The Los Alamos Bug 389
Kannappan writes "'You somehow have to forget everything you know about life', says Steen Rasmussen, a colleague of Norman Packard. Packard and his team are working on creating life artificially, nicknamed The Los Alamos bug (pdf). It will be created out of a molecule called Peptide Nucleic Acid(PNA), with a blend of three different factors crucial to life, viz. containment, heredity and metabolism. The researchers believe that the synthetic lives so created will have an enormous practical value in producing clean fuels, healing injured bodies and acting as tiny diagnosticians roaming our bodies."
PNA? (Score:4, Funny)
Do I just need to RTFA?
Re:PNA? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:PNA? (Score:4, Informative)
And no, I do not believe there are other life forms based on PNA.
Re:PNA? (Score:2)
Re:PNA? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK. "They're fscking cheating"
They're using PNA because it does fancy stuff "on its own", just because the out of it is soluble in oil, but the inside of it is repelled by oil and prefers water. So it goes up and down according to whether it's "single-stranded" or "two-stranded" (i.e. whether the inside is expopsed or not). You don't need the complex machinery of metabolic reactions which is necessary for "real" life to cut, assemble and move stuff around.
The whole thing is a fraud, at least if TFA from the New Scientist is an accurate description. Never mind that the genome is essentially random bits of PNA that don't code for any chemical machinery. TFA says that it does influence "metabolism" directly, through electromechanical influence. Wow, that leaves a lot of degrees of freedom for evolution to play with, doesn't it ? (Hint: no, it doesn't). I could mention the utter lack of self-regulation (that thing just grows and divides when it's too big, period), removing the essential computational component of life (wonder what Packard's friend Stuart Kauffman would say about that).
The worst part is the thermodynamics. Apparently all the reactions that occur within the bug are "downwards", degrading reactions. The bug doesn't relly "build" anything. The miracle of life lies precisely in its self-constructing aspect: life is able to couple downwards, energy-releasing reactions and upwards, constructive reactions so that the former "feed" the latter. Thus living systems really construct themselves. That "bug" just uses hand-tailored, pre-activated, energy-packed components which are fed to it by the experimenter and degrades them according to a carefully hand-defined pathway. Evolution of the inner processes is utterly impossible because, essentially, there is no real "inner process". It's just like fire - a downwards, energy releasing reaction without any self-regulation. .
If this thing is alive, then so were Sydney Fox' "protocells" [wikipedia.org] from 40 years ago !
That thing is about as relevant to understanding life as Deep Blue was to understanding intelligence - i.e. it gives a good example of what life is not.
Thomas.
Re:PNA? (Score:3, Interesting)
What you just described is a virus.
Like a fire a virus burns resources without aquiring them. Doens't mean both a virus and fire ca
Re:PNA? (Score:4, Funny)
No word yet on which format Microsoft and Sony intend to back. In related news, Bush is working heavily with Monsanto to ensure that the DMCA is found to be applicable to current life forms. Scientists caught attempting to reverse engineer life should expect to be raided by the FBI by the end of year.
I41 (Score:2, Funny)
Only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
For my money, a much more interesting question is, can we create *intelligence* from scratch? Humor aside, I think creating something with recognizable intelligence (not just programming) will be much more difficult -- and have much more profound implications -- than "merely" creating life.
Such experiments should help narrow down the various factors in the Drake Equation. Life, I suspect, is fairly commonplace. I have no idea if intelligence is.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd recommend you read things by Ray Kurzweil on this topic. In particular, "The Singularity" seems relevant. Apparently there is a short collection of essays by him online, but I don't know if it'll have what you're looking for.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Care to take a bet on that?
I don't believe there is anything magical about the brain, and I believe it can be reproduced in a man-made form. But I think it is far far more complex than we yet realize. Even the most advanced neural nets of today are nowheres near the level of complexity of even a rodent brain. And I'm not just talking about the number of neurons. I'm talking about the secondary effects -- the self-organizing nature of the brain, and how different parts, with slightly different layouts are used for vastly different processing tasks. We're still a long ways off. If I had to guess I'd say not within the next 50 years. Perhaps much longer.
