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Synthetic cell cheered as evidence for Intelligent Design
Synthetic cell. Photo:CBS News
Fazale Rana is a biochemist employed by Christian apologist ministry Reasons to Believe. This organization promotes Intelligent Design — that is, Creationism — by explaining scientific concepts from a Biblical perspective.
On RTB’s May 21 “Science News Flash” podcast, Rana describes the experiment in detail, in a very accessible manner. He accurately explains that life has not been created, but rather a self-replicating cell powered by a human-synthesized genome.
He then praises the work.
From an apologetics standpoint, this is exciting work that I’m happy to see pursued and would like to see even more effort devoted toward this because it’s giving us a very powerful case for [Intelligent] Design. In fact, I even would go so far as to say that this is even a brand new class of arguments for Design.
How does that logic work, you ask?
This is a third approach that says, ‘We think that life is the work of a designer because we know from empirical experience now that to make life requires ingenuity, careful planning, careful manipulation of chemicals in the lab under exacting conditions in order to generate lifeforms.
I think it shows conclusively in the most compelling way possible that life requires a mind.
Shall we expect more ID/Creationism proponents to appropriate Venter’s work?
Rana’s comments are a far cry from the response of Vatican officials, such as Bishop Domenico Mogavero, who warned that “[p]retending to be God and parroting His power of creation is an enormous risk that can plunge men into a barbarity,” and that scientists “should never forget that there is only one creator: God.”
David Silverman of American Atheists responds to Vatican criticism. “‘Playing god’ is a misnomer. If I were to ‘play god’, I would not heal or create. I’d curl up in a corner somewhere, ignore the world, and make sure nobody ever found a hint of proof that I existed. ”
The pro-life press is presently silent on this issue.
Related articles:
- Intelligent Design: 5 years after Kitzmiller v. Dover
- Texas legislator introduces bill barring discrimination against Intelligent Design proponents
- First synthetic life created
- Hawking’s “Grand Design” reignites science vs. religion turf war
- AFA: Gays Are “Abusing The Nature Of The Design Of The Human Body”
Jenny Donati is webmistress and co-editor of Secular News Daily. Jenny is an outspoken secularist who believes firmly in the separation of church and state. She demands evidence to support arguments, and holds herself to the same standard. She doesn't write about herself in the third person . . . but there's a first time for everything.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry.
Those creationists will grasp at any straws they can find…
I drink milk… therefore milk can only be consumed by me.
^That is their logic. Does it make sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me…
If this is all they can come up with, it's really closer to empirical proof of the morons who subscribe to ID.
Love the way you carried the "straw" forward . . .
Yes, creating synthetic life is a celebration of many things: our science, our biology, our ingenuity and technological advances, etc., but it is hardly evidence for an intelligent designer, and less so for a Biblical designer. The questions of ID still remain: who designed us; and why did he/she/it design us so poorly? Over 99.9 percent of all organisms on Earth have become extinct. Where is the 'intelligence' in those designs? Even humans are not intelligently designed: our bladder system, the mechanisms of breathing-and-swallowing via a single passageway, wisdom tooth are surgically removed because they serve no purpose, and ditto appendices, which could be a fatal liability.
We should certainly marvel at the success of creating synthetic life, and we should also cautiously look forward to the potentials that this finding can bring, but it is quite a leap (here we go again, huh?) to say this is evidence of an intelligent designer of life on Earth. Hardly.
I suppose the good news is this may spell the end of Creationists, as we know it.
So, let me get this straight. If we could do it, then god could do it. And that's proof?
So sad to base your entire life on a bronze age work of fiction. Look at how it rots the brain!
all of you have no idea regarding the subject. This is why Darwinism is still alive. Darwinism has failed to explain how life originated by mere chance and it just could not happen. If you, instead of just posting some blah blah here made research regarding probabilities of DNA, enzymes and more over living cell appear by chance you would know that the whole probabilistic resources of the universe is not enough for this to happen. Yes, all these experiments only show that life and could not happen by chance. Living things are not coming from dead matter. It is the LAW.
Darwinian evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life. Perhaps you should understand the subject before attempting to critique it.
"Darwinian evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life."
Of course you claim that now that It's dissolving as a theory.
Even if life was random, how do we know that God didn't have anything to do with that? God just looks at people like you and smiles knowing that its part of society's natural evolution as a whole to ask questions. However the days of the atheist are numbered.
Darwinian evolution has NEVER attempted to explain the origins of life or of the universe, only the evolution of species. There is no unraveling and no change of what it attempts to explain.
Tell me, who made your god?
serge has no idea regarding the subject. This is why confusing Darwin's "Origin of SPECIES" is confused with "Origins of LIFE" is still alive. Creationism has never attempted to explain how GOD originated by mere chance and it just could not happen. If you, instead of just posting some blah blah here made research regarding probabilities of the obviously even more complex thing than DNA, enzymes and more over living cell (i.e. "God") appear by chance you would know that the whole probabilistic resources of the God is not enough for this to happen. Yes, all these creation myths (there are many – 42 that I counted recently*) only show that Godd could not happen by chance. Something unfathomably more complicated than Living things are not coming from dead matter. It is the LAW. Something cannot come from nothing.
* http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html (they forgot the Raelians and the FSM
The problem of ID scientis is that they lack one person with similar to Darwin charisma and they are too tentative to challenge Darwinism which is a wrong dead end theory. It explain only micro evolution but cannot explain macro evolution which it has claimed to do and failed.
When Darwin created his theory people were extremely ignorant. He can be forgiven to be wrong. Mr. Dawkins and the like cannot be.
IF life happened by chance, then why did it require a team of highly qualified scientists months (possibly years) of intricate planning and organisation to assemble this cell? Chance certainly didn't play a role in making life here, and evolution certainly didn't.
I think the point of the creationists here is that if it took a team of highly qualified scientists years to form even the most simple form of life, what sort of intelligence would it have taken to make a life form that could reach the state of that of today's complexity? It certainly can't be chance that brought us here after seeing how much intelligence was needed to make even the simplest form of life. It seems stupid to even suggest that chance played ANY part in the formation of life.
IF God happened by chance, then why can't less complex things happen by chance?
It certainly can't be chance that brought God here after seeing how much intelligence was needed to make even the simplest form of life. It seems stupid to even suggest that chance played ANY part in the formation of God.