Have we created life in a Petree dish?

Question

Like Test Tube Babies

Answer 1

To my knowledge, no. I don't count in vitro fertilization as creating life. It is facilitating the creation of life, but it is basically just taking an existing process and performing it outside of the body (the embryo then has to be implanted - we're not even able to cause it to develop normally beyond a simple ball of cells).

I don't think we've created single celled life yet. Even though bacteria are very simple relative to animal cells, they are incredibly complex in absolute human terms. Eventually, I think we'll be able to create something resembling the first proto-cells (a strand of self-replicating nucleotides inside a micelle), but I don't think it has been done yet. We're pretty advanced, but cell formation took billions of years in nature, so we should give it a little longer ourselves (since we've really only had about 50 years of modern biology research).

Answer 2

With the exception of the appearance of the very first living thing on earth, life can only come from other life. That's one of the basic principles of biology. Refer to the cell theory: all cells come from pre-existing cells.

So really, when you mix sperm and egg in a tube during in-vitro fertilization, you are starting with things that are already alive. You don't create life by making them form an embryo.

If what you mean is, can you start with simple molecules like ammonia, water, oxygen, etc, and combine them in such a way as to create a cell that can respire and reproduce on its own, then the answer is no. We certainly can't do that.

And it's "petri," not "petree." ;)

Answer 3

If you use a guy's sperm and a woman's egg you can make people in a petree dish. But without, we've just created single-celled organisms.

Answer 4

arising existence is one of those small fraction of what God has executed, so the answer is a large fat NO. merely b/c scientists have created existence in a small petri dish does no longer mean they're god. Does eating peanuts make you an elephant?

Answer 5

We can do it with special chambers now.

It's basically just combining genes and is used to create the so-called "Perfect baby"

This is just one of the examples of creating life artificially.

Answer 6

We have not physically created life.

Answer 7

I agree with Joe and Andy.

Answer 8

Yes if you count bacteria as living