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 Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:16 pm
Shanna66 it depends on what you consider life. does it have a brain? nerves? or does it have to move? or even grow? how do we define life The basic qualifications for life are listed in most biology textbooks. Here's a small rundown. Living things must: 1. Grow and develop 2. Reproduce 3. Respond to external stimuli 4. Metabolize 5. Have an organized hierarchy (i.e. tissues -> organs) 6. Regulate internal systems 7. Evolve Coulda sworn there was a different number, but...There ya go, straight from a college textbook. 3nodding
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:30 pm
Prokarotic bacteria do not have an organized heirarchy. They are alive.
And if by "evolution" you mean "microevolution", change within the species - maybe. It's possible for something to reproduce wihtout its errors influencing its child's reproduction, thus preventing evolution though certainly allowing life.
And macroevolution, evolution from one species to another - well, to even define species it has to be a sexually reproductive creature. Which rules out most single-celled organisms that are still indisputably alive.
It can also be shown that, by the definition of "species", evolution from one to the other would have to occur in a single generation, which is nearly impossible.
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:32 am
ShadowKuroKarasu Shanna66 it depends on what you consider life. does it have a brain? nerves? or does it have to move? or even grow? how do we define life The basic qualifications for life are listed in most biology textbooks. Here's a small rundown. Living things must: 1. Grow and develop 2. Reproduce 3. Respond to external stimuli 4. Metabolize 5. Have an organized hierarchy (i.e. tissues -> organs) 6. Regulate internal systems 7. Evolve Coulda sworn there was a different number, but...There ya go, straight from a college textbook. 3nodding we learned about that in our bio class too. same thing in my textbook, but then we also questioned it. bactiria, jellyfish, and spounges dont have too much in the way of organs. they dont have brains even but are still considered animals, with the exception of the bacteria of course. and mules cant reproduce. loop holes, gotta love them
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:20 pm
I was just using the organs thing as an example, really- The original text said "order," then went into the hierarchy. Cells-> tissues -> organs is also a hierarchy, and I think jellyfish and sponges do, at the very least, have cells -> tissues.
Bacteria are still a cell; sorry, I was a bit confused by the book. Apparently it all loops back to cells.
Prokaryotes and single-celled organisms can exchange genes by conjugation (bacteria, as well as protozoans such as paramecia). That's why we have superbugs. Reproduction doesn't have to be sexual to make something alive, it just has to plain make more of itself. ninja
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions I probably should have looked at this from the beginning. It addresses a lot of your questions. 3nodding
In short, if the lifeform that the scientists make eats, evolves, reproduces (through binary fission or otherwise), is made of 1 or more cells, and regulates itself, it's alive.
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:06 pm
Eikon Theos UraniumMonk Eikon Theos A deceased paramecium can be constructed from scratch - my guess is they're constructing a live one of scrap. It would certainly be an unpleasant thought - if any mystics are to be believed, lif made by someone without morals would consequently have none, and thus be a danger to us until destroyed. And if history is anything, scientific institutions expect all who research there to check their religion at the door (a loathesome and truly offensive concept to me, as I am intelligent AND religious, and if someone tells me to check MY religion at the door I will explain that this can no more be done than checking my legs at the door...) What religious people often overlook it that it is possible to have strong morals without being religious. rolleyes And yet it is extremely rare. Scratch that, good morals are rare, period. They're just a little less so in the religious crowd, as a result of the fact that religious laws often coincide with good principles. The main reason that scientists are asked to "check their religion at the door" is so that they won't make assumptions based on their belief system rather than the facts before them. A big part of science is looking for the facts behind natural phenomena and not accepting them as "miracles" or "acts of god". If a man is checking his morals along with his religion, then I'd begin to wonder whether he had any in the first place. Also, I'd be careful about being so quick to tie morals to religion. Religion only encourages good morals in people who are already moral. Amoral people can simply use religion to excuse their behavior. Like so many other things, a religion is what you make of it. As for the scientists' upcoming creation of life, I can't say I'm too surprised. In my biology course, I've already heard about the synthesizing of functioning organic proteins. All that needs to be accomplished is the construction of a single working cell. Of course, this is an extremely complicated endeavor, but not what I would consider impossible. It does, of course, raise some ethical and philosophical dilemmas. Is life merely the result of function? Is its origin divine or material? And then there's the concern that the technology to create life might be TOO powerful for human-kind. Can human morality evolve quickly enough to keep pace with the advance of technology?
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:07 pm
ShadowKuroKarasu I was just using the organs thing as an example, really- The original text said "order," then went into the hierarchy. Cells-> tissues -> organs is also a hierarchy, and I think jellyfish and sponges do, at the very least, have cells -> tissues. Bacteria are still a cell; sorry, I was a bit confused by the book. Apparently it all loops back to cells. Prokaryotes and single-celled organisms can exchange genes by conjugation (bacteria, as well as protozoans such as paramecia). That's why we have superbugs. Reproduction doesn't have to be sexual to make something alive, it just has to plain make more of itself. ninja http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions I probably should have looked at this from the beginning. It addresses a lot of your questions. 3nodding In short, if the lifeform that the scientists make eats, evolves, reproduces (through binary fission or otherwise), is made of 1 or more cells, and regulates itself, it's alive. you have solved a life long debate ^.^ we were talking about that in philosophy class last year, about how to define life. now we have to ask ourselves what makes cells alive XD
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Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:44 pm
I'm liking everyone's thoughts so far. Everyone has a great idea/thought. This can lead to many debates. My problem is that I've seen (movies) & read a good amount of cyber punk & always the end of something like this is bad. And yes, I do believe morals have to be questioned at this point because this is playing god. Who even knows if this is going to be a complex organism/thing but as we can see by this discussion a lot of us are expecting it to be.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:55 am
My guess is that they're not stupid enough to start making something as big as a hamster. It's a bit more likely that they'll just throw in some phospholipids with nucleic acid, enzymes, and glucose, and hope life comes up.