And I don't believe that we'll achieve intelligence through direct programming, even through self modifying programs. If you can look at the low level and tell what's happening at the top level (like with a program) then it's far to simple to encode intelligence. Intelligence requires layers of meaning.
Nonetheless, an interesting topic.
Cheers.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Oh we realize how complex it is. All the computers on the planet combined would still not have enough transistors to emulate a single brain's quadrillion synapses!
However, creating a virtual analog self organizing neural network with as much or more capacity as a human brain is technically feasible with today's technology. It's the cogni
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Probably, but I doubt it will be in a U.S. government funded lab. As soon as the religious fundamentalists, who once again dominate the U.S., figure out government scientists are trying to create life without God or screwing this will get shut down. Not sure that would be a bad thing in this case.
We know just enough about biology and nanotechnology at this point to be reall
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Among humans, self-preservation is probably th
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are looking at life expansion from entirely the wrong perspective. First, life expansion does NOT create a population boom. All of the rich western European nation are in a death cycle right now. Their populations are shrinking. Wealth and the ability to live a long time causes people to simply choose to not have as many children. This is an extremely well documented correlation. The US itself would be in a death cycle like Europe if it wasn't for its influx of immigrants.
Life expansion does not result in a drastically lower standard of living. Being old isn't what makes being old suck. Having your organs fail, your bones become brittle, mental illness, and muscle loss are the reasons why being old is no fun. Fortunately, extending life requires dealing with all of the above. If you have ever watched a National Geographic on a tribe with low life expectancy, you will notice that a 35 year old man looks like an 80 year old American or European. That isn't to suggest that we keep people alive beyond what they would be able to be naturally in the same state, but it isn't right to assume that when people were dying at the age of 40 they were dying looking and feeling like a 40 year old of today.
More importantly, life expansion these days almost entirely revolves around "solving" old age. If someone was to live to be 200 years old, you can bet that they have 'solved' old age and that 200 year old person probably looks about 30. You simply can't extend peoples' lives much longer without curing the natural degradation that your body suffers as you get older.
Finally, I think you drastically overlook the social good that old age offers. In a society where people become older and older, you have people building up vast reservoirs of experience and knowledge. The only social ill old age brings is retirement, and as you see people living longer and healthier lives, you are going to see the retirement age kicked out further. I wouldn't be surprised in a decade or two when life expansion hits its next big surge that our way of thinking about retirement gets radically altered. I wouldn't be surprised if one day the normal mode of 'retirement' is to take a few years off from work every decade or two, but never permanently retire.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I fundamentally disagree with you in saying that intelligence is hard to create, given life in the first place. At this point in time, science has (almost) undisputedly proved the theory of common descent. I pretty well believe that humans eventually came from single-celled organisms, and so does most of the world.
So assuming that is true, intelligence more or less created itself, through life, by a glorified trial-and-error system. Although it seems surprising at first, if you consider how many many different orananisms there are (were) at any given time, and how many trials (generations) there have been, it becomes much more down to Earth.
Actually I think even 'intelligence' today is still a glorified system of trial and error. Think about solving an elementary algebra problem. What's your first intuition (or was when you were learning)? Isolate the variable, etc? Hell no! Trial and error. It's intuitive and doesn't take much mental 'work'. Example: Mary and Sue have a combined age of 15. Mary is 5 years older than Sue. How old is Mary?
Spit this problem at an average 5th/6th grader and I promise you won't get anything along the lines of x + (x + 5) = 15. You'll just get 3 + 8 = [crossed out], 4 + 9 = [crossed out], 5 + 10 = 15 !! And that's how the problem is solved by a (we'll say) 10 year old.
Now, I know I don't seem to be really getting at anything big, but consider this: the average 10 year old has solved a LOT of 'problems' in his/her lifetime, from how to balance to stand up, how much food to eat so you aren't hungry anymore but don't throw up... I could go on forever, but I will call one example: pouring.
