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dunno if this has been asked before-but yeah, what repercussions would this have on atheists, agnostics etc. ?
If you are referring to the first synthetic cell, I don’t think it has any repercussions at the moment. If anything I would assume it will eventually push the border of the gods even further back and the religious will change their tune from “Only God can create life” to “Only God can make the material from which life is created”.
Some will fail to understand what is implied evolution-wise and victoriously claim “ha, look, this life has a creator. Therefore all life require a creator”.
So nothing will change but the placement of the border.
There is no doubt that this new life was manufactured using an intelligent, (human), mind as the agent. In a way, it is simply genetic modification, (GM), in which 100% of the DNA is modified. I think the synthesis of new life in this way has no repercussions on the truth of theism / atheism, but theists might not like humans tinkering with life. It is very interesting however, because it opens the door for us humans to design DNA sequences, (yes design), and activate the DNA in cells, in order to do useful things on our behalves.
hmm..i think it could be a step towards figuring out how life began. i was wondering if any of our favorite theists would come and say ‘see? you need intelligence to make life, it didn’t pop out of nowhere! we are right!’ hehe
because it opens the door for us humans to design DNA sequences, (yes design), and activate the DNA in cells, in order to do useful things on our behalves.
Humans have been “activating” the DNA in cells in order to do useful things on our behalf for the last fifty years.
The original question of this post was vague. If it refers to Synthia, expect more advanced drugs, stem cell research to become obsolete, cosmetic surgery to be replaced with a specialized form of chemical therapy and any number of specialized programmed cures for diseases to crop up. The cure for AIDs and the cure for Cancer are real possibilities with the capabilities of Synthia.
Expect as well, a disgusting wall of injustice from left wing republicans who feel that government should bum rush this research and imprison Craig Venter for “crimes against humanity”. Expect to see posters of doctors and scientists all over your respective states revealing their personal information in an effort to feed a growing subculture of religious fanatics who will stop at nothing to end this research, upto and including assassinations.
In one way or another we’re going to have to wade through these psychotics to reach a better tomorrow. It will cost lives, but we will cure disease. This research could change the world as fundamentally as sewage systems and raise our life expectancy by as much as fifty percent.
The original question of this post was vague. If it refers to Synthia, expect more advanced drugs, stem cell research to become obsolete, cosmetic surgery to be replaced with a specialized form of chemical therapy and any number of specialized programmed cures for diseases to crop up. The cure for AIDs and the cure for Cancer are real possibilities with the capabilities of Synthia.
Hello Demojen,
Thanks for responding to this. This is a fascinating subject for me. Please expand on Synthia. I am familiar with Venter’s work but don’t know about Snthia. Please expand.
Thanks
[ Edited: 31 December 2010 11:18 PM by eucaryote ]
Her name is Synthia.
She is the first ever man-made self replicating life-form.
Her name comes from the word Synthetic, for she truly is a synthetic biological life form.
This is a cell that has been *programmed*. Its DNA has been sequenced and designed by man to do a very specific, albeit simple task(for now). That task?-To Replicate.
So now we have the very basis for creating a life form that can do other things, as well as replicate. Mind you, Synthia has no natural defense mechanisms and is not programmed to survive, nor would she survive outside of the lab.
It was a milestone. A triumph in science to find a way to create a self-replicating man-made life-form. Synthia will be the mold by which all future synthetic biological life-forms will likely be designed. Venter also had the life-form Synthia programmed with a very special message for anyone who ever managed to read her DNA. The message is the email address to the designers who made her and an invitation to talk.
Bacterias that can be programmed to kill viruses, to destroy waste, to create oxygen, to produce oils…The potential is limitless. Though this milestone is a significant mark technologically for development of other tools, scientists have been using less ambitious processes to create similar results through chimeric organisms with varying results. This breakthrough means we may no longer need to take the bad with the good, in terms of genetic sequencing for these bacteria.
As for the question of what she will mean for freethinkers, well, to be honest, probably not much. I say that because we already understand/accept what should be the implications of man-made life and of science in general for a theistic view of the world. I mean, we accept already that the universe and life occurred naturally without any help from a supernatural agent so the fact that we can now do it another way (again, naturally and without the help of anything supernatural) is no great shock.
It’s like, ‘Yeah, well, we always sort of knew we’d end up being able to do it sooner or later.’
Of course the woo brigade will be saying, “See, we told you, you need an intelligent designer.” So nothing much will change.
However, I think this will be one of the most useful things we’ve ever achieved in terms of the benefits it could bring.
This topic has really sparked my interest so I am now going to read the literature first hand so that I can getter a better understanding of just what has been achieved and how.
Her name is Synthia.
She is the first ever man-made self replicating life-form.
Her name comes from the word Synthetic, for she truly is a synthetic biological life form.
This is a cell that has been *programmed*. Its DNA has been sequenced and designed by man to do a very specific, albeit simple task(for now). That task?-To Replicate.
So now we have the very basis for creating a life form that can do other things, as well as replicate. Mind you, Synthia has no natural defense mechanisms and is not programmed to survive, nor would she survive outside of the lab.
