WASHINGTON - Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer.Martin Marty made a statement in an interview with Bill Moyers that really fascinated me. He said that the unknown can be broken into two categories. One category is a "Problem" which can be isolated and placed in boundaries, then studied objectively and ultimately understood. The other category is a "Mystery" which cannot be isolated and studied objectively. Mysteries, since they have no boundaries, always include the researcher.
Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.” [Snip]
That first cell of synthetic life — made from the basic chemicals in DNA — may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you’ll have to look in a microscope to see it.
“Creating protocells has the potential to shed new life on our place in the universe,” Bedau said. “This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role.”
And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.
Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:
* A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.
* A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.
* A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.
One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step — creating a cell membrane — is “not a big problem.” Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.
His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over. [Snip]
In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases — adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T) — molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.
Marty didn't specifically say so in the interview, but I'd say that the study of mysteries is what religion is all about. This article suggests that the creation of life is being or has been moved from the category of mystery to the category of problem.
See also my previous post: where I explain the role of religion in society and differentiate religion (the study of mysteries and the place of human beings in the Universe) from organized religion.
Religion is the study of the mysteries of the Universe. Organized religion is a hierarchical social institution in which religious theories are created and used to - among other things - justify a class of aristocrats (both administrators and priests) who do not produce their own food as well as to justify the existence of religious organizations themselves.
See also: where I lay out my reasoning for the differences and similarities between government and religion.
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