Since no Creationist has responded yet, I thought I'd post an exchange between me and Fred a few years ago at a Yahoo message board. First I posted this (
Yahoo Message 14533):
Percy wrote:
This is something that Tim Thompson covered recently in a reply to Berrean in 14292:
"Matter...has already been observed to go most of the way to a full blown cell. Sidney Fox's thermal proteins form spontaneously from amino acids (which are also already known to form spontaneously from Urey-Miller style experiments) (http://entropy.me.usouthal.edu/.../articles/rel_sci/fox.html). We also know that lipid monolayers & vesicles form spontaneously ("The role of self assembled monolayers of the purine and pyramidine bases in the emergence of life"; S.J. Sowerby & W.M. Heckl; Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 28(3): 283-310; June 1998) and we know that amino acids & proteins inside protected volumes will spontaneously form RNA ("Production of RNA by ploymerase protein encapsulated within phospholipid vesicles"; A.C. Chakrabarti et al.; Journal of Molecular Evolution 39(6): 555-559; December 1994). So, in fact, we have already created the pieces of a spontaneous chain from the basics to RNA."
In short, no, we can't create life in the lab, but we continue to get closer and closer, and we are now very close. Look for big news in this area in the next couple decades.
To which Fred replied in
Yahoo Message 14567:
Fred replied:
Thompson fairytale delights Percipient
by: FredKelly (37/M/Broomfield, CO)
Thompson: "Matter...has already been observed to go most of the way to a full blown cell. "
Percipient: "In short, no, we can't create life in the lab, but we continue to get closer and closer, and we are now very close. Look for big news in this area in the next couple decades."
ROTFL! And you call the evolution science! Actually, to be fair Science mag would never print the utter absurdity stated by Thompson and that which Percipient gullibly accepted!
I am curious. Are there any other of you evo-babblers out there who think we are most of the way to a full blown cell?!
"If one practices hard enough you can believe six impossible things before breakfast" - Red Queen, Alice in Wonderland.
And it would appear Fred can disbelieve six possible things any time he feels like it.
This synthesis of viruses appears to me to be progress of the expected sort toward synthesis of life in the lab. First viruses, then bacteria, then prokaryotes, etc.
Hard to say how long it will take to get to the next step, we're only barely on this step. If synthesizing viruses is analogous in difficulty to boosting satellites into orbit, then synthesizing bacteria would be like putting a man on the moon, in which case we should be able to synthesize bacteria within a decade or so.
But if the difficultly of synthesizing viruses is closer to putting a man on the moon, then the next step is analogous to putting a man on mars, in which case synthesizing bacteria could be quite a ways off.
--Percy