It was a milestone. A triumph in science to find a way to create a self-replicating man-made life-form. Synthia will be the mold by which all future synthetic biological life-forms will likely be designed. Venter also had the life-form Synthia programmed with a very special message for anyone who ever managed to read her DNA. The message is the email address to the designers who made her and an invitation to talk.
Bacterias that can be programmed to kill viruses, to destroy waste, to create oxygen, to produce oils…The potential is limitless. Though this milestone is a significant mark technologically for development of other tools, scientists have been using less ambitious processes to create similar results through chimeric organisms with varying results. This breakthrough means we may no longer need to take the bad with the good, in terms of genetic sequencing for these bacteria.
We can take only the good.
Thanks for the reply. I was aware of Venters work, including this, I didn’t know they gave “her” a name.
Specifically they wrote the DNA from scratch and inserted it into a prokaryote which had been deprived of it’s DNA. The “cellular machinery” translated the instructions into specific proteins and also replicated itself. This had earlier been done with viral particles where particles with synthetic instructions were created and shown capable of infecting cells to produce more viral particles, i.e. successfully replicate.
As I understand it, it’s only a matter of time and computing power before this is demonstrated in eucaryotes.
In May 2010, a team of scientists led by Venter became the first to successfully create what was described as “synthetic life”.[47][48] This was done by synthesizing a very long DNA molecule containing an entire bacterium genome, and introducing this into another cell, analogous to the accomplishment of Eckard Wimmer’s group, who synthesized and ligated an RNA virus genome and “booted” it in cell lysate.[49] The single-celled organism contains four “watermarks”[50] written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and to help trace its descendants. The watermarks include
Code table for entire alphabet with punctuations
Names of 46 contributing scientists
Three quotations
The web address for the cell.
Because the entire prokaryotic cell was not built from scratch but just the instruction set, it does not represent a full complement of “life in the lab”, but it is very, very close. I don’t know how much more difficult it would be to build an entire cell from scratch or if there would be a point to it, after all the DNA codes to produce complete replicate cells.
The design issue is a canard. Design is matter of function. Athesits and freethinkers should concede design in biology. Design is biology. What we should question is the idea that there is ever a designer, even in designs that are “created” by human “designers” Designers, engineers, and inventors will tell youy, all designs are a function of evolution. Venters achievement is a function of the evolving work of generations of scientists in a variety of disparate fields, and generations of technology. Without his supercomputing center, Venter could not have reverse engineered and then “designed” Synthia.
So there are never any “designers” really. Nothing comes from an individual as whole cloth. Designs are evolved, eroded the environment and by the environment. All of our complex devices are made up of very simple devices that in turn are members of a fixed but very large “design space” [Dennett] of possible functional functional elements. Dennett calls them “good tricks”. Think of the simple tools, the lever, the inclined plane, the wheel, etc. Or the 2dimensional and 3dimensional regular solids…only so many. Vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits. Heated filiments to LED’s.
See the attached photo of the “test” or shell made by Difflugia Coronata, a single celled amoeba with no nervous system and no brain. This little house is about 150 microns in diameter. Apparently the critter accumulates minute grains of sand and then extrudes them out of the cell with some cement to hold them together during fission. The house stays with the old cell and the daughter amoeba has to go accumulate sand and build it’s own.
The design in this is undeniable. So is the lack of a “designer”. Note this is representative of the species, so all Coronata are born with this ability to manipulate it’s environment to build itself a functional house. It appears that there are some routines that amount to “firmware” and do get passed.
Anyway, next time you have the design debate, don’t forget Difflugia.
I agree with Rob about what Synthia means for freethinkers.
I’ll add, if we really have been free enough with our thought and inquisitiveness, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise or challenge of any sort, particularly to any ontology or metaphysics that may cause more constrained intellects to become anxious about their notions of reality, virtue, or what-have-you.
I’m a little less inclined than Rob to be optimistic. I know what organizations like Monsanto have done, armed with patents on engineered hybrid life forms and the rubber-stamp of a favorable Supreme Court.
Poldano: I know what organizations like Monsanto have done, armed with patents on engineered hybrid life forms and the rubber-stamp of a favorable Supreme Court.
Do tell Poldano, what have organizations like Monsanto done?
euc, Whether I get into a another design debate or not, I shall never forget Dufflugia… well, at least not unless or until the ol’ hippocampus fails.
Poldano: I know what organizations like Monsanto have done, armed with patents on engineered hybrid life forms and the rubber-stamp of a favorable Supreme Court.
Do tell Poldano, what have organizations like Monsanto done?
euc, Whether I get into a another design debate or not, I shall never forget Dufflugia… well, at least not unless or until the ol’ hippocampus fails.
Hey Isocrat! Good to see you’re still out there kicking,
Yes about Difflugia. The simplest things I might learn about biology often just floor me. When one looks at Coronata from the god context, it’s just another mysterious that god must be responsible for. When you look at it from the context of evolution, accepting the obvious and simplest explanation for which there is evidence, Coronata becomes another passenger from deep time. It took a long time for evolution to sort out this neat trick.
