Creating life from scratch

[Rali]

There is an article in the latest "New Scientist" magazine [issue 2846] about man made life forms. Here's a summary I received by email:

It's been called an ambitious project. But that's an understatement. It involves creating a new form of living being from non-living chemicals. Breathing the spark of life into inanimate matter was once regarded as a divine prerogative. Now, several serious and well-funded research groups are working hard to meet this goal. If one of them succeeds, it would be the world's first introduction to alien life, and would almost certainly help us to understanding what terrestrial life really is, how it began and what it means to be alive...

Online at: NewScientist.com

[Killer Cyborg]

As if scientists were getting enough 'playing God' by finding new ways to kill, now they want to try and create life. Geez, the arrogance of mankind knows no bounds.

Sad, really...

Uh, people have always created life...

[Borast]

Um... KC, I think he was referring to the "Creating Life from Lifelessness" angle than the union of two gamates and a 9 month lifetime indisposition...

Personally I have no problem with them introducing large amounts of electricity into a home-made primorial soup...just so long as they remember to not introduce it into the environment.

[Killer Cyborg]

Um... KC, I think he was referring to the "Creating Life from Lifelessness" angle than the union of two gamates and a 9 month lifetime indisposition...

I know.
People are thoughtlessly biased towards the "natural" ways of doing things... Human reproduction is natural, so people don't even consider whether or not it is playing God to create a human life... but try anything interesting in a lab and they all gather around, pointing their fingers at you and getting ready to throw stones because you're doing something "unnatural."

Bunk.
A termite mound is natural, and so is a city.
A monkey using a stick as a tool is natural, and so is a scientist using a microscope.

[Borast]

I agree...

An example against the more vindictive of the environmental movements was dealing with a dam...they consider a dam built by humans to be sacriligeous and a sin against nature, but they consider a beaver dam as an acceptable part of the landscape...despite the (comparatively minor) damage that it can do to the environment, because the beaver is simply an animal acting on it's instincts.



The two acceptable prejudices in today's world...bad mouth the christians (catholics especially) and anti-human. (ie: self-hate - if it's made by humans it's automatically bad for the environment)

[Killer Cyborg]

Anyway, I was referring to mankinds constant exploration into cloning, artificially creating life and the numerous ways scientists have created to end life (nuclear bombs, guns, missiles, etc...)

The natural way of creating life is fine and works. Why do have to delve any further? Besides, it's much more fun...

Because women still die in childbirth. Because babies are still born with birth defects, or stillborn, or born with AIDs.

If people never delved into the mysteries of things and sought to learn how the universe works, then we'd all still be in the trees flinging poo at each other.

[Rali]

If people never delved into the mysteries of things and sought to learn how the universe works, then we'd all still be in the trees flinging poo at each other.

Sounds like fun..

Besides, what do we really gain by learning how things (life, the universe, and everything) work? Just longer hours at work, more bills to pay, death and destruction.

[Killer Cyborg]

If people never delved into the mysteries of things and sought to learn how the universe works, then we'd all still be in the trees flinging poo at each other.

Sounds like fun..

Well, we certainly haven't lost our ability to do that... we just have more other options...

[Rali]

I figure we try to create life, because it's more of a challenge than destroying life. That, and to create something that can be seen as legacy once we humans become extinct.

And, from a religious view, if we were able to create life from scratch and that life were to evolve into a "higher life form" equivalent to us, would it look upon us as a god? If it were, how would we feel(if we still existed)? How would it impact our perception of "god"?

[SWITCHING GEARS]

Okay, let's get away from the theological/philosophical aspect of this whole debate and talk about how this could be used in an AtB game.

If pre-crash humanity were able to create life from scratch, as well as anthropomorphic animals with the E.G.G.'s, what would they have created and how would the supposed mutagen virus that created the mutant animals in AtB have impacted it?

If the Empire of Humanity were to get their hands on the ability to create new life, would they use it and how? Would they try to create a new form of life, in their own image, to carry on their legacy?

[The Baron of chaos]

Well from one perspective we were created to act like god or at least try to do so. After all in all myth we were created in God's image. So the impulse to create is innate.
Now better sotp this topic before it get out of control. I so risky tha ti can almost feel flames raising from the board

[glitterboy2098]

If pre-crash humanity were able to create life from scratch, as well as anthropomorphic animals with the E.G.G.'s, what would they have created and how would the supposed mutagen virus that created the mutant animals in AtB have impacted it?

depends of how "from scratch" you get. Yoho's Mesozoicland article includes Dinosaurs being designed from scratch, with a completely artificial Gene-Code.
in that case your looking at mutation being possible (though i would assume the results to be hit and miss, since their would be less "junk" DNA for the virus to work with.)

if you make a completely alien form of life (silicon based, or using something other than proteins/Carbohydrates/DNA, or even with a protein base opposet of ours.) it may or may not work.

if silicon based the DNA equivlents won't likely be compatable, if it doesn't use DNA its impossible, if a different protein structure it might work, but you may not get a viable orginism.


(and despite being christian, i don't consider it playing god until we can make from scratch the dirt from which life springs. )

[Rali]

Silicon based life would most probably be based on a crystaline structure, not DNA like carbon based life, which would mean that silicon life would be unnafected by the mutagen virus.

It would probably be like a carbon based life form contracting rust.

[glitterboy2098]

Now that's a good question. Though I'm not very AtB savvy, I would think the EoH would try to create (or recreate since their first attempt ended badly) the perfect human with no mutant genes at all. Imagine an army of perfect humans hunting mutant animals. Hmmm, that sounds like the basis for my first attempt at running an AtB game.

they already tried something like this, and at age 8 the 200 kids (tied into a borg like hive mind) tried to take over using massive psionic powers.

then the mutant elephants of ganesh popped in to save the day.

[Rali]

they already tried something like this, and at age 8 the 200 kids (tied into a borg like hive mind) tried to take over using massive psionic powers.

then the mutant elephants of ganesh popped in to save the day.

Still, the "Puretyville" incident was a little different as it involved selective cloning of supposed pure humans who actually turned out to be Pig People. So nothing was actually created from scratch in that instance.

But it does go to show the lengths the EoH will go to to survive.

[gordyzx9r]

...then the mutant elephants of ganesh popped in to save the day.

Anyone think the Ganesh are little too uber for AtB?