Is it hard to pour water from a pitcher into a cup? I'm pretty sure most of you have figured out how to do this reasonably well by now. To do this problem systematically is EXTREMELY difficult. I'll simplify the problem slightly and boil the problem down to two varibles: The height of water in the cup (we'll say % full), and the tilt on the pitcher (an angle between 0 and 180). There is ABSOLUTELY no simple, one-line algebraic equation to solve this one. You can't simply say, when the cup is 100% full, put the angle to zero. You have to correct for how much water is out of the pitcher already and is about to fall into the cup (a time delay), and also the time it takes to move the pitcher from say, 20 degrees to 0 degrees (more time delay). Even better, the flow of the water within the pitcher depends not only on the angular position (zeroth derivative), and the rate and acceleration (first and second derivatives), but also the "jerk" of the pitcher (third derivative of angular position). Wow. That's hard.
To solve this problem analytically, you would need a lot of math. A LOT. In fact, even more than we know today. Using LaPlace transforms and 3rd order differential equation solvers, this can be done, but even the DE solvers are written in trial-and-error form to some extent. If you've read this far, you're probably asking: What exactly am I getting at?
YOU ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM! Ever fill up a cup and not spill? Not bad. Basically, your mind (body?) has already found at least some solution to this problem without you knowing it. You have subconciously short-circuited hundreds of PhD's worth of math with a magic black-box of trial and error. Remember when you were a kid? You tilt the pitcher little and tilt it back. Not enough. You do it again. Not enough. You tilt the pitcher until the cup is full. Crap. Spilled it. Note to self: stop before the cup is full.
So there you have it. Our 'intelligence' has solved math problems than most college graduates could do (even with Maple) to save their lives. If it works, do it again, and if it doesn't work, do something different. That's all our 'intelligence' is.
I really don't think this whole 'intelligence' thing is a very novel concept at all.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
no I didn't. The problem you described was to pour water with mathematically perfect precision. When I pour it's not perfect. If my brain really did all that math you described I would never spill a drop and I could confidently fill glass after glass with the same exact amount of water from the same pitcher.
Nope, thats not what my brain does. The "black box of trial and error" solves the problem with enough precision to be practical and that's where it stops. For all intents
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Interesting)
It is far easier for us to create true intelligence from scratch within a software simulation than in wetware. We can literally run millions of generations of evolution very quickly there, and have very fine-grained control over the natural selection process. If we managed to create intelligence, the first place we'll create it will be in software. We might move on to apply the techniques to wetware and let it evolve a little slower in a little more natural environment, but probably by then SkyNet will a
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Funny)
Oh come on, as a California resident, we've seriously mitigated this risk by electing as Governor Humanity's protector from Terminator 2 and 3...
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course we have an idea if intelligent life is common place out side of our solar system and the answer is: it is not. If it were very common then we would have likely picked up a signal by now if they were within a few hundred light years.
Why isn't it common place? There are many possible answers, one of them which I think is that it is much easier to destroy then create so any intelligent civilization eventually reaches the poin
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all you should remember that you can't use the absence of evidence to disprove something (only to show that it may be less likely). Second, you hit it right on the head when you said "we would have likely picked up a signal.
Whether we're going to pick up a signal depends on a lot of factors. For example: how common is common? the universe is a *big* place, even if t
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. If we can determine the origin of intelligence and the mechanisms by which is works, we could improve upon those mechanisms. Also, it depends what kind of intelligence you a measuring. Math-wise, computers are far more intelligent than the average individual at computation. It's quite possible that we could create a device/organism that's better suited to other areas of intelligence.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Sai Dorsai! (Score:2, Interesting)
Thus, could we really build real better people? Sure we
Re:Sai Dorsai! (Score:2)
No, but it would make for an interesting plotline to a sci-fi movie where you already knew all the characters and had been waiting years to find out what the hell it was all about.
