Scientists are on the verge of creating life: an article

Great post, Jack. You’re completely right, humanity has caused a lot of damage by experimenting in areas that we know little about… but isn’t this the only way to learn? I wouldn’t personally say we’ve caused more harm than good, since our mostly artificial lives are almost twice as long on average now than they were only a few hundred years ago, and we’re susceptible to FAR fewer illnesses now than we were back then - but it depends how you measure ‘progress’. :smile:

Hmmm…thank you.
Though…“since our mostly artificial lives are almost twice as long on average now than they were only a few hundred years ago”
This is taking in count only a percent of people living in civilized countries…i dont know the right percentage but i guess that we need to count in all those ppl living in china and third world.They live even shorter:(
But as u said its all up to how u measure just anything.
I just cant believe how the hell it happened that on the planet that is full of everything there are still people dying of hunger:(:(:frowning:
We just do wrong choices:(
We can spend miliards of dollars for armies and then we cant gather few more dollars to help poor.So on,so on…oh well…its off topic and u all know what im talking about.
take care.

 REMEMBER-Allways Make A Right Choice.It all starts from us:)

I too completely agree with your first post Jack. And to me this shows perfectly that we’re going the wrong way. And everything always points to ego and money. The possible consequences for other beings don’t weigh up against those two.

I’m not expecting anything, because science will develop itself further, no matter what ethical questions will be raised. I just think science should more be open to the aesthetics of life and simply accept nature as it is, instead of trying to manipulate every aspect of its existence just for man’s own benefits.

If we didn’t live the lives we lead now, many diseases simply wouldn’t exist among humans and we wouldn’t have to fight against many poisons we’ve unearthed or created. I don’t have the solutions for all the mess we’ve caused. Changing our lives dramatically could do a lot for a start. But synthesizing new lifeforms to clean our mess, while these lifeforms possess even greater dangers is simply wrong.

I fully agree with you: natural life ain’t perfect. Far from it… But why the absolute necessity to overcome these dangers using technologies? Why not accept life as it is, with all its possible dangers? It’s technology which gives us protection against the “evil world out there”; it’s technology which separates us from nature, our roots; it’s technology which allows us to act arrogant and ignorant against our own roots, while we hardly know how deep the rabbit hole goes out there (sorry couldn’t resist using this :smile: ) and which allows us to play God. Technology disconnected us from the rest of the world. Restoring the connections will fill our lives with more depth, awareness and beauty than ever could be possible by applying artificial technologies. But unfortunately it’s harmony and wisdom against money… Quite an unequal battle…

I certainly see what you’re saying, but I don’t agree on your view of what technology is. It doesn’t separate us from nature, nor does it damage our otherwise harmonious existence with the (supposedly) peaceful natural world. Technology is part of nature. It’s just an intelligent way to organize natural elements so they work for us in positive ways. We’re not creating anything when we develop science, we’re just bettering our understanding of what happens when you manipulate the physical world in various ways, and discovering how this can be used to help us. It’s not like we’ve done anything nature didn’t support in the first place. :smile:

I am not a complete luddite, I understand that we had to develop from the Stone Age. However, we are going much too far, and too quickly. I think that now, once we have advanced to such degrees we should stop most development and only do what is strictly necessary. Surely it would have been better to have lived like the Native Americans forever than come to this point and exterminate ourselves?

Why are people under the impression that science is leading humanity to it’s end? I’ve seen no evidence of this, just paranoid theories that emerge from under each significant scientific discovery or development by ignorant naturalists.

We haven’t gone too far, not by a long shot. Nature is still hitting us with all kinds of horrible diseases and conditions that have nothing to do with our own experimentation, and we have to continue until we’ve stopped them. Humans are a fragile and disadvantaged species (physically), and our only saving grace is intelligence which allows us to find ways of manipulating the world to support our requirements.

Humans depend on death to stay alive. It’s that simple. You can’t pretend we’re a perfectly self-contained species capable of surviving in harmony with the environment, it’s just not how it is, whether you want to believe it or not. We make use of proteins to stay alive, and this means we have to devour plants/animals that were once alive. Humanity is essentially a virus (by all relevent definition), so what can we do?

Science-fiction aside, does anyone properly understand what science is, and what it’s trying to do?

Complete nuclear annihilation of life is a possibility. Science fiction dystopias are serious, for a single biological weapons accident could destroy most of the people in the world. And as to the world itself, consider this quote from a former Brazilian environmental minister who was responsible for protecting the Amazon:

"Modern industrial society is a fanatical religion by itself. We in the
capitalist system are now demolishing, poisoning, destroying all life-systems on this planet. We are signing IOUs that our children will not be able to pay…

We are acting as if we were the last generation on the planet and expanding beyond our means to live life at an even faster pace than before. Without a radical change in heart, in mind, in vision, the earth will soon run out of space and resources and end up like Venus, charred and dead."

The point is that we need some control of nature but not wanton torturing.

I disagree with what some people are saying. If humanity has come to this state in nature, then surly it was part of our nature to get to this state, or else we wouldn’t have.

