by frankiespeakin 12 Replies latest jw friends
As we are 10 years into the 21st century technology has sped up to beyond our expectation:
Craig Venter on DNA and the sea
http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_on_dna_and_the_sea.html
Craig Venter is on the verge of creating synthetic life
http://www.ted.com/talks/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_creating_synthetic_life.html
Creating DNA:
Craig Venter - The Genius of Charles Darwin
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/187217/1/DNA-Reading-And-Synthesizing-Speeding-Up
The second post on this was an error this is the correct link
Craig Venter - The Genius of Charles Darwin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E25jgPgmzk
Craig Venter: On The Verge of Creating Synthetic Life:
From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code
Wow! I watched that video on creating DNA. What a complicated process... like computer programming. It really adds weight to the argument that, it does require intelligence to create life after all.
It'll drop below $1000 for an indivudually sequenced genome very soon. 2014 or so, I guess. Before we reach that price point, genomically individualized, personalized, medicine will become a reality, if the regulatory environment adapts to the accelerated rate of technological change.
But I doubt that the regulatory environment in the US will. It has rigor mortis. regulatory bodies can never keep up with the dynamism of human growth. Still, global free trade will enable those with means to jet to foreign destinations where they can receive the best of treatment. That's great for them, but it is tragic for those that don't have the means.
Craig Venter has spoken of the problem. Francis Collins has spoken of this problem. Andrew Von Eschenbach has brought it up also.
Our science is being hampered by our political institutions.
Release Prometheus NOW.
BTS
Paul,
Wow! I watched that video on creating DNA. What a complicated process... like computer programming. It really adds weight to the argument
that, it does require intelligence to create life after all.
What you need to keep in mind with regards to formation of DNA is the idea of "self replicating molecules" and the billions of years that this process has been in play to make the DNA chain as long as it is in the many forms of life we now have on the surface of our earth.
This process as done in a laboratory as opposed to the natural selection process(survival of the fittest). The laboratory process is done in a vastly shorter time frame and has it's engineering done by a combinations humans&machines with a purpose the other does not.
So with that in mind we can at least see different forces at play one being intelligence the other being a nonintelligence accumulation of circumstances over a vastly longer time frame.
The same is true of cloud formations one can be done in nature when the circumstances are just right and another done in a laboratory with intelligence making it happen. The fact that they can reproduced by both methods can hardly be used as a proof that both forms had an intelligent designer.
Burn,
But I doubt that the regulatory environment in the US will. It has rigor mortis. regulatory bodies can never keep up with the dynamism of human
growth. Still, global free trade will enable those with means to jet to foreign destinations where they can receive the best of treatment. That's
great for them, but it is tragic for those that don't have the means.
It is a difficult one to call for sure IMO. While I see that there will be tremendous advancement in the future I have to wonder what these will mean with regard to the human population explosion if we find the answer to combating disease, and genetic defects. This will eventually force us to do something to keep the human population growth at a steady state or even a gradual reversal because of longer life expectancies. With this new technology I see more regulations especially on who can have off spring, maybe even regulated sterilization where State control can grow to absolute proportions out of sheer necessity.
> It'll drop below $1000 for an indivudually sequenced genome very soon. 2014 or so, I guess.
Just think... you could send off a sample and get your DNA sequence mailed back to you on a USB drive. It would be about 734.4 MB.
I think it would be fun to have the sequence engraved on a large Stainless steel plaque. I'm sure the markings will be microscopic, but it would still be cool.
In the next 10 years I see tremendous change due to our control over the path of this DNA swarm that covers our planet. Have we opened up a Pandora's box? Are we intelligent enough to see all of its unintended outcomes? We are part of the hardware that is made by the software(DNA).
Will the artificial intelligence we create by means of super computers maybe even bio-engineered supercomputers take over? For sure we have reached a point of no turning back but will we survive it or will we be made its slave because of its super intelligence? DNA may have its last laugh as its mechanism of survival of the fittest plays out to subjugate its creation: "the human species" that have learned to engineer it making us just another link in the chain to its survival to be surpassed?
That's what I occasionally worry about but can do nothing about because the scenario must be played out and only the unforeseeable future will make known for sure.
