Re: J. Craig Venter - frabrication: in stores now!?!

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Rodrigo,

Thanks a lot for this info - very important and relevant!
Muchas gracias! :-)

This is the fabrication issue that Rosen warned about, upon
us now. What could we say about this or how events might
play forward? My immediate and first hunch which I think
would be compatible with Rosen (not sure) is that whatever
goal, purpose, function etc. Venter and fellow would-be
creators of life may have for their creations, these goals will
not likely be met, achieved, gained or under their control.

I say this since, again following Rosen, life is no machine. If
Venter's bacterium were a machine - no problem to assume
one can design, expect, achieve, control the outcome and the
goal/pupose/function/results/effects of the creation. But if
the bacterium is alive, then almost by definition it will also
embody and entail and create its own goals/purposes/
functions/results/effects/development/growth/evolution,
etc. There could be no way to expect, determine or control
that these goals endogenous to the life form would in any
way match up to the exogenous goals of the creator. A "good",
realistic, humble creator, perhaps, would not be attached to
the outcome or results, but would be detached and know
that the life form would literally "take on a life of its own".
The surprises may be nightmarish or happy, but they seem
to me guaranteed to be unknowable and truly surprising.
And as such, very hard to make any profit off of, unless one
billed the process as a freak show or adventure, like Russian
roulette maybe...

A few rough thoughts...

Dan


Rodrigo Peláez wrote:
> I subscribe to this list one and half a year ago. I do not participate 
> in it because I only can read English. I don’t speak nor do write it. I 
> live in Colombia South America, and my native language is Spanish. I 
> have learned a lot from all of you. Thanks very much.
>
> I am reading and studying Life Itself and Essays on Life Itself.
>
>  
>
> The following appears today in the WSJ. The full story is in 
> www.edge.org <http://www.edge.org/>
>
>  
>
> ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Biologist J. Craig Venter once raced the U.S. 
> government to complete the decoding of the human genome. Now, after a 
> maverick career studying the code of life, Dr. Venter has a new goal: 
> life itself.
>
> Along with two veteran collaborators, Dr. Venter hopes to become the 
> first to whip up a made-to-order bacterium. Normally, new life is 
> created via reproduction, with each generation passing its genes on to 
> the next. But Dr. Venter aims to bypass that process by manufacturing a 
> complete set of genes, or genome, of a single-cell bacterium in his 
> laboratory. This man-made genome would be installed inside a bacterium 
> whose own genes have been removed.
>
> By creating such a life form, Dr. Venter’s researchers think they may 
> come closer to understanding what life is and how scientist can 
> manipulate it for the benefit of humankind. New artificial species could 
> open avenues for industrial production of drugs, chemicals or clean energy.
>
> “This is the step we have all been talking about. We’re moving reading 
> the genetic code to writing it,” Dr. Venter says, swiveling in his chair 
> at his sprawling scientific headquarters here.
>
>  
>
> (Antonio Regado, “Next Dream for Venter: Create Set of Genes From 
> Scratch”, /The Wall Street Journal/, June 29, 2005; Page A1.