Re:Sai Dorsai! (Score:5, Insightful)
thing is realy, how to put evolution into effect when creating a microchip or a computer program. and then how to test against parameters so that the program becomes self aware.
ie, the moment we can set down the requirements for selfawareness then we can build something thats selfaware. atleast in theory.
and yes, i have not read the book or whatever it is your refering to. maybe ill have to look it up sometime.
still, i belive one could build a more intelligent "being", that is if one fully understood what it is that make up intelligence. understanding what makes it stronger or faster is simple. understanding intelligence is hard.
but it seems that current research shows that the brain is a neural net in a chemical bath. drop the right amounts of the right chemicals and the neural net pathways are changed or disabled.
so, stacking a bayesian system of values on top of a neural net so that they interact and one should get some interesting results if one pipe the raw data of video and audio into the same setup and let it run for any number of years.
but as of now we dont fully understand how the brain works, and therefor can not yet build a better one. but if we manage to figure out how it works then we should allso be able to design a better one. atleast in theory.
so yes, the monkeys would not be able to build a smarter monkey as they dont have the knowhow about how smartness is designed. but if they understood that then they may well have been able to build a smarter monkey.
thing is tho that to fully understand a brain we may well have to put in into a jar and play around with it while its still "alive". but that flys in the face of medical ethics. maybe its time we have another round of nazi medical research? we may not like what they did, but the results where used to help medical science move forward...
Re:Sai Dorsai! (Score:2)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you don't realize just how much calculus is involved in walking down stairs.
The human brain is a computation engine of more power than people understand. It just doesn't happen at a conscious level, so we're not always aware of it. Our brains operate at a level far above raw computational power, which is really all our machines are good at right now.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but we don't do "calculus" either. The brain's neural net has learned over the years, mostly by trail and error, which sets of neurons to fire, and in what order, to make walking down the stairs happen.
Many seemingly complex actions can be created using a few simple rules.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Idiot_savant [wikipedia.org]
"Why autistic savants are capable of this sort of astonishing ability is not quite clear. Some savants have obvious neurological abnormalities, but the brains of most such individual savants are anatomically and physiologically normal; at least, there is no abnormality detectable by early 21st century science."
Perfectly normal brains... so it stands to reason that anyone has the ability but just hasn't tapped into it.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but we don't do calculus to walk down the stairs, even though those actions can be described using calculus.
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
The brain is quite flexible, within limits (response time of a computer can be much faster for example); h
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Math-wise, computers are far more intelligent than the average individual at computation.
This is why non-technical people talk about "computer glitches" - as though the computer was dumb enough to screw up.
Computers may have more speed than the human brain when it comes to math computations (savants aside), but I'd like to see where there's any useful intelligence in what a computer actually does. It's nothing more than a reflection of the coder(s).
(and it's why I've generally maintained about 95%
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
So you mean like creating an intelligent form to have sex with? Now I don't know what the Christians will say about it, but I guess it would have huge success here on
Re:Only a matter of time (Score:2)
Note that this is not the same as artificial hearing, where a cochlear implant actually replaces the first few layers of sound processing in the brain. So if the hope is to ever have direct visual input to the b
Well. that's one way (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well. that's one way (Score:2)
Suddenly, in Los Alamos, a new retort for pickup lines emerges:
Lady: GET A LIFE!
Scientist: Working on it, baby.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell? (Score:3, Funny)
Freakin scientists. Go cure cancer or something, will ya?!
Re:What the hell? (Score:2)
1. Study disease
2. Find cure
3. Hide cure
4. Sell treatment
5. Profit!
6. Sell treatment again
7. Profit!
8. Repeat step 4 to 7 forever
Synthetic Extremophiles (Score:2, Insightful)
RNA is thought to be able to do this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like Halflife (Score:3, Funny)
Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
While
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Time is a factor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:4, Insightful)
While I am not a creationist, I did see the point of their argument - how simple amino acids and organic chemicals were first formed into cells, I have no idea.
I think this is an important question in biology, and I'm sure no biologist would deny it. The problem comes when the creationists merely assume god must have done anything we can't explain. It's the "god in the gaps" argument that's been popular probbably since we first learned to communicate. The problem of course is that science marches on and when you try to find your god in the gaps of science, science eventually closes those gaps. Religion always fights like mad because they've invested much of their belief structure in the argument. The gaps used to be in evolution. Those gaps have closed and now the gaps have moved to the creation of life itself.
