The authors admitted that they could not know if there were negative side effects since they were not tested for them. They were also well fed and cared for and did not have to contend with real world stresses such as being exposed to a non sterile and non controlled germ free environment or other challenges that non cared fore animals living in the wild would have to deal with.

My point is that there were a few other things that should also be considered. Titles are designed to attract attention. The real creamy filling is in the detail.

“Is the “Synthetic Cell” about Life?”
A bioethicist explores the soul of Venter’s new life form and of his experiment
http://www.the-scientist.com/a.....lay/57523/

- “Heralded as the moment that science finally took the magic out of life.”
* What magic is there in life? All life forms are mass formats comprising constrained energy. They ingest energy in order to survive as long as possible, to postpone their own conversion to energy that fuels the ongoing cosmic expansion. Where/what is the magic? Replication?

- Venter has said that his achievement has changed the definition of life.
* IMO my suggestion of the nature of life mass format is THE presently most updated scientific conception. I wonder what Venter’s definitions of life are for the prior and after the “Synthetic Cell”.

A cell is a construction comprising resident life primal RNA genes and a variety of organs evolved by them. Archaic RNA genes were independent bare floating organisms, energized by direct solar radiation. Cells, cellular membranes, including the outer membrane, are organs evolved by the resident RNA genes. Genomes, DNA or RNA, are likewise functional organs evolved by the resident RNA genes.

Life is, by our sensory conception, a virtual reality affair. Religion and “spiritualty” are virtual reality tools for going through life. The purpose of our life is ours to formulate and set. It derives solely from our cognition, which is a biologic entity.

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
03.2010 Updated Life Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/c......page#5065
Cosmic Evolution Simplified
http://www.the-scientist.com/c......page#4427
Gravity Is The Monotheism Of The Cosmos
http://www.the-scientist.com/c......page#4887
EOTOE, Embarrassingly obvious TOE, expanding the horizon beyond Darwin And Einstein
http://www.molecularfossils.co.....ersal.html

Pls excuse the junk mail.

Since it took Venter “years” to accomplish his feat, this must have certainly included a lot of trial and error work. We already know that very large segments of “highly conserved ‘junk-DNA’” can be entirely eliminated from a mouse embryo and normal development, and normal mice, ensue. So limited manual manipulation of a genome will surely, at some point, admit of a ‘successful’ manipulation. It’s along these lines that we should understand what’s been done.

It seems to me that all Venter has accomplished here is to have ‘designed’ a ‘program’ that the ‘computer’ (cell) can recognize and implement (compiler function). His work, then, clearly demonstrates the cell to be an information-processing system. That such a system allows itself of a contrived (but, of course, contrived in unessential ways) input, only reaffirms the already obvious understanding of organic life as that of a highly complicated information processing system that operates in ways similar to present day computers. Hence, given that computers are known to be ‘designed’, Venter’s work serves to link the operational system of a cell to that of a known ‘designed system’.

And, of course, this also undermines the ridiculous argument so frequently made by Darwinists: viz., to be able to manipulate an operational cell in a meaningful, but artificial way, means that we have some understanding of ‘how’ a cell operates; thus, how can it be argued that “we don’t know the Designer, so how can we know anything about his designs?”

Apart from the testimony/evidence presented by the designer, is the design detectable? That is the question that interests me most. Not whether it is life or not (which is certainly a relavent question as well), but whether the design aspects are detectable.

I would think that whether one believes in Intelligent Design or Evolution, that we can all acknowledge that mankind is now play a participatory role in modifying pre-existing organisms. I think it would be of interest to all parties to be able to detect such participatory design. But is anyone actively interested in this idea?