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Artificial Life - amazing breakthrough or one step too far?

I Laugh at your Misfortune!

Normal is a synonym for boring
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    So, top of the headlines tonight was the revelation that US scientists have created a synthetic bacteria. As in, created life. Is this taking it too far or do we have cause to celebrate. Craig Venter, the leading scientist on the project, has said he hopes to create bacteria that could take in carbon dioxide and excrete biofuels - solving both global warming and the impending fuel crisis in one fell swoop. Theories are also abounding, however, about possible "bio-error" (i.e. what if it goes horribly wrong?) and "bio-terror" (i.e. what if this falls into the wrong hands?)

    Full story here

    Discuss.
     
    No different than the government assigning people to create viruses. Those are living entities, too >> programmed to do horrible things.

    We are not creators. We are creations. Humans should stop trying to play God with their cloning and ****.
     
    Yu-chan ^, you'll just start a flame war between atheists / christians / <other religions>. I'd suggest you remove that sentence.
    And does the goverment create viruses? I pretty much lol at viruses. My PC is up and steady for half a year without a antivus, I run a spy(ware)check (loltf2lol) sometimes but meh. Pretty clean too. (I do have PC experience though.)

    And I still think we're far from artifactial life. Hopefully we won't end like the Mega Man series heh.
     
    Yusshin said:
    No different than the government assigning people to create viruses. Those are living entities, too >> programmed to do horrible things.

    We are not creators. We are creations. Humans should stop trying to play God with their cloning and ****.
    Click to expand...

    If you're referring to computer viruses, seeing as you said programming, then, um, no they aren't. Basic bilogy - to be classed as "alive", an organism must: move, respire, be sensitive to its surroundings, grow, reproduce, excrete and require nutrition. One could argue that a computer virus does SOME of these, but it sure as hell doesn't respire. A regular virus (i.e. influenza) is also debateable, as they're unable to reproduce without another living organism, making it questionable whether they themselves are actually living things.
     
    Yusshin said:
    No different than the government assigning people to create viruses. Those are living entities, too >> programmed to do horrible things.

    We are not creators. We are creations. Humans should stop trying to play God with their cloning and ****.
    Click to expand...

    I strongly disagree. Creating artificial life isn't 'Playing God'. 'Playing God' is if we were to create artificial and sentient life and then enslave it. 'Playing God' would be calling ourselves all powerful because we can create life.

    It honestly annoys me whenever people demonize scientific advances such as this, they're so ignorant in doing so. Creating life, cloning animals and even humans is far from 'Playing God' in my opinion, we're never near the power that God Himself has.
     
    I'm not fond of the notion of creating or modifying lifeforms. It has its own 'good' uses, and 'evil' ones to go along with those, which is just like any other technology, scientific advancement and so on; I just... don't like it. This isn't for any religious reasons, I'm not going to say "we should not play god", I just think it's like... putting mods onto a video game. Yeah. They can really ruin your gaming experience if you just slap 'em on like icing to a cake, they should only be installed when you actually want something more. Of course, as humans we do want more — cure disease, make fuel, etc; so I don't necessarily argue that we avoid persuing biological solutions, simply that... isn't it a bit much? The reason I'm don't put the vast C-mod 3 on X3TC. We've advanced so rapidly since the turn of the last century, I don't think the human race is ready for these things.
     
    Awesome. I think the idea of creating an entirely new species to aid in the reduction of pollution, or to create fuels is just... inspired. Of course (caution cliché approaching!) "With great power come great responsibility". They should obviously definitely not be even considering letting them near the environment until tonnes of research is taken out. Hell knows what havoc they could wreak on uh... natural(?) creatures.
     
    I agree with Pachy.

    Although maybe that's because I'm a Christian who believes in the Assassin's Creed version of creation more than the Bible (it actually makes more sense).

    As long as they don't start creating a "master race" then I'm fine with it.

    Rich Boy Rob said:
    Awesome. I think the idea of creating an entirely new species to aid in the reduction of pollution, or to create fuels is just... inspired. Of course (caution cliché approaching!) "With great power come great responsibility". They should obviously definitely not be even considering letting them near the environment until tonnes of research is taken out. Hell knows what havoc they could wreak on uh... natural(?) creatures.
    Click to expand...


    What if they mutated them into pokemon? :P
     
    This is great news, if we can create life it could be used to cure my diseases and ailments when it gets more advanced.