Sorry for the philosophical distraction, I’m a little obsessed.
Poldano has a point to make that I’d like to hear. Probably the most resistance against “artificial life” will come from the environmental community. At the same time, there is nothing we can do but continue to learn. LIke it or not, this is our salvation. If nothing else, we learn ever more dramatically we fit or not into the biosphere. We are just the instruments by which evolution is grinding along, it’s not like we and every thing we do is not “natural”. In a very real sense, we cannot, not learn these things. We’re no in control.
Poldano: I know what organizations like Monsanto have done, armed with patents on engineered hybrid life forms and the rubber-stamp of a favorable Supreme Court.
Do tell Poldano, what have organizations like Monsanto done?
euc, Whether I get into a another design debate or not, I shall never forget Dufflugia… well, at least not unless or until the ol’ hippocampus fails.
My specific information comes from a television documentary about Monsanto’s genetically-engineered pesticide-resistant soybeans, and the effects that their efforts at protecting their patent has on farmers and small businesspeople who are not their customers.
It has been accepted agricultural practice, for as long as agriculture has been practiced, for farmers to select portions from their crops to use as seed for the next generation of crops. When applied to cereals, this is the “seed corn” of many adages. In modern times, there is machinery for separating seeds from other debris, used for both seeds intended for sale or consumption and seeds intended for planting. Seeds intented for replanting, as I understand it, must be separated from other debris, for the planting machinery to work well and to ensure optimum coverage during planting.
As part of its agreement with its patented seed customers, Monsanto requires the customers to forego seed-sorting, so as to preserve its patent monopoly on the seeds. As far as this goes, there is no problem, and Monsanto is acting fairly. The problem is that the patented genes get into the crops of farmers who are not Monsanto customers, by way of the reproductive processes of soybeans; the gene-engineered products are cross-fertile with non-patented soybeans. Monsanto has won the right to challenge all occurrences of its patented genomes as patent infringements. Its enforcement policy aimed at farmers who are not its customers forces those farmers to prove that they have never been Monsanto customers. Its enforcement policy toward the seed-sorter merchants forces those merchants to prove that they have never sorted seeds for customers who cannot prove that they have not used Monsanto seeds. With sufficient record-keeping, the farmers and merchants would, in principle, be able to prove that they were operating in respect of Monsanto’s patents.
Monsanto’s actual enforcement policy, however, is the typical one of intimidation by lawsuit. Since a patent violation can in principle occur with any growing season, farmers and merchants who are not Monsanto customers need to maintain records of all seeds used in planting, all plantings, and all customers. Moreover, since the proceedings are civil (as opposed to criminal), and since it is easily shown to be to the advantage of farmers and customers to withhold information, the defendants in the suit need to present a preponderance of evidence that they could not have done otherwise than respect Monsanto’s patents. This is akin the classic problem of proving a nonexistence. In practice, Monsanto’s attorneys can and do present challenges to all the evidence.
The effect is that the defendants give up the contest to avoid impoverishing themselves. The farmers become Monsanto’s customers because if they have to buy seed, they might as well buy the seed that is most profitable for them. In addition to the seed, the farmers need to buy the pesticides produced by Monsanto to make their seed investment pay off. The seed-sorter merchants just go out of business, which suits Monsanto just fine because it wants to be the exclusive source of seeds.
That’s the story as I understand it. I have not verified that all the assertions I presented are factual. I believe it because it makes sense in terms of other things I know. If you are an employee of Monsanto or a corporation that behaves in similar ways, or if you are an apologist for capitalism that asserts that it is entirely benevolent, I’m sure you will find a great deal to disagree with.
The issue is not with Monsanto protecting its patents. The issue is that of Monsanto using its technologically unrestrictable genes to force traditional agriculture practitioners into its customer fold, regardless of the eventually deleterious effect on agriculturable sustainability, and to eliminate independent small businessmen and entrepreneurs who pose an additional challenge to the future Monsanto customer base when the existing pesticide eventually ceases to be effective.
First, apologies to Difflugia Coronata for misspelling its name (tired eyes saw a ‘u’ where there was an ‘i’~why, one could say I was in a state of Difflugia from lack of sleep), second, j’dore (and have missed) the euc’s philosophical distractions. As you know, I’m a bit obsessed with this kind of material too, so’s, I’s knows hows ya feels~!
Still kicking, and painting and writing and recently acquired the title: “Mim-maw” ...like your pals the amoebas, my daughter has passed on some of her “firmware” along with the “hardware” to “create” a non-synthetic human life form. (Her name is Alexandra, and she’s the smartest, cutest, bestest baby and mimic ever~! according to my ventromedial prefrontal cortex, that is. ) Sorry for the diversion into solipsism, I’m a little obsessed.
Why would the environmental community have a problem with Synthia? I don’t get it… and where’s Poldano? My curiosity had been piqued.
) Sorry for the diversion into solipsism, I’m a little obsessed. 
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