jankin

I am somewhat amazed that a science news item from last July has not provoked loud outcries of horror from the theistic crowd. I refer to the following abstract:

====quote========
Originally published in Science Express as 10.1126/science.1072266 on July 11, 2002
Science, Vol. 297, Issue 5583, 1016-1018, August 9, 2002

Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template

Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Paul, Eckard Wimmer*

Full-length poliovirus complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized by assembling oligonucleotides of plus and minus strand polarity. The synthetic poliovirus cDNA was transcribed by RNA polymerase into viral RNA, which translated and replicated in a cell-free extract, resulting in the de novo synthesis of infectious poliovirus. Experiments in tissue culture using neutralizing antibodies and CD155 receptor-specific antibodies and neurovirulence tests in CD155 transgenic mice confirmed that the synthetic virus had biochemical and pathogenic characteristics of poliovirus. Our results show that it is possible to synthesize an infectious agent by in vitro chemical-biochemical means solely by following instructions from a written sequence.

Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5222, USA.
========endquote=======

This work shows the following obvious conclusion:

Life is an emergent property of matter itself, not imposed by any heavy-breathing deity.

This is a deathblow to any special need for any deity whatsoever. The last bastion of magic is gone - the creation of life has occurred in the test tube from off the shelf chemicals and compounds (cell-free system). Admittedly it's a simple form of life, but thats not the point. From here on out, it's merely a quantitative development. The hymen to godhood has been breached, and humans are indeed "as gods" having finally eaten of the second tree in the garden of eden myth.

I would have expected houls of outrage from one end and gleeful dance parties from the other; but all I see nothing. Why?

- jankin

RufusAtticus

That's nice, but since it deals more with EoG than evolution or science education, I'm moving it.

[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

Neruda

this is very interesting. thanks for bringing this to our attention...

Psycho Economist

I'm going to be a huge skeptic for a moment. This is a momentous discovery, but someone has to say it...

This doesn't prove that life is an emergent property of matter. A virus is a protien-coated delivery system for viral RNA; it doesn't reproduce on it's own. It's cool that they were able to string together the right protiens to make viral RNA, release it into a cell, and have the cell make new viruses... but that's all a virus does anyway. It slips through a host's cell membrane, and the host sees the protiens and starts making more viruses, because RNA is RNA and the host's ribosomes assume that whatever RNA base pairs it can glom onto are the right ones.

What will be a clincher for natural origins of life is to synthesize something genuinely alive... even a prokaryote.

That said, this does indicate that there isn't anything "magical" about lifeform-produced RNA compared to RNA molecules in the abstract. That says that synthetic prokaryotes are that much more possible than we previously knew.

(What I have to say isn't momentous; the discovery is... thought i'd clear that up)

[ October 25, 2002: Message edited by: Psycho Economist ]</p>

Keith Russell

Carl Sagen explained (way back on Cosmos) that amino acids had been synthesized using electricity and mineral-rich water (supposedly the same conditions as existed early in earth's immediatly pre-life history).

It was only a matter of time before someone actually 'created' life...

And if it hasn't actually happened in a way that satisfies theists...yet...then just wait another decade or so.

Keith.

Tercel

Why??? I'm struggling to work out why I should give a damn actually. It's nice that somebody can make a virus, I'm sure they're very pleased with themselves.

Isn't that getting just a *little* carried away...?
It rather depends on what you mean by "life". If you are thinking of life as something that moves, reproduces etc then I'd agree it's an emergent property of matter. If you are thinking of life as active conscious awareness then I'd say its damn obviously not an emergent property of matter since they are fundamentally different things.

I'm really quite confused as to why you think this achievement proves or shows anything whatsoever. Could you explain step by step what and why you think it does?

Jobar

See, jankin? They won't be satisfied until we create a breathing baby from pure elements. And even then I feel sure there will be an apologist waiting to explain why we *still* haven't created "true" life.

But let's pursue this some right now. Tercel, for argument's sake, let's say that some biotech company comes out with a process whereby they can indeed build a functioning, thinking human being 'from scratch'. Would you then be willing to admit that life needs no god to start it up?

Kharakov

Life might be like fire, once its started...

Life creating life doesn't seem to be that out of the ordinary. Its amazing, but seems to be pretty standard issue. Although to do it with conscious intent out of sub-atomic particles does seem to be an order of magnitude above plain old genetic flavored life. Just gotta hope there isn't some strange quantuum thing going on that makes the sperm/egg catch on life.

Jack the Bodiless

...So trees aren't alive then?

That's a surprise.

Tercel

What exactly do you mean by "admit that life needs no god to start it up"? Because I would have absolutely no problem (save that the ethics are dubious) with someone building a functioning, thinking human being 'from scratch'. I can't see how it would be a challenge to my worldview at all.
...Hence my confusion about what the OP was supposed to be claiming.

I'm obviously missing something here... why would an apologist want to deny that we can create "true" life? Is "Humans cannot create life" supposed to be a major theological doctrine of Christianity or something???

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>