    Also, as for arguing "playing god" you could always argue that if god did create us then with that he gave us the ability to create life, so why shouldn't we?
     
    I don't see anything wrong with it. If it helps us out, that is just fantastic. If it comes back to bite us in the ass, I highly doubt we are creating anything that we can't easily destroy. So... yeah.
     
    No matter what, scientists are gonna keep trying to further their advances, so it's a bit pointless to try and stop them. Many good discoveries can be made, but the practice of creating life will be very destructive. I am for the knowledge we have gained and the possibilites we might unlock, but I am completely against unnatural life.

    So, good job finding out how to create life, but please don't actually try it out. Instead, let's take the findings we have made and apply them to safer and more moral realms of science.

    As for ethics, what makes a man-made creature less than a natural one? Is it cruel to specifically construct them for only a single purpose, which purpose would most likely serve us in some way? Is this better than using actual animals, or even other people, to do this? Why is a clone of a human not treated the same as a human?
     
    It had to happen eventually.

    Since this new technology has the potential for doing good things I can't dismiss that even though I think it might blind people to other solutions (People always want a quick fix).

    And since there's always that gone-horribly-wrong possibility this means we must either 1) stop development of this technology completely, or 2) have many, many strict rules and regulations to ensure its used safely and properly. Option 3), letting them develop this without adequate supervision and rigorous testing, is not an option in my book. There are far too many unknowns at this point.
     
    This isn't creating life from scratch as the title heavily implies, it's merely *cough* genetic engineering. And as always, there's a chance of a mutated super-disease to appear as an end result due to risky research (though I hope there will be a way to contain it in the case such an event occurs), but at the same time, it could be used to enhance the life, of everything...Though, a single error could leave the majority of a population permanently and irreversibly crippled...
     
    I think it's an amazing breakthrough and if it can be used to help fight diseases etc. then it should do. As for all the religion talk that's ALREADY appeared, seriously, overreaction much? We've managed to create a single-cell bacteria. It's not as though man is playing God, if such a thing is possible. The medical uses of this single-cell bacteria would be no different from recieving a vaccination, surely? Or an artificial organ? It might even be manipulated into a similar use as stem cells, but seeing as there is a huge religion debate over even that (which I don't see the point of - you take a single cell and grow it into an organ that can save a life, so what is the fuss about? It is NOT taking a life, it is taking a cell) I don't see this been agreed to by many.

    Anyways, I see this as a huge scientific step forwards for our race and anything further they wish to attempt, I say good luck to them. :D
     
    I heard about this last night when I was watching BBC World News America. While you got the people condemning the fact that we're this close to playing God, I'd rather think that this new breakthrough will help us kick our foreign oil habit. We need to wean ourselves off that stuff and stop giving money to oil-rich Arab countries.

    Then, we can focus on using this to improve the health of people who have suffered through incurable illnesses. Only the religious people will cry out saying that we're playing God.
     
    Kon~ said:
    I think it's an amazing breakthrough and if it can be used to help fight diseases etc. then it should do. As for all the religion talk that's ALREADY appeared, seriously, overreaction much? We've managed to create a single-cell bacteria. It's not as though man is playing God, if such a thing is possible. The medical uses of this single-cell bacteria would be no different from recieving a vaccination, surely? Or an artificial organ? It might even be manipulated into a similar use as stem cells, but seeing as there is a huge religion debate over even that (which I don't see the point of - you take a single cell and grow it into an organ that can save a life, so what is the fuss about? It is NOT taking a life, it is taking a cell) I don't see this been agreed to by many.

    Anyways, I see this as a huge scientific step forwards for our race and anything further they wish to attempt, I say good luck to them. :D
    Click to expand...

    Well said. I'd like to point out that when people say that we're playing God, I can only assume they believe that the next step is creating more advanced organisms, and to those who don't believe in evolution I'd like to point out that what you're suggesting is, in fact, following the processes of evolution. Are you not destroying both arguments just by believing them then? I think you are.

    As for my view, I feel that so long as we aren't hurting something that already exists by creating something new, something that will help, I see no reason why we (the human race) shouldn't. I think Sneeze made a good argument when he said that humans have the ability to create life, so why should we not? I see no reason to not make scientific advances when they will help in some way (yes, even in capitalistic ways). I seriously doubt that the God we're talking about, the omnipotent, all-knowing God, will fall victim to something as petty as jealousy by the fact that we're creating things that should only be His to create.
     
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