It's unthinkable that I not vote for this and try my damndest to *promote it. And a pre-emptive FU too, Siftbot.

Invocations (promote) cannot be called by Gallowflak because Gallowflak is not privileged - sorry.

*quality post, this is seriously some amazing stuff.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Tymbrwulf.

It's sort of wonderful and terrible at the same time that new discoveries and technologies are coming out so fast that such an astounding accomplishment is almost unheard of...

Finally, intelligent design is actually a legitimate scientific fact! But WE are the intelligence. We created life, like we created God.

>> ^Sketch:

Finally, intelligent design is actually a legitimate scientific fact! But WE are the intelligence. We created life, like we created God.


Except they didn't actually design anything, it's 100% a copy of an existing bacteria's genome. I don't really get the important distinction between this and conventional genetic engineering. Either way your starting point is the genome of an existing cell, which you proceed to fuck with.

Well what did you think they were going to do? Just start throwing shit together, not knowing what the outcome would be? Might end up killing the planet with some super bug or something. The importance is that we were able to specifically put together self-replicating DNA through artificial means. That's a huge breakthrough, even if it is just a copy of what nature did on its own.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^Sketch:
Finally, intelligent design is actually a legitimate scientific fact! But WE are the intelligence. We created life, like we created God.

Except they didn't actually design anything, it's 100% a copy of an existing bacteria's genome. I don't really get the important distinction between this and conventional genetic engineering. Either way your starting point is the genome of an existing cell, which you proceed to fuck with.


My god man, do you have any idea how technically complicated the genome is? We took the simplest bacteria and it still took 15 YEARS (and a millions of dollars) with current technology. This process just proves that we have the capability to build a genome from scratch (whether it's designed to a template of a previous genome or to one devised by us). I think the fact that we have accomplished this much is absolutely incredible and opens doors in our future to lead to the vaccines and cures of diseases we never even thought possible.

Science: It works, bitches!

The Great Debate -- "What is Life?" with J. Craig Venter has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.