Artificial Life Created

zod

Artificial life created from 4 bottles of chemicals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPE2CnThito

Discussed here last year by Venter :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvBV2qnSZwo


And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." So God created the great sea monsters and every* living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.



*almost

lmaopml

Gosh, he put together 'strands of DNA'...:eek:

I made an apple tart the other day from four ingredients, unfortunately it didn't act like one, it lacked the potential to be a truely satisfying apple tart, it looked more like a large biscuit or a frisbee, actually it made a really good frisbee....but hey, I'm only learning...

He read the code, he didn't write it, get excited about the discovery by all means, the same way as my mechanic does when he finally finds out what's wrong with the car....:p

zod

lmaopml wrote: »

Gosh, he put together 'strands of DNA'...:eek:

The initial strands of DNA were create from four bottles of chemicals, if you watched the second video linked you would have realised that.

lmaopml wrote: »

He read the code, he didn't write it, get excited about the discovery by all means, the same way as my mechanic does when he finally finds out what's wrong with the car....:p

Ah the goal post has changed, life has been created from nothing put inert chemical substrate and its just a copy.. no biggy

What happened to the ghost in the machine, the magic elixir, the spark that can't be copied ?

JimiTime

zod wrote: »

Ah the goal post has changed, life has been created from nothing put inert chemical substrate and its just a copy.. no biggy

What happened to the ghost in the machine, the magic elixir, the spark that can't be copied ?

Who are you arguing with

PDN

Epic thread fail.

monosharp

So they created DNA from nothing but chemicals, the building blocks of life completely artificial, transferred this DNA to another cell and got this new cell to replicate using the completely artificial DNA.

Thats barely a scratch on the surface of what they've done, the processes behind all this, transferring DNA, re-writing DNA, basically controlling and writing the software of life.

They moved DNA (software) across branches of life (Different hardware).

What they've done here is ground breaking and the impact it is going to have on the entire scientific world, not just biology or medical science, is going to be world changing.

Whats the Christian response going to be ?

Obviously this doesn't disprove a deity, but it completely destroys any notion of a deity being required for life*, it also gives further confirmation (as if any was needed) that all life has a common ancestor.

*Unless your going to argue god created the chemicals necessary for life and without them .....

Can Christians continue to ignore this ? and pass it off as 'not important' ? Are they going to largely ignore what science is telling us about the world ? about life ?

On a side note, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next creationist meeting. The self delusion required to ignore this might even be too much for some people. I can imagine the headline on answers for genesis, "Artifical life proves there must have been a designer!" :pac:

PDN

monosharp wrote: »

So they created DNA from nothing but chemicals, the building blocks of life completely artificial, transferred this DNA to another cell and got this new cell to replicate using the completely artificial DNA.

Thats barely a scratch on the surface of what they've done, the processes behind all this, transferring DNA, re-writing DNA, basically controlling and writing the software of life.

They moved DNA (software) across branches of life (Different hardware).

What they've done here is ground breaking and the impact it is going to have on the entire scientific world, not just biology or medical science, is going to be world changing.

Whats the Christian response going to be ?

The response should be to congratulate some scientists for using their God-given intelligence to produce an exciting new technology.

Obviously this doesn't disprove a deity, but it completely destroys any notion of a deity being required for life*,

No, it doesn't destroy any such notion at all.

God didn't just create the matter, chemicals and everything else the scientists used. He also created the cell that had to act as the host for the artificial DNA. The entire process also took an incredible amount of planning, thought and design on the part of the scientists - and it took a deity for them to happen too!

Can Christians continue to ignore this ? and pass it off as 'not important' ? Are they going to largely ignore what science is telling us about the world ? about life ?

Who's ignoring anything?

The incredible complexity of the planning required to manufacture the DNA to produce this very simple cell in a laboratory tells us a lot about the world. They began by copying an existing bacterial DNA sequence. Then, using that blueprint, they had to 'stitch together' a DNA code over 1 million characters long. This took over a decade, and cost $40,000,000. Then they had to transplant the genome into an existing cell (only the genome of this so-called 'artificial life' is actually synthetic).

Such research demonstrates that the very simplest life forms are incredibly complex. This makes it increasingly harder for anyone to believe the simplistic theories that such complex structures as DNA somehow just happened as a happy result of random lightning strikes etc. The odds become so astronomical that it's like believing that you will win the Euromillions jackpot every week in a row for several centuries - that's always assuming you have the faith to believe that your lottery ticket and the lottery machine also magicked themselves into existence at some point in the past.

mickoneill30

PDN wrote: »

This makes it increasingly harder for anyone to believe the simplistic theories that such complex structures as DNA somehow just happened as a happy result of random lightning strikes etc.

