Now that Science has created life from scratch, what other mysteries will religions claim a monopoly on?

Question

...Thanks to the great gazoo and one of his answers referencing this article....

Scientists have built the polio virus to a living, duplicating state.

--"scientists synthesized bits of DNA and strung them together into a chain roughly 7,400 molecules long, making a DNA copy of the polio virus' genes. Next, they used a natural enzyme to copy the DNA into RNA--the genetic material used by the virus nature created. Finally, they stuck the RNA into a special sauce filled with chemicals and bits of cellular machinery, such as protein factories called ribosomes. Almost magically, the RNA copied itself and began to make the proteins and other components of the real virus."--

It appears as if the 'primordial soup' theory is pretty solid....

See the full article in the following link..

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_29/c3792082.htm

Right you all are, I added the scratch part to get your attention....

However, there is no denying that we are getting closer. The fact that an virus was constructed from molecules and started to replicate is very significant.

For those of you who ask who created the primordial soup, look up amino acid genesis.

Edge, so you are stating that any creation of science or replication of life is invalid if elements found on earth are used? Incredible.

Unity - Primordial soup was duplicated in 1954, water, nitrogen, oxygen and methane were combined in a closed environment and electricity was added to stimulate them. To the scientists surprise amino acids were formed, literally out of thin air. Amino acids are the building blocks of protiens.

Khana -

- shakes head sadly -

Have you considered the immensity of the universe and the likely chances for life to form given what we know about its mass. I have also taken a statistics class in university, and understand that if amino acids can be formed by applying electricity to common universal elements, and then apply that knowledge with the size of the universe and billions of year, it becomes statistically very likely for life to have spontaneously generated.

The milky way likely has 150 Billion stars, our solar system has 3 objects that could house life in a somewhat similar fasion to earth, maybe more given the past, but lets just use an average of 1 per solar system, even though there are solar systems with many more planets and moons. Thats 150 Billion chances X 4-5 Billion years in the milky way alone, now add the millions perhaps billions of other Galaxies that exist, statistically abiogenesis seems very likely to me.

Answer 1

yeah but can scientists turn water into wine, smarty pants??

EDIT
If you consider water, nitrogen, oxygen, methane and electricity God-made "building blocks" then you're right

Answer 2

Where did the 'synthesized bits of DNA' come from? Where did the basic building blocks come from out of thin air? Where did the natural enzyme come from? Did that too come out of thin air?

That really isn't a solid argument at all. Sorry but simply because science can create life out of building blocks of materials does not mean that it can create something out of nothing. Materials do not just fall out of the sky, they are created somehow from somewhere. No one truly knows the how the world was created, no one has any full evidence or proof.

Even if all came from a primordial soup, the primordial soup had to come from somewhere and that is the question we all want the answer to.

Again, water, nitrogen, oxygen and methane had to come from somewhere for the scientists to create the beginnings of the primoridial soup. While yes, man is getting closer all the time to how life began by using familiar elements to experiment with, no scientist has yet been able to create the basic element itself as far as I am aware of.

Even if life can be 'duplicated' or 'created' from scratch by a scientist, it still took the scientist to do it! Life didn't just spontaneously happen in front of the scientist and we all didn't just appear out of nothing. Lightning doesn't just appear out of nothing to start life.

Answer 3

Enzymes are living material, so let's see them do it without the help of pre-existing life... It may be possible, shouldn't be difficult to do mechanically I think, [it likely is based upon their definition of life] - I don't know - maybe we're closer to the "image and likeness of God" than previously supposed. I've yet to see evidence of anyone creating something, rather they -merely- using natural laws to manipulate reality as we know it, which is a 'miracle' of sorts by itself.

Very neat stuff they're doing, and hopefully it will yield some benefit, and not another disorder to the fabric of health and evolution, but it's not quite to creating life, or anything else yet though.

And BTW, according to the teachings in the Baha'i Faith the only physical thing needed for the appearance of life, is the correct composition and relationship of elements, and molecules etc., but this does not mean that its animus is that composition, merely its point of appearance, or manifestation. So it taught the primordial soup idea as valid with both faith and reason since the 1800s. Other religious claims have also suggested this even more anciently, and Leibniz and other philosophers have implied it, throughout the ages as well. Baha'i faith states it explicitly.

God bless.

Edit:

I liked your follow up... Baha'u'llah, Prophet Founder of the Baha'i faith, the Return of Christ, states that every planet has its own creatures, and that every fixed star has its own planets....

"The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth, have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets. Consider, moreover, the manifold divergencies that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men. Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute."

(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 162)

That was written nearly 150 years ago...

God bless.

Answer 4

*bursts out laughing* Oh, really? That validates the primordial soup theory, does it? Let me just make sure I understand that *coughs*

So, you're saying if specifically chosen already preformed DNA genetically programmed to do a specific necessary task, if all the proper ingredients are fully formed including preexisting enzymes (which are highly specialized, complex proteins), and placed together in high concentration with the precise pH balance necessary, along with whatever other pre-created ingredients they threw in, then the exact life form they'd intended would arise? Oh, wait, and the DNA/RNA copied from a pre-existing virus? And then the virus is made... Shocking, that.

Somehow, I just don't think those conditions would ever just randomly happen in real life. **laughs** Take a statistics class and advanced chemistry! Oh, and organic chemistry, too, that's a big one... you really need to comprehend the significance of the word "enzymes" there.

No, this simply proves that the existing world could be guided into it's current state by a highly intelligent entity with all necessary tools and resources. Hmm... wait! I think that's AGAINST evolution. Haha.

Answer 5

Maybe I don't understand science and much of the advanced stuff. But when scientist have their "hands" involved in the process - whose "hands" do you think were involved from the start (in the beginning) in the very first process of creation? Take away the labs, take away the scientist, and everything else and don't you dare use anything then maybe we can talk.

Great answer Edge.

Answer 6

They created it from scratch? Or did they use the building blocks God provided?

This is far from creating life from scratch. Far from abiogenesis. They had to carefully construct the molecules. They had to provide specific enzymes. They had to provide the necessary cellular machinery. This does not prove abiogenesis or even begin to show how life could have began.

To the poster below me. Until they can create life not using any element or substance found on Earth or in the universe the are using God's materials. He made it all.

In addition let me add this. They created a virus. Is a virus a living organism? The answer is maybe yes and maybe no. It is still highly debated in science.

Answer 7

Then they injected it into a living cell membrane.

Not exactly scratch.

Everything they used for that experiment was taken from something living. I am not saying they aren't doing well but you may aswell try and convince there is an invisible sky daddy watching me right now deciding my fate.

Answer 8

Where did they get the bits of DNA? Did they just appear with a Big Bang or something?
No one can CREATE, except God Almighty. To Create means to make something out of NOTHING. No scientist has ever done that. Thanks for the laugh, though.
Wow, magic, huh? Spooky!!!!!!

Answer 9

They created it from scratch? Or did they use the building blocks God provided?
Thanks Edge!

Answer 10

Did science create the molecules?

When science can create life - rather than manipulate it or synthesize it - I will be impressed.