The point that people like you were talking to seem to miss is that assuming the existence of a god to explain current lack of scientific understanding of scientific questions has always been a losing proposition. Where religion always fails is when it gets mixed up with scientific questions. Science adapts, and religion tries to cling to dogma. Religion changes too perhaps.. no one is seriously pissed off about heliocentrism anymore, it just takes about 100 times longer.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Interesting)
To be sure, some practitioners are more annoying than others. However that they are doesn't remove the inherit fallacies which exist in those religions.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
One things people who fall for intelligent design refuse to appreciate is that life has had hundreds of millions of years to evolve and perfec
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
You really need to look no further than the virus. It is little more than a small bit of DNA or RNA and a protective coating. They generally are parasites on cells since they don't have some of the machinery to reproduce on their own, but as you can tell from the epidemics and pandemics they cause they are a quite successful form of life at its most elemental level.
Viruses aren't usually defined as being alive. This is because they don't have any mechanism to reproduce themselves, but rely upon the host in
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Eugene Koonin and William Martin just came out with a fascinating paper on the LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Link to Article on Pubmed [nih.gov]
In brief: the RNA/DNA/protein worlds evolved at hydrothermal vents in inorganic chambers. At some point, the information molecules sheathed themselves in lipids and sugars, and free-living cells emerged from the vents.
In response to at least one of your questions: the LUCA to cell transition may have taken 500 million years (primordial soup = 3.5bya, 1st eviden
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
The modern mouse trap has four parts. A base, a spring, a crushing wire and a trigger lever. If you take away any of the parts it doesn't work. The ID argument is that it must have been designed as any small change that removed one of these critical components would render the mouse trap ineffective.
This is a powerful argument, and it is what gets most people suckered into
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe so, but it doesn't address the issue of where their creator came from. Unless the creator is inherently less complex than the system it created, you need to explain how this earlier step came into being.
These people seem to take their existance of their god as a given, not requiring explanation.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, you are. I was disagreeing with the compairson between needing to show how non-organic chemicals turned into life with arguments about the origin of God. I was showing that in order to say that the first occured requires you to find a scientific process whereby it is liekly to occur. If you can't, then there is no reason to support the theory. God, on the other hand, does not require an origin or a scientific explanation of his existence.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
How on earth does abiogenesis get involved in that? The Evil Atheist Conspiracy [cyberdespot.com]?
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
Sure belief against god should be antitheist... same as a pedaphile should really enjoy feet... but popular usage trumps all.
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
People who do not believe in your religion/are not 'with you' are a lot more likely to be neutral than against. If you are convinced that they ARE against you and take things to their logical conclusion, you end up with the situation d
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
Atheism is simply the lack of theism. It is the abscence of god-belief. It has no "fundamental tenents", and you sound like you have some kind of agenda when you make false claims like that. Well, that and making one claim about the "Law of Biogenesis" and linking to a Wikipedia article that directly contradicts you (see "They did not show that life cannot arise once, and then evolve.")
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
*the following are numbers pulled from nowhere, but help to convey the idea*
So, it takes a billion (1,000,000,000) years for single-celled organisms to evolve. On planet with at least a billion-billion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) bits of organic building blocks in it's oceans, randomly and constantly thrown together. So if it's a one in a million chance to do a particular step on the road to lif
Re:Source of creation, or evolution? (Score:2)
Don't forget to multiply in the number of planets in the universe capable of supporting such organic building blocks, and who can even begin to predict how many that is? Millions don't even begin to get close, I would guess.
Not playing God... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not playing God... (Score:5, Funny)
About PNA.. (Score:3, Informative)
One last touch (Score:2, Funny)
"Oh shit"
Only one possible response... (Score:2)
Re:constructed.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:constructed.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:constructed.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:constructed.... (Score:3, Informative)
Create has a significantly broader definition than you claim.
Try doing a google search for "created" and be amazed at the "not from nothing" usage, for example http://www.udm4.com/demos/other-dynamic.php [udm4.com] and it's created menus.
Re:constructed.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Your word definitions are thus extremely confusing because you're using a word with an existing definition and giving it a new definition contrary to the accepted definition. I could for example define cat as an aquatic animal that swims i
I've created......an ego (Score:2, Funny)
"Now, bow down and worship me, you microscopic lump of lard or i'll flush you!"
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to recall a silly woman, who specialized in x-ray crystallography, taking a picture of a molecule she wasn't supposed to be wasting her time on. If it weren't for Rosalind Franklin doing that, the discovery of the structure of DNA would have been delayed for god only knows how long.