That would be an incredibly simplistic theory. Who believes those theories.

PDN wrote: »

The odds become so astronomical

That's right. But the numbers of planets, solar systems etc. and length of time involved are astronomical too.

The fact that humans, after a few hundred years of technological advancement have created some artificial life might imply that the odds aren't as astronomical as first thought. Yes it was incredibly complex for the team involved. You can say that about nearly anything humanity has ever achieved.
In a few hundred years this process might be replicated in kids chemistry sets.
If you told your great grandparents when they were kids that your kids would be able to buy computers or remote control airplanes they would have thought you were mad.

DeVore

So the odds are now down from "impossible" to "winning the euro millions every week for centuries". Thats an improvement.


Twist and squirm all you like but this is a serious breakthrough. They've shown its possible. Complex? Yes, no one was ever arguing it isnt complex. But moving from the impossible to the merely "highly improbable" is not something you can pooh pooh and belittle. They created life and you are telling me that that has no theological implications?

DeV.

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

S
What they've done here is ground breaking and the impact it is going to have on the entire scientific world, not just biology or medical science, is going to be world changing.

Whats the Christian response going to be ?

I would guess it would be along the lines of "why don't we give them the Nobel Prize?"

Obviously this doesn't disprove a deity, but it completely destroys any notion of a deity being required for life*, it also gives further confirmation (as if any was needed) that all life has a common ancestor.

Fairly much in agreement with the idea of Adam and Eve being a common ancestor.
I would however suggest that it is possible that multiple life forms like bacteria or procaryotic forms evolved independently and subsequently developed into symboitic eucarotic forms. for example the origin of mitochrondria So it might be "several common ancestors" or even Two . Shall we call them "Adam and Eve"? Ironically in haplotyping the "Male" nuclear DNA is used to follow the male line i.e. the father's father's father .... and the "female" mitochrindial DNA to follow the female line i.e. mother s mothers mothers... etc..

*Unless your going to argue god created the chemicals necessary for life and without them .....

That would already be dealt with in the Hydrogen Helium ration subsequent to the Big Bang and the "laws of the univers" which enables Nuclear synthesis particularly of Carbon Nitrogen and Oxygen and Maybe Phosphorus ( for the RNA and DNA completion and ATP/ADP) Silicon ( just for the rocks)


So if the "first cause" of the Big Bang also wrote the laws of the universe ( assuming there are actually laws which is a theory) then the CHONP that made these lifeforms (and the rocks or oceans on which they evolved) is covered. the God bit however is not necessarily about life itself but the idea that God at some point steps in and creates "souls"

Can Christians continue to ignore this ? and pass it off as 'not important' ? Are they going to largely ignore what science is telling us about the world ? about life ?

I am glad i got to look into the people behing this . Both Venter and Hamilton smith went to "elite" high schools. smith had a more straightforward academic career but did chop and change and move around. Venter didn't. He was not particularly a high scorer academically. Hamilton already has a nobel Prize so now heell have to share this one I guess.

On a side note, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next creationist meeting. The self delusion required to ignore this might even be too much for some people. I can imagine the headline on answers for genesis, "Artifical life proves there must have been a designer!" :pac:

LOL. Creationists like fringe militant atheists are fundamentlaists. You should look up Leon Festinger on "cognitave dissonance" oh and whats his name of the "authortianism" guy ? Bob altemeyer is it? Here: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Read his book. when you combine the above two I think you will see why religious kooks and cults tend not to abandon their mindset.

PDN

mickoneill30 wrote: »

That's right. But the numbers of planets, solar systems etc. and length of time involved are astronomical too.

'Astronomical' in that they relate to astronomy - but actually fairly short. 15 billion years or so for the universe. 4.5 billion for this planet. The math doesn't stack up from where I'm standing. It might have done when we thought cells were very simple organisms - but not now that we know that they involve a DNA of a million characters or more.

That would be an incredibly simplistic theory. Who believes those theories.

Probably the same simple people who think that the transferring of artificial DNA into a cell represents an argument against God.

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

No, it doesn't destroy any such notion at all.

Why not ?

God didn't just create the matter, chemicals and everything else the scientists used. He also created the cell that had to act as the host for the artificial DNA.

1. They expect not to require the host cell soon. Although I don't see the significance of this. Why do you think this is significant ?

2. Do you understand the significance of what they have done ?

The entire process also took an incredible amount of planning, thought and design on the part of the scientists - and it took a deity for them to happen too!

So with an incredible amount of planning, thought and design we can be the same as a deity ?

Who's ignoring anything?

Lets try and stick on topic a little so I'll just talk about Common ancestry. Do you accept common ancestry ? Does mainstream Christianity ?

