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Its important to know that I am not a religious person. Lets say there is no God or that a God is not needed to explain the universe. Somthing that puzzles me is what exactly created or formed life itself. At no point in time has any scientist ever been able to create life from non living material, and furthermore, if a scientist were infact able to create an animate object from inanimate material, it would only strengthen the argument for a Creator God because it would prove that an inteligent mind is needed to create life
If I'm understanding correctly, they used an already living cell to transplant the synthetic genome into ... that's not creating life, it's just altering it.
That article actually does more in support of the OP claim.
Such as:
"Dr Venter, who has been working on synthetic life for a decade, told The Times: “It is our final triumph. This is the first synthetic cell. It’s the first time we have started with information in a computer, used four bottles of chemicals to write up a million letters of DNA software, and actually got it to boot up in a living organism."
It took a creator and a lot of work just to put this together.
"Julian Savulescu, Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, said: “Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity’s history, potentially peeking into its destiny. He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally."
"In the research, published in the journal Science, scientists made a synthetic copy of the genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides. Several inert DNA “watermarks” were added to distinguish the synthetic genome from the natural version."
They made a copy of something already existing.
"The man-made genome was then transplanted into a related bacterium, Mycoplasma capricolum. This “rebooted” the cell so that it was controlled by the synthetic genome, transforming it into another species. The cell has since divided more than a billion times"
Had to use existing life for it to work. Not completely artificial.
"Others, however, are unconvinced. Ben Davis, who works on synthetic biology at the University of Oxford, said: “I still think we are quite a long way away from artificial life. “You could take this synthetic genome and write in new genes with known functions, but that is not so different from molecular biology at the moment.”
Doesn't seem he was too impressed.
Personally, I think it is quite a personal achievement with what this person did, and it will have limitless possibilites, probably good and bad.
I don't know how life got its start, but I think it probably started naturally, unplanned, not directed, and not designed. I don't see why it couldn't start that way. Really nothing makes that impossible and given enough time and enough opportunities in the right environment, why not.
Perhaps cells first formed as a film of hydrophobic molecules trapped on the surface of a water droplet.
I read recently that amino acids, the building blocks of genetic material, have been discovered in outer space. Think about the Earth in its early years as a cooling water-covered planet with a billion or more years for the first life to form, with mixing and remixing of all the materials found in the worldwide ocean. No gods needed.
This science has only been around for 50 odd years, you are sure we do not need more time seeing evolution has taken billions of years to get to where we are now?
So far science has a pretty good track record in prediction and in time this question may be answered. At least science is working with real materials and not some fanciful myth of creation.
By all accounts, according to the biblical version, were are all mud-puppies.
Its important to know that I am not a religious person. Lets say there is no God or that a God is not needed to explain the universe. Somthing that puzzles me is what exactly created or formed life itself. At no point in time has any scientist ever been able to create life from non living material, and furthermore, if a scientist were infact able to create an animate object from inanimate material, it would only strengthen the argument for a Creator God because it would prove that an inteligent mind is needed to create life
What do atheists think about this?
NO, it would prove that at least one intelligent mind was able to figure it out. And, as I understand it, it has been done, plant life created from all the parts. electricity was an integral part ----as in lightning, but on a smaller scale cause it was done in a laboratory.
if a scientist were infact able to create an animate object from inanimate material, it would only strengthen the argument for a Creator God because it would prove that an inteligent mind is needed to create life
No it wouldn't. Faulty logic there. We could dig an artificial river but it doesn't prove that an intelligent mind is needed to create a river.
Quote:
What do atheists think about this?
At this point, science does not know the specific way by which life emerged on Earth, though there are several hypothesis. And I'm okay with this. I don't claim to know everything, and neither does science.
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