A lifeform doesn't have to be complex to wreak total havoc. Bacteria are enough to play with. The Bubonic Plague comes to mind. sweatdrop
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:43 pm
ShadowKuroKarasu My guess is that they're not stupid enough to start making something as big as a hamster. It's a bit more likely that they'll just throw in some phospholipids with nucleic acid, enzymes, and glucose, and hope life comes up. A lifeform doesn't have to be complex to wreak total havoc. Bacteria are enough to play with. The Bubonic Plague comes to mind. sweatdrop yeah, not to go off topic too much but you know you can still get that. also chemical and biological warfare are also very deadly threats caused by bacteria. oh, and we do clone animals so i dont think that hamsters are too far off XD
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 8:54 am
Shanna66 ShadowKuroKarasu My guess is that they're not stupid enough to start making something as big as a hamster. It's a bit more likely that they'll just throw in some phospholipids with nucleic acid, enzymes, and glucose, and hope life comes up. A lifeform doesn't have to be complex to wreak total havoc. Bacteria are enough to play with. The Bubonic Plague comes to mind. sweatdrop yeah, not to go off topic too much but you know you can still get that. also chemical and biological warfare are also very deadly threats caused by bacteria. oh, and we do clone animals so i dont think that hamsters are too far off XD I'm aware of cloning, but I dunno...There's something different here. Cloning at least gives you a blueprint, y'know? Creating a multicellular being without knowing how its systems work seems a bit...Chancey. confused
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:16 pm
Eikon Theos UraniumMonk Eikon Theos A deceased paramecium can be constructed from scratch - my guess is they're constructing a live one of scrap. It would certainly be an unpleasant thought - if any mystics are to be believed, lif made by someone without morals would consequently have none, and thus be a danger to us until destroyed. And if history is anything, scientific institutions expect all who research there to check their religion at the door (a loathesome and truly offensive concept to me, as I am intelligent AND religious, and if someone tells me to check MY religion at the door I will explain that this can no more be done than checking my legs at the door...) What religious people often overlook it that it is possible to have strong morals without being religious. rolleyes And yet it is extremely rare. Scratch that, good morals are rare, period. They're just a little less so in the religious crowd, as a result of the fact that religious laws often coincide with good principles. I'd hardly say good morals are less rare amongst religious people. Honestly, I've met a higher percentage of non-religious people with strong morals than religious people with strong morals.
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Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:31 pm
I agree that this is chancy.
I agree cloning isn't an issue because we can already do that, animals & organs.
Morals dealing with or without religion is not the issue. Is it right to do such a thing (putting all beliefs of religion aside), is more the question.
The other question is, with what we know about what scientists can do, what kind of life could it be.
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Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:40 pm
ShadowKuroKarasu Shanna66 ShadowKuroKarasu My guess is that they're not stupid enough to start making something as big as a hamster. It's a bit more likely that they'll just throw in some phospholipids with nucleic acid, enzymes, and glucose, and hope life comes up. A lifeform doesn't have to be complex to wreak total havoc. Bacteria are enough to play with. The Bubonic Plague comes to mind. sweatdrop yeah, not to go off topic too much but you know you can still get that. also chemical and biological warfare are also very deadly threats caused by bacteria. oh, and we do clone animals so i dont think that hamsters are too far off XD I'm aware of cloning, but I dunno...There's something different here. Cloning at least gives you a blueprint, y'know? Creating a multicellular being without knowing how its systems work seems a bit...Chancey. confused yeah, i would love to see how they make it though. it sounds so cool
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 3:36 am
hmmm very interesting a being from nothing eh sweatdrop and knowing scientists they would try to make a hamster first just to see if they can rather sad really as for the religious aspects no offense to anyone but i see a much much higher percentage of people with morals who are not religious. People who are normally tend to use it as an excuse "God will forgive me" on the other hand i find it funny when a scientist screws up they turn to god in there last moment in most horror movies anyone else notice that? The really scary part is from who i know as a biological scientist even though there meant to turn away from the paranormal and metaphysical means to defy nature they would use them if they could find out how to harness it with technology which would NOT be good another thing is how much harm a little cell can do... it could be worse than the plague let alone a multi celled creature on the other hand keeping in mind it is possible they have morals there is allot of good that can come from such a creation such as figure out exactly how it works making creature that are imune to viruses and transfering that to humans once we figure out how to create life... but still scary
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Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:17 pm
It is scary. Another thing they did awhile back (which maybe why they started doing this) is that they tried to find something called the god particle. This particle is what binds matter & mass together. It's very interesting. It's the particle that ties everything & everyone together without it or them falling apart.
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