know of intermediates between the flagellum motor and a far less sophisticated predecessor which used molecular ejecta to locomote. That was part of Miller's refutation of Behe's flagellum argument during the Dover trials, as I recall.

Retinue: Etropic_Existence

Flagellum motor system for a human sperm cell.

Clearly a purpose built molecular machine. Built for MECHANICAL LOCOMOTION. The one thing that cannot be denied is that a cell is a center of purposeful, directed and intelligent action albeit on a, from our perspective, minuscule scale.

Quite the shtick you've got here. I'm sure if you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over it'll be true eventually. Just remember to disregard any contrary information!

Retinue: Etropic_Existence

Flagellum motor system for a human sperm cell.

Clearly a purpose built molecular machine. Built for MECHANICAL LOCOMOTION. The one thing that cannot be denied is that a cell is a center of purposeful, directed and intelligent action albeit on a, from our perspective, minuscule scale.

Oh, you asked for it.

Irreducible Complexity (bacterial flagellum) debunked (new window)

God says "Make your own dirt" ;)

The Southern Dandy: "Irreducible Complexity (bacterial flagellum) debunked (new window)"

Precisely, that's the refutation I was thinking of. Thanks.

Barbigazi: Now we are ready to storm heaven and drag that farker out.

1. Make an organism from dirt.

2. Use your OWN dirt.

octopied: "God says "Make your own dirt" ;)"

Dirt was not created by a deity.

Zamboro: But that doesn't explain anything. You've just moved God back a step, from having designed the snowflake to having designed the natural process whereby snowflakes form. What happens when we understand where the forces responsible came from, and the answer doesn't turn out to be God (which, judging by the history of such discoveries, is awfully likely)? Move god back another step? Where to?


To me, it seems like the first little stick figure was merely remarking on the beauty of the snowflake and phrasing it in religious language. Thus, arguing about where the laws of nature came from is just philosophy for philosophy's sake.

To you, it seems, the first little guy was saying something like "the only explanation for the existence of snowflake is that it was personally hand-crafted by God using magic." Thus, if we know the science, we realize that it was natural forces, not a magical sculptor that made the snowflake using supernatural means. To you, the second stick figure's observation, then, is a disproof of God.

So it goes something like this:

Religious person: "Wow, look at that beautiful sunset that God made."

Atheist person: "Nu-uh, scientists understand light and refraction and gases and wavelengths!"

Religious person: "Alrighty... moving on."

irishdncr83: "Use your OWN dirt."

OH FOR fark'S SAKE.

GilRuiz1: "To me, it seems like the first little stick figure was merely remarking on the beauty of the snowflake and phrasing it in religious language."

No, he wasn't. I should know. I made that pic. :)

Intelligent Design is true, but its not god that is the designer, its us. In a very sci-fi-ish future, we send a working cell back in time to seed the primordial Earth, with not just the instructions to replicate and self-assemble, but the propensity for selection-based changes. Over time, we actually create our own evolutionary history.

Don't get concerned with time paradoxes and how did we exist to create the first life in the first place and such, let's just assume those points figure themselves out. Also, there are bad time guys and Wil Smith kills them just in time. Because hey, that's how it happens in the movies.

jabelar: rodeofrog: Hey Science,

What's the deal with antiperspirant? I slathered thirty cents worth of pine-scented chalk into my pit pores, I'm still sweating like a dancing mule.

And I'm still balding. I can't believe science has cured baldness yet ...

Whar is my bacon flavored broccoli?! WHAR??!

/don't get me started on holodecks!!1!

Zamboro: octopied: "God says "Make your own dirt" ;)"

Dirt was not created by a deity.

Shoulda said "I'll do that when you make a rock so heavy you can't lift it".

I drunk what: "Whar is my bacon flavored broccoli?! WHAR??!"

Sprinkle some of this on it.

I drunk what: "/don't get me started on holodecks!!1!"

Like this?

"The artificial DNA is put into a recipient bacterium"

Artificial life wasn't created, subby: only an artificial genome was.

FTA:

"I don't think it represents the creation of an artificial life form," said biomedical engineer James Collins at Boston University. "I view this as an organism with a synthetic genome, not as a synthetic organism."

/still farking incredible, though

Lamune_Baba: bales: this has some vast implications. are we ready to let private enterprise use this stuff for profit?



"Our Business is Life Itself."

Weapons-grade cosmetics.

pwhp_67: $30 Million for ONE goddam cell?

My Scarlett Johansson clone will cost way too much...

:(

Just do the cooter, until you can save up for the rest.

What Plants Crave: kingoomieiii: They could sooner prove that cats command a mastery of pyrokinesis.

That would be extraordinarily bad.


No shiat