I agree with Atheiest. Human life survives of the death of other lives, including itself. To be civilized humanity limits the suffering before death, not to stop death. This is not a definition, it is what I beleive to be what the term civilization actually represents at this time.

Although these mciro-micro-organsims have hugly potential dangers, with enough saftey precautions and research, (so that we may destroy them without effecting the envioroment to badly,) they will give more benifits than technology.

At the moment we are killing the world off with technology, global warming etc. Prehaps changing from one problem to another will balance things out until another change is needed.

The effects of this new micro-micro-organsisms needs to be completly analysied agianst todays technology, so that we may assess the correct path to go down.

We cannot just abandon both, because we have already messed the world up. Would making micro-micro-organisms to combat cancer, also stop cancer in other animals, thus we start to have animals taking over the world etc.

The micro-micro-organisms dangers need to be assessed, and each danger needs to be solved. Because this is new, we don’t know what the effect degree we could slove those problems to. It’s worth research considering we struggle to come up with solutions for technology.

Overall, I think it needs assessing before making jugments.

If you want to be strict, then everything we know finds its origins in nature. But when you talk about the philosophy behind the concept of “technology”, then I disagree. To me, technology arose from a distorted world view and self image during the Middle Ages and especially the Renaissance Era: man started to believe he was so incredibly important that he puts himself in the center of the world. Technology must then be developped to surround man with tools which could strengthen this feeling of being the “Apex of Evolution”. This isn’t very natural to me. Technology is a tool of human Ego, not of nature.

Yin and yang my friend :smile: The deeper science digs in the web of nature, the more dangers science might pose to the world, because deeper digging requires more extreme technology with more dangerous hazards. You can’t have only positive effects. There are always the negative ones, which you haven’t thought about when you dug deeper.

Actually I’m supposed to know because I’m right in the middle of it (I study chemistry). But my opinion about what science is, will probably be different from the rest of my class :smile: To me, science is a belief system which tries to unfold the mechanisms which lie behind the phenomena we perceive through our consciousness, and particularly through the carnal senses. Logical empiricism is still the trading mark of science: valuable conclusions and facts about the nature of perceived phenomena can be found through empirical research and logical/rational thinking. There’s a linear process going from perception of a particular phenomenon, experiments to construct a preliminary hypothesis through the process of induction/deduction, more specific experiments to strengthen the hypothesis, more research (also independent research) until hard facts are all that’s left, which could then be used to substantiate a suggested theory, which might for instance be used to formulate a law.
Science is also supposed to use this new knowledge to seek out new possibilities which benefit mankind. But this is quite an idealized picture: science created the foundations upon which our current consumption society was built. There surely are lots of benefits, but also lots of negative aspects. The problem with science is that it seems to forget it’s just a model, a belief system to explain the world we live in. Instead, science likes to consider itself as holding the only valuable truth about the nature of reality. What can’t be explained in scientific terms hasn’t got much value and thus doesn’t teach us anything new about Reality and therefore has to be considered as simply false. This attitude is so fundamentally wrong. Instead of accepting the possible values of other models, science has crowned himself as being the only keeper of the keys to unfold the Truth, thereby slowly destroying all the other, and often MUCH older and wiser, models of Reality.

I agree, but at the same time I think it’s misleading to present ‘science’ as a conscious entity that stalks the earth on these huge mechanical legs claiming itself the true decider of things true and false. Science isn’t a person, or for that matter a monster, it’s a system of tools designed to draw logical conclusions from the provided stimulus based on the constant underlying rules.

Personally, I don’t trust ideas that are presented without the aid of scientific verification, because I don’t trust the human mind. I know how easy it is for the brain to conjure a set of unfounded ideas in the blink of an eye, and it doesn’t help that people, by nature, are so willing to cling to any idea that sounds good to them. I believe people are more than willing to disregard logic and reason to support their current (perhaps long-term) belief system. Just because it existed for thousands of years, doesn’t mean it’s right. When the time comes to test it against the rules of the universe, and it fails, you get a Holy war, all because someone didn’t want to face the newly presented facts.

Wearing shoes is demonstrating the use of science. Was the first man to cover his feet to prevent stepping on a poisonous plant or insect evil because he defied the pure existence of unmodified nature? No, he was demonstrating perhaps the only ability we humans can rely on to survive: Our logic and intelligence. The construction of a basic wooden weapon to catch food is an incredible display of applied science, and one that we (again) needed to survive.

The problem here, is that you’re using the term ‘science’ to describe recent enhancements to our control over the environment, while disregarding it’s previous use, and current use in Eastern societies. Science is used everywhere, not just when biological warfare or electronic systems are concerned.

Granted, you might raise the argument that science is a race without an opponent, which causes us to be careless in our application (resulting in harmful creations, virii, weapons designed to kill other people), but to be honest it’s just unreasonable to ask that we stop while we’re ahead. It’s just not going to happen. People need to keep going so we can discover as much as we can about the world we live in. Eventually science will see an end to the threats we face every day, the ones you accept as being “part of a natural life”.

This thread has been intresting read.

