I am creating life, says US scientist

[CB..]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

What seems to imply that we fill any need or that we were designed?

nothing and everything...depending on your point of view i suppose...which in a hall of mirrors is going to be at best unreliable .we have an incomplete view of the universe (to say the least lol)..the question is does the universe have an incomplete view of us?...even the evoloutionary concept exhibits some sort of pattern...some sort of objective no matter how randomly and unitelligbly arrived at...where did that come from ? why evolve at all?? if not to fullfill some sort of plan? even if it is just "survival of the fittest"...and if that 'aint some sort of a plan then i don't know what else is?
it's a hell of a circular argument i know but it's an entertaining one...we don't know...that's probably half the fun of it..we don't think about this stuff enough..we just rush ahead assuming we are sure of ourselves...assuming we have it all under control...we 'aint got "diddly squat" under control...which is where the contemplation of universe as our home (which might be construed as religious thought) comes in...gawd we aint even "potty trained" as yet (were still ****ting on our home planet) lol bit early to be playing god...

i honestly don't know..which is a relief..but the questions are great !

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

How is the comparison "invalid"?

Neither does evolution try to design accoridng to man's ideas, nor is man's ideas reflecting the way evolution has advanced in it's own ways. Instead, man tries to artifically make evolution more natural, or in other words: replace evolution with himself.

but man does not know the man interacting, interdepending complexities that web evolution has spun is made of. For just one example, see here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=121673

[STEED]

Us men create life every day when we break wind, right men.

[DeepIron]

What seems to imply that we fill any need or that we were designed?

My wife says I fill her needs.... works for me... and I don't worry about the 'design" stuff. I consider Human Beings to be a "Work in Progress"...

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Neither does evolution try to design accoridng to man's ideas, nor is man's ideas reflecting the way evolution has advanced in it's own ways. Instead, man tries to artifically make evolution more natural, or in other words: replace evolution with himself.

So....your equaly against pigeon breeding?

[Steel_Tomb]

Originally Posted by Letum

I wonder if this is a break through for chemistary or biology. :hmm:

I believe its called "biochemistry" , having done A level Biology I think this (if confirmed) is the biggest breakthrough in science since we completed our discovery of the human genome...the fact that someone can create artificial chromosomes in a laboratory is quite frankly amazing. However, creating one chromosome is one thing. Creating a complete set which will interact with eachother and reproduce (thus creating functioning, living cells) is an entirely different ball game!

[TteFAboB]

Interesting that among the promised benefits, Global Warming and Energy Sources are selected, the hot topics of the moment. The benefits certainly aren't limited only to those relative to time.

But I would like to know if anybody can provide a link with proper scientific language, because in the Guardian one I cannot see where life is being created. From what I understand from the link provided, somebody took an already existing DNA chain and decided to build a copy of it from scratch, chromosome by chromosome, leaving out a bunch of stuff, probably to reduce the work-load and time consumed. Then they took a living bacterial cell and inserted the DNA inside it, "expecting" the new DNA to take over the old one. The Guardian uses this word, expecting. I suppose they succeeded? Or is there a probabiliy involved, it may or may not work each time?

If so, nothing has been created, but reproduced. Everything already existed. The combination of chromosomes and the matter used to build each chromosome. Then massive affectation ensues and everybody starts talking about their own ficticious imagination of what actually happened, but not realizing it, everybody also believes to be talking about the same thing.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

So....your equaly against pigeon breeding?

Feel free to think of yourself as nothing more than a pigeon, but me - I don't buy it. Even pigeon breeding envolves natural selection of genes - it does not enforce genetic combinations that nature - if left alone - would never put together. Also, pigeons do not try to manipulate their own genes. Pigeon breeding compares to humans of different races having sex and children in the natural way.

Quiztime. Is Plutonium a "natural" element"? It was not created by mother nature, but by man, in the lab. Naturally, to our knowledge it does not exist anywhere in the nature known to man.

And how do you adress the risks of messing up genes by designing them so that a certain function if fulfilled or a certaion disease does not show up - at the price of intirducing an even greater threat to the organism, as described in that old article I referred to i my last posting? It describes things that we just have started to get an image of that they are an issue - knowing we do not much, or better: close to nothing about these links and interdependancies. and if a scientist would create life and intentionally desiogn flaws and arrors into it, even disease, to make it immune to other diseases, he would also be at war with some ethics commission.

And yes, the ethics of this all - an abyss opening up before us...

We are not ready for these things. We do not know about the powers we start to mess around with. Maybe in the future, sometime, but that is not more than a "maybe".

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Quiztime. Is Plutonium a "natural" element"? It was not created by mother nature, but by man, in the lab. Naturally, to our knowledge it does not exist anywhere in the nature known to man.

Plutonium, like all radiological elements (if not all elements), has a half-life. The most common isotope is Plutonium-239, the one used for nuclear weapons, which has a half-life of 24,100 years and is'nt found in nature because it has allready decayed. A more stable isotope is Pu-244, with a half life of 80 milin years and is the nucleon-richest atom that naturally occurs in the Earth's crust, but in very small quantities.

Im fascinated by nuclear physics and since i quit smoking (allmost a month ago) have developed insomnia so i have way too much time to look into things like this.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Quiztime. Is Plutonium a "natural" element"? It was not created by mother nature, but by man, in the lab. Naturally, to our knowledge it does not exist anywhere in the nature known to man.

No time to address the rest atm I shall leave that for tomorrow,
however.....

Yes, plutonium is found in nature. It's not common because the conditions required to
produce it are not very common and it has a somewhat short half life.
However, there is still enough around on earth to be detectable if you look for it around
uranium deposits.

IIRC it is formed through neutron exchange (?) which occurs in nature quite a lot in stars
and also a little on earth.

The earth probably had a lot of it around a few billion years ago before it all decayed.


There are no purely man-made elements.

[Skybird]

Ah. I stand corrected. I learned at school and read in (old) books that plutonium is a fully artificially created element. wikipedia just told me that this is a widespread mistake in public.

[The Avon Lady]

I'm................getting.......................w eaker................ Can't...................post...................... ....much..................longer

[Letum]

Avon....thing.........your...link....is..........b roken.
*edit* nope, a few f5s later and its up.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Ah. I stand corrected. I learned at school and read in (old) books that plutonium is a fully artificially created element. wikipedia just told me that this is a widespread mistake in public.

Your school may have been correct at the time. It was created by man before it was found
in nature.

Originally Posted by STEED

Us men create life every day when we break wind, right men.

Depends on what I had for lunch. If it's an egg salid sandwich, better stand waaaaaay back.