Humans become Gods
We humans have just created life. Not in the get-drunk-can’t find-condoms-should-be-ok-9-months-of-massive-discomfort-followed-by-a-few-hours-of-agony-and-there’s-a-baby traditionalist way. That way sucks. Except the first ten minutes or so. Nope, we’ve created a blue bacterium that it’s proud parents have called Synthia. They’re scientists ok?
Yup, the team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland has created the first man-made life form. One that could not have been created through evolution. It pretty amazing. This could be the first step in a load of new vaccines, new fuels and algae that can eat carbon dioxide and save the planet. Which seems like an astounding development. Here’s Dr Venter himself on his slightly pretentiously named boat ‘The Sorcerer II’:
He has a beard and everything. (Thanks to the Times Online for the photo.)
Of course loads of people are complaining. The typical idiotic groups. It obviously pisses off some religions as they can no longer claim that god created every living thing. Because now, assuming he exists, he hasn’t. Of course some religions are more sensible and tolerant than others and will be fine with it.
Others worry that it could be used for evil and a nasty strain of something could decimate the planet. Nature does a pretty good job of this already and thankfully science has managed to help. We already have the ability to wipe out most of the planet and somehow we still survive. I think we’ll be fine. We’re a while away before terrorists will be able to knock up some artificial life and kill us all. There’s plenty of destructive viruses they can be getting on with already. Lots of them from nature.
I think this is awesome and should be lauded. If it leads to vaccines and can reduce global warming and thereby save billions, you have to be pretty wrapped up in your own twisted morals not to like this. Granted the billions who might die aren’t likely to be your family and probably live really far away but if your faith makes you be against scientific medical improvement then your faith is a horrendous one. So there. If you are reading this, then you are on the internet using a computer that uses electricity and so on. You can’t be picky about which bits of science you like. Go live in a cave.
Anyway, it is a truism that things can’t be un-invented, so just deal with it.
On another related subjected – humans walk on water! In my next post. Honestly. It’s awesome!