Such research demonstrates that the very simplest life forms are incredibly complex. This makes it increasingly harder for anyone to believe the simplistic theories that such complex structures as DNA somehow just happened as a happy result of random lightning strikes etc.

Oh dear. PDN do you actually think thats what is claimed ?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html#Intro

The odds become so astronomical that it's like believing that you will win the Euromillions jackpot every week in a row for several centuries - that's always assuming you have the faith to believe that your lottery ticket and the lottery machine also magicked themselves into existence at some point in the past.

Oh I never thought I'd hear that outside of a certain thread.

So we do know the results of scientific discoveries like this on Christians, denial.

homer911

Christian Yawn...

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

I would guess it would be along the lines of "why don't we give them the Nobel Prize?"

I think its a given at this stage.

Fairly much in agreement with the idea of Adam and Eve being a common ancestor.

You realise I said "all life" ? This means Adam and Eve were most certainly not homo sapiens or even anything close.

So if the "first cause" of the Big Bang also wrote the laws of the universe ( assuming there are actually laws which is a theory) then the CHONP that made these lifeforms (and the rocks or oceans on which they evolved) is covered. the God bit however is not necessarily about life itself but the idea that God at some point steps in and creates "souls"

No thats fine, I can accept that. I just didn't think mainstream Christians could/did ?

Read his book. when you combine the above two I think you will see why religious kooks and cults tend not to abandon their mindset.

I've enough real life experience of religious cults to know but thanks anyways.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Probably the same simple people who think that the transferring of artificial DNA into a cell represents an argument against God.

Good point.

Out of curiosity, from a biological point of view what would be an argument against God?

monosharp

PDN wrote: »

'Astronomical' in that they relate to astronomy - but actually fairly short. 15 billion years or so for the universe. 4.5 billion for this planet. The math doesn't stack up from where I'm standing. It might have done when we thought cells were very simple organisms - but not now that we know that they involve a DNA of a million characters or more.

Error #1 A lot of Life 'NOW' contains a million characters or more.

Probably the same simple people who think that the transferring of artificial DNA into a cell represents an argument against God.

Error #2: I didn't say it was an argument against god. I said it was an argument against god been required for life and that it truly scientifically destroys the nonsense of creationism (If any more proof was needed).

I specifically said it wasn't an argument against god.

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

I think its a given at this stage.

You are on the committee are you?
He didnt get it for the genome.
I tend to go with Tom Leherer was it who said they would have to redefine irony when they awarded the Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger.

You realise I said "all life" ? This means Adam and Eve were most certainly not homo sapiens or even anything close.

Yes. all life including the life that predated humans might have evolved from two different original separate lifeforms which were independently and separately created. allegorically speaking that is an Adam and an Eve. LOL Adam and Eve the bactetia.

No thats fine, I can accept that. I just didn't think mainstream Christians could/did ?

They do sometimes. They are called "missionaries". One has to distinguish between fundamentalist literal Bible thumpers and those that "live Christianity" and preach by doing.

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

Error #2: I didn't say it was an argument against god. I said it was an argument against god been required for life and that it truly scientifically destroys the nonsense of creationism (If any more proof was needed).

But that argument is a century old. There was a debate between Darwin and someone in a university after which the fundamentalist Biblical interpretation was fairly much dumped by mainstream Christians. But while there the scientific necessity to involve God in the spontaneous creation of life ( abiogenesis) and involving God in evolution are different things. This hasn't ruled out God in aboigenesis nor has it proved God isn't necessary as you claim.
But assuming you do show abiogenesis can occur without God that isn't a proof of no God.

ISAW

monosharp wrote: »

Error #1 A lot of Life 'NOW' contains a million characters or more.

I recall from some Isaac Azimov story (non fiction) that there were more possible combinations of DNA than there were atoms in the Universe.

Morbert

PDN wrote: »

Such research demonstrates that the very simplest life forms are incredibly complex. This makes it increasingly harder for anyone to believe the simplistic theories that such complex structures as DNA somehow just happened as a happy result of random lightning strikes etc. The odds become so astronomical that it's like believing that you will win the Euromillions jackpot every week in a row for several centuries - that's always assuming you have the faith to believe that your lottery ticket and the lottery machine also magicked themselves into existence at some point in the past.

Nipping this in the bud before the convo gets out of hand. No biologist worth their parchment believes DNA was the result of lightning strikes (or any other random proces). The form of "life" that naturally began would be far far simpler than DNA, or even RNA. Scientists are simply able to cut several million years of the quality control process and directly weave life with a complex and functional code.

---

As for the discovery itself: It doesn't refute Christianity, but it does demonstrate the great potential science has.

antiskeptic

Morbert wrote: »

As for the discovery itself: It doesn't refute Christianity, but it does demonstrate the great potential science has.

