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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6185)	5/31/2010 10:23:57 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Has Craig Venter Produced Artificial Life? "Artificial life, the stuff of dreams and nightmares, has arrived." So proclaimed The Economist on May 20th, after a team of scientists headed by J. Craig Venter [2] announced that it had replaced the natural DNA in a bacterial cell with DNA they had artificially synthesized. According to University of Pennsylvania philosopher and bioethicist Arthur Caplan, "Venter and his colleagues have shown that the material world can be manipulated to produce what we recognize as life. In doing so they bring to an end a debate about the nature of life that has lasted thousands of years. Their achievement undermines a fundamental belief about the nature of life that is likely to prove as momentous to our view of ourselves and our place in the Universe as the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin and Einstein." Whoa! Wait a minute! What Venter and his team did was to determine the sequence of the DNA in one of the world’s simplest bacteria, use the sequence information to synthesize a copy of that DNA from subunits sold by a biological supply company, then put the synthetic copy of DNA into a living bacterial cell from which the natural DNA had been removed. As Nicholas Wade pointed out in The New York Times, Eckard Wimmer and his colleagues did something similar in 2002 by synthesizing poliovirus RNA. Wimmer and his colleagues then used that synthetic RNA to make functioning polioviruses. But viruses are not living cells. No one has ever been able to make a living cell from its DNA—not even Craig Venter. A virus is just RNA or DNA in a protein capsule. The viral RNA or DNA can’t make more of itself, nor can it make the capsule. Viral RNA or DNA must first be put into a living cell (or, in the case of Wimmer’s experiment, into an extract carefully prepared from living cells), because only the cell (or its extract) contains the complex molecular machinery needed to make more RNA or DNA and to manufacture the protein capsule. By themselves, however, RNA and DNA are biologically inert. Only a living cell is alive, and in our experience, life always comes from life. That’s why spontaneous generation doesn’t happen. That’s why origin-of-life researchers have not even come close to solving their problem. And that’s why Venter and his team couldn’t create life; they had to start with it. There is much more to living cells—even relatively simple cells—than is dreamt of in Arthur Caplan’s philosophy. In contrast to Caplan’s exaggerated claims, CalTech biologist and Nobel laureate David Baltimore said that Venter has "overplayed the importance" of his results, which represent "a technical tour de force" rather than a scientific breakthrough. Venter "has not created life, only mimicked it," Baltimore said. Boston University bioengineer James Collins called Venter’s work: an important advance in our ability to re-engineer organisms, not make new life from scratch. Frankly, scientists don't know enough about biology to create life. Although the Human Genome Project has expanded the parts list for cells, there is no instruction manual for putting them together to produce a living cell. It is like trying to assemble an operational jumbo jet from its parts list—impossible. Although some of us in synthetic biology have delusions of grandeur, our goals are much more modest. These realistic assessments probably wouldn’t impress the anonymous author of The Economist article. "Pedants may quibble," the writer complains, that "the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff." Shell? But oh, what an amazing shell it is! And from that shell of life, what discoveries may come? Ay, there’s the rub. Posted by Jonathan Wells evolutionnews.org

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6185)	5/31/2010 4:51:09 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

<<Second, he cites evolutionary biologist Theodore Dobzhansky on the weird way mutations seem to occur before they are actually needed by the Darwinian process: What this suggests is a kind of preadaptation, with the species being armed far in advance for some crisis it will meet in the future….But this is the kind of providence that might suggest to our total awareness an inscrutable purpose.>> Actually, that's exactly what "EVO-DEVO" is all about: Message 26578823 I've posted about 5 books on the topic over the past couple years... they ALL deal with the EXACT issue noted by the author might want to get one... and forward it to him :)) The THIRD objection is REAL interesting (even if unimportant to the issue he claimed... let me now if you understand why it obviates evolution?) and is delt with by ANOTHER source that you and SPECIFICALLY "Pope Greg" refuses to read about and seem totally ignorant of: <<Third, as an “insuperable” obstacle to believing in Darwinism, he notes “the mystery of the origin of language.” Human language is inescapably metaphorical, whereby things are designated by verbal symbols. But the intervening symbol “detaches the word from the thing.” How could a naturalistic evolutionary scheme, that can get a grip only on physical things, produce a language of non-material symbols and metaphors?>> ""The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. The Name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. the named is the mother of all things." This topic sent Pope Greg into one of his famous "circular mental patterns"... LOL! DAK

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6185)	5/31/2010 5:24:57 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Oh, heck, since we've been there before on this thread, why not just deal with all three... here's the first: <<First, it is “a form of the question-begging fallacy.” Darwinism is the best explanation of how life got to be as it is only if you take a materialist world picture for granted: It demands an initial acceptance of the doctrine of naturalism before any explanation is offered. Specifically, when the biologist is faced with the fact of the enormous differentiation and specialization in nature, he says that these were caused by the proximate method which nature would use, assuming that nature is the only creative force that exists….Again and again in the literature of evolution one finds that things are viewed as “necessary” because they come from this assumed natural cause rather than as proved because they come from a known cause. In other words the fact that things have come into being is used as evidence that nature must have used the evolutionary process to bring them into being.>> Actually what's going on here is the AUTHOR cited's point is an example of the fallacy: he's assuming that "naturalism" is necessarily "materialist"... it demands an inital acceptance that (his) God can't be involved before any explanation is offered. If you use God Immanent, then the above all fades away... as I"v noted before. Good find Brummar... you should thank your lucky stars for science pointing you in the right direction in your quest for God! DAK