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:3, Informative)
Now all three of Crick, Watson and Wilkins were awarded th
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine a bug that can convert cellulose to alcohol. Or eats dioxins and destroys them. Or generates hydrogen from sun and water. Wouldn't these be somewhat beneficial?
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:2)
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:2)
Or generates hydrogen from sun and water.
Um, yeah. Water + Heat = H2 + O2.
Re:Focus on Artificial life (Score:2)
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:3, Funny)
I must pray over this.
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:4, Insightful)
In all the "we are playing god" arguments that I've heard, I ask "where in the Bible/Talmud/Torah/Qur'an does it say 'Ye shall not create life'?". No one can ever give me a direct quote where it says we are forbidden from doing so. So, with that in mind, and given that we are given, the parent would say, from our devine creator, the gifts of intelligence AND curiosity, who is to say that we are not expressly ALLOWED to do this because we were granted the abilities. Now I'm sure I'll get replys that say "well, I'm given the ability to kill or steal, but it doesn't mean that I'm ALLOWED to do so..." and for the asshat that comes up with this argument, I'll counter with: Taking Life or Doing Harm (TM), in that intent, is usually a direct, willful act of agression. Creating, whether it be life, or a painting, or a controversial book, is not intended to be directly harmful in most cases, especially if the intent is to learn, or open a discourse, etc. Sure, some science has yielded results that might be harmful to someone in some circumstance, but I, driving my car to work, might be harmful to someone, in some circumstance, whether it be hitting them or poisoning the air of their great grand children and causing global warming, the seas to melt, and all of us end up doing bad Kevin Costner impersonations. My point is, and this is my own opinion, that the intent of most of the religious texts of the world seem to be "don't be evil bastards." How can creation be evil, when it's A) not intended to be evil, and B) Not even expressly forbidden? (that I know of)
Flame away!
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:2)
In all the "we are playing god" arguments that I've heard, I ask "where in the Bible/Talmud/Torah/Qur'an does it say 'Ye shall not create life'?".
Dunno about specific verses, but Judeo Christian dogma seems pretty adamant that trying to put yourself on a level with God is a serious sin, basically what Lucifer did. Creating life may be viewed as an example of that; personally, I don't care. I want to see how we do.
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:2)
yup! so it comes down to intent. Lucifer got booted because he thought he could do a better job than God. Adam, on the other hand, got to name all the beasts, and to name something has very clear connotations of creation here*. It seems to me that provided we aren't greedy, pompous, arrogant assholes, we'll be OK -- in pretty much everything, really.
*sidenote: the notion of naming something ==
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:2, Insightful)
Intead of thinking from an authoritative (religious) standpoint, think from something more broad: Ethics. Stealing and killing, under Kantianism, would be unethical; if everyone stole, we'd have no belongings, and if everyone killed, there'd be no life. Similarly, under a utilitarian view, most stealing and killing would produce far more bad than good. If we created new life, we could possibly mess with the integrity of our own; similarly, creati
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:3, Funny)
Science without restraint and wisdom is as superstitious and downright dangerous as the more irrational aspects of religion.
Religion at its worst will keep us in the dark ages, while science at its worst will lead to a runaway extinction event by means of environmental pollution or epidemic.
There has to be a balance.
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God! (Score:2)
Oh, come on, let's do it! God's not a cruel guy, or so I hear. I'm sure he'll send down his only begotten robot to be reformatted for all the other robots' sins. Bring on Robo-Jesus!
Or pile-of-intelligent-sludge-Jesus, I guess. Whichever way we go about making the intelligent life. I'd really prefer Robo-Jesus, though.
Re:Which begs the obvious question (Score:2)
She's lucky.
Nine just has a couple flaky cells.
Re:Oh dear (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't disprove the notion that life could be a product of stochastic processes.
Re:Oh dear (Score:2)
Re:MS-Windows Life 1.0 (Score:2)
Re:MS-Windows Life 1.0 (Score:2)
Probably the same Los Alamos that has flying saucers in the basement, if you believe everything you read [geocities.com].
Re:Hmmmm (Score:2, Funny)