A potential fueled by the sheer complexity of creation itself. Science hangs on the coat tails of creation - not the other way around (as the OP's title suggests)

JimiTime

Great discovery which COULD have great benefits. Unfortunately, it could also have awful consaquences when the military get their hands on it.

Anyway, The whole Christian thing is a red-herring. Just another example of the anti-christian brigade spinning science as if its theirs. Its another attempt to put science at logger heads with Christianity, when it really isn't. It feeds their need to believe they hold the intellectual high ground. Let them have it IMO.

monosharp

ISAW wrote: »

But that argument is a century old. There was a debate between Darwin and someone in a university after which the fundamentalist Biblical interpretation was fairly much dumped by mainstream Christians.

Really ? You might want to tell them that

But while there the scientific necessity to involve God in the spontaneous creation of life ( abiogenesis) and involving God in evolution are different things.

Of course.

This hasn't ruled out God in aboigenesis nor has it proved God isn't necessary as you claim.

No of course it hasn't ruled out god in abiogenesis but it goes a long long way to proving a god was not required.

But assuming you do show abiogenesis can occur without God that isn't a proof of no God.

Of course, I think I stated that already didn't I ?

I actually believe we'll never have proof either way of any deities existence.

Sam Vimes

PDN wrote: »

Such research demonstrates that the very simplest life forms are incredibly complex. This makes it increasingly harder for anyone to believe the simplistic theories that such complex structures as DNA somehow just happened as a happy result of random lightning strikes etc. The odds become so astronomical that it's like believing that you will win the Euromillions jackpot every week in a row for several centuries - that's always assuming you have the faith to believe that your lottery ticket and the lottery machine also magicked themselves into existence at some point in the past.

Now that belongs in the creationism thread. You might want to read up a bit on evolution mate. DNA is the result of ~4 billion years of cumulative mutation and selection, it didn't go from basic chemicals to "a DNA code over 1 million characters long" in one single jump, after a lightning strike or otherwise. Jumping from Dublin to Galway in one jump is impossible but doing it in a billion tiny jumps is relatively easy

monosharp

antiskeptic wrote: »

A potential fueled by the sheer complexity of creation itself. Science hangs on the coat tails of creation - not the other way around (as the OP's title suggests)

I think your ignoring the point.

This goes a long long way towards creating completely artificial life, in fact in some definitions its already succeeded.

The research involved and the techniques used has also shown more confirmation of common descent. Its almost irrefutable that we are all descended from a common ancestor.

Your god is supposed to have created life, what if we start to create life ? How long before science reaches a stage where we can do most everything your god supposedly did ?

It doesn't disprove him but it certainly negates his necessity.

monosharp

JimiTime wrote: »

Anyway, The whole Christian thing is a red-herring. Just another example of the anti-christian brigade spinning science as if its theirs. Its another attempt to put science at logger heads with Christianity, when it really isn't. It feeds their need to believe they hold the intellectual high ground. Let them have it IMO.

So you don't think there are any theological implications here ?
Do you understand what these scientists have done ?

Morbert

antiskeptic wrote: »

A potential fueled by the sheer complexity of creation itself. Science hangs on the coat tails of creation - not the other way around (as the OP's title suggests)

Well yes. Apart from the connotations behind the word "creation" I agree. Nature is much much bigger than us.

philologos

JimiTime wrote: »

Anyway, The whole Christian thing is a red-herring. Just another example of the anti-christian brigade spinning science as if its theirs. Its another attempt to put science at logger heads with Christianity, when it really isn't. It feeds their need to believe they hold the intellectual high ground. Let them have it IMO.

Indeed, it's such a distortion from the truth though. The reality that people from all faiths and none are involved in science.

krudler

I think I'll apply the standard Christian thread fomula to this :

topic
argument
counter argument
pedantry
strawman
misquotes
more misquotes
more pedantry
arguments among arguments
Godwinned
the end.

antiskeptic

Morbert wrote: »

Well yes. Apart from the connotations behind the word "creation" I agree. Nature is much much bigger than us.

No connotations intended

It's man's trumpeting of the idea that he has surmounted his surroundings that makes me hang my headand cry. This perpetual hopefulness in a bright, new horizon when we can't but already know that this kind of technology will certainly be used for all sorts of abominations .. as well as good.

antiskeptic

krudler wrote: »

I think I'll apply the standard Christian thread fomula to this :

topic
argument
counter argument
pedantry
strawman
misquotes
more misquotes
more pedantry
arguments among arguments
Godwinned
the end.

You clearly haven't read the OP. Not even God's children can make a silk purse from this pigs ear.