I was about write my view on Science but then Mystic put it lot better than i would have so all there is left for me to do is to agree with your view. :smile:

But i guess i could still throw my 2 holistic cents in.

The nature we need to have more control over is the nature of our own mind.

We cant see all the effects of our workings within our causality. More vast phenomena like synchronicity and unified energy fields beyond measure should be taken into count too and i think these are to be experienced and that way understood. But as these things arent sensed in terms with current syntax of scientific thought they are being mostly ignored. According to my experience these things still exists and are out there even if they are left out of scientifical consideration. Science and materiality walk hand in hand but there is the other side of the coin too as there are two sides of brain. Logical left hemisphere that is intelligent, systematic and works with causality and in series. Right hemisphere on the other hand is chaotic, dreamy, intuitive and works more out of time and bounds, simultaneously, through synchronicity perhaps. We perceive the world through our idea coloured lenses. The world is to us as we want to see it. So then seeing world through scientifically and materially oriented view you easily miss the other half and vice versa. So i believe that the golden path lies there in the middle where harmony of the hemispheres occur. More we are in harmony with ourselves, more harmonious the science will become.

Yes I agree. The human mind indeed likes to accept any idea that sounds good as truth. But logical deduction and rational thinking is only one way to separate valuable ideas from the rest. Other ways might for instance explore the inner realms of the mind and seek for the heart of Ego, which is the cause of all the delusional ideas. The slow destruction of Ego will then show what’s left: a reality, disposed of illusionary ideas and perceptions. Unfortunately these alternative ways exist only in the shadow of scientific reasoning.

Certainly, science is used everywhere, and very often it has created huge positive results. I’m not against science. I’m merely against the current (and also past, but then it wasn’t so distinct as nowadays) evolution of science. What once started as a way to explore and understand nature, has steadily grown into a way to control nature and use it for the benefits of mankind (often without thinking about possible consequences for nature) has now become something like a Holy Grail which gives us the power to play God. Ofcourse this isn’t a black & white picture, but the growing arrogance of scientific exploration does indeed show this general tendency. Playing God is quite something different than wearing shoes.

Yes I fear science cannot be stopped as long as the rational/logical mind remains on his throne. There are numerous models however which describe the evolution of consciousness (especially The Four Quadrants Model by Ken Wilber; you can find it here: imprint.co.uk/wilber.gif ; the higher transpersonal levels aren’t mentioned though, it’s just the evolution until now). This evolution doesn’t stop at the rational/existential level. Slowly, the center of human consciousness will move towards higher levels of understanding which lie beyond the rational one. This WILL change our way of thinking, most probably on a very subtle level, and hopefully also the course of scientific development. This evolution is ofcourse a model, just as science is. So don’t take it as absolute fact (but I guess you wouldn’t do it in the first place :wink: )

Oh and I completely agree with your view linnnunhammas. Great post! :smile: Convergence of western science and eastern philosophy for instance can highly increase our understanding and experience of reality. Convergence is the only way to transcend and embrace the two original models, thus reflecting into a higher level of conscious understanding (as a side-note: there are many other models of reality so one has to consider a various spectrum of transcending and embracing processes, so that knowledge and wisdom are always taken to a higher level. The essence of its inner wisdom remains the same but the angle of understanding is often fundamentally different).

It has only a slight connection with this topic but again the following article clearly shows me that science is experimenting with life on highly dangerous levels, unaware of the possible consequences of such “research”.

Source: unknowncountry.com/news/?id=3637

However it turns out, it’ll spawn loads of new Sci-Fi survival horror movies :cool:.

Havent read the thread yet but the initial post sounds like an awesome example of how life is a product of intelligent design.

Scientists (intelligence) manipulating the genetic code (design) to create.

Anyway I’d better read the thread heheh :wink:

Mystic, that’s the most disgraceful thing I’ve read today. :smile:

Seriously, what a waste of scientific resources and time. We know you can genetically create hybrid creatures by tinkering with various kinds of DNA, but what these people are doing is just silly. Hair is a symbol for sex, so we should create cactii with hair? Heh, utterly stupid.

I’m sure there are more valuable objectives we could hope to acheive without carelessly toying with random animals and plants.

I fully agree with you Atheist :smile:

But I’m afraid many scientists would like to see how far they can go with these experiments. A while ago I saw a documentary about the future possibilities of pets who’re genetically altered down to size, in accordance with the wishes of the customer. You want an elephant as a pet? No problem: order the size you want, and some time later you’ll receive you miniature elephant. The program ended with the classic “it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when this will be possible”. This kinda scientific behaviour reduces Nature to an ashen toy factory with those scientists as the toy manufacturers, playing God over their creations. Disgusting…

True. When I say it is an “awesome” example, I mean it is a technically impressive display of our knowledge. But morally bankrupt.

The original article interests me, It would be playing “God”. Getting rid of all diseases and problems in the world. That makes me think a perfect world isn’t impossible.

I think we need scientists to continue researching important things like medicine and any form of technology that is useful to the world. Nature and humans make mistakes. We should atleast try to fix them.