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'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#21

Post by orblivion »

amichail wrote: post #8
raimondious wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say they "just copied the genome" like that's easy to do. This is a landmark because they synthesized the entire genome using nothing but the sequence stored in a computer, much more difficult than replicating a pre-existing piece of DNA.

Even so, calling it artificial life is highly misleading.

What about diamonds made in a laboratory? They're still more or less the same thing as a natural diamond, but they're still called artificial.

Though it is a bit overblown, but you know, science journalism.

Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#22

Post by someone_here »

WilliamLP wrote: post #19
bh42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers of bacteria permeate every part of the world, including miles within the earth, deep sea volcanic vents, radioactive waste, the rain drops falling on our heads, and us, up our noses, in our skin pores, our guts, etc. Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering r…

> And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Not being constrained by needing to have come from slow gradual iteration might open some possibilities, some terrifying. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. To consider this as a possibility is not to believe in magic.

It is inevitable that we will code a biological species that could not have arisen from gradual iteration.

However, there are some wheel-like things in biology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_s...

Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#23

Post by orblivion »

bh42 wrote: post #16
orblivion wrote: post #5

Call me a luddite, genetic engineering gives me the willies.

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers of bacteria permeate every part of the world, including miles within the earth, deep sea volcanic vents, radioactive waste, the rain drops falling on our heads, and us, up our noses, in our skin pores, our guts, etc. Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering r…

It doesn't only bother me practically. Yes I did consider the fact that they'd have to compete, though I didn't consider the fact that they evolve all the time anyway, that's a good point. BUT, especially if they're talking about something as drastic as eating up a significant amount of carbon in the air, it will change the ecosystem. It'll pose the same danger as moving animals across continents.

But really it bothers me in a different way. I'll say morally, for a severe lack of better term. Maybe existentially. It doesn't sit right with me that we'll be living amongst creatures created in a lab, and that there's no way to differentiate them. I don't believe in God, but I like that we exist within a certain biological framework, it just feels like part of our identity. That the players are allowed to change the rules bothers me.

Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#25

Post by joe_the_user »

MikeCapone wrote: post #9

This is a huge deal, and I'm not surprised to see that Craig Venter had something to do with it. Kudos!

This is a nice step for technology and a really huge deal for human culture and religion.

A certain Someone said once "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth."

That certain Someone later said: "Behold, man has become like one of us..."

Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#26

Post by CWuestefeld »

WilliamLP wrote: post #19
bh42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers of bacteria permeate every part of the world, including miles within the earth, deep sea volcanic vents, radioactive waste, the rain drops falling on our heads, and us, up our noses, in our skin pores, our guts, etc. Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering r…

> And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Not being constrained by needing to have come from slow gradual iteration might open some possibilities, some terrifying. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. To consider this as a possibility is not to believe in magic.

> Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds.

There's no comparison.

I'm sitting here looking out the window at my car, and there are caterpillars out there that are moving faster than it. Not only that, but that caterpillar can refuel itself. And it'll turn itself into new ones next year. In the meantime, my car will sit and rust.

Really, it's the height of hubris to think that we can engineer something that works as well as what untold generations has evolved.

(And I'll apologize for the tangent, but this is also the fatal conceit of those who believe that any central authority can manage our economy any better than the market can on its own.)

Re: 'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists

#30

Post by barrkel »

WilliamLP wrote: post #19
bh42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luddite. In all seriousness, the dangers brought up in the article can only come from a person lacking significant knowledge of bacteria. Unimaginable numbers of bacteria permeate every part of the world, including miles within the earth, deep sea volcanic vents, radioactive waste, the rain drops falling on our heads, and us, up our noses, in our skin pores, our guts, etc. Those simple bacteria evolve at staggering r…

> And unless you believe in magic it is unlikely to out-compete in a pre-existing niche. Cars are faster than land animals. Planes are faster than birds. Not being constrained by needing to have come from slow gradual iteration might open some possibilities, some terrifying. Biology doesn't produce the wheel. To consider this as a possibility is not to believe in magic.

I think there's a risk that you're underestimating the scale required to make those things work. Not only are cars and their engines pretty big, but they need a huge amount of infrastructure for their construction (think about where that all that metal came from, never mind everything else), maintenance, feeding (the whole oil economy), roads, signals, piloting, etc.
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