YOU already know the news: Craig Venter has announced that his lab has created a bacterial cell with a synthetic genome. When we posted about it yesterday, we said we’d be bringing you the creationist response. It’s begun.
The first response we’ve seen is from Answers in Genesis (AIG), one of the major sources of young-earth creationism. This brief note is posted at their website: Has Life Been Created in a Lab? Here’s the whole thing, with bold added by us:
In the past several hours, headlines have suggested that life has been created in a research lab. For example, MSNBC.com blared, “It’s alive!”
Check back tomorrow morning for an analysis by Dr. Georgia Purdom (PhD, molecular genetics) of our staff about this bacterium that has been synthetically formed. For the moment, we will just state that all of the components required in forming this bacterium were already in existence.
This research, while brilliantly executed, has nothing to do with evolution in the molecules-to-man sense. As we will reveal Saturday on this website (in the News to Note feature), the research of intelligent scientists working in state-of-the art labs has still not produced anything near a new life form from scratch. Moreover, the mindless process of evolution — even given billions of years — would not fare any better.
Yes, check back tomorrow. It’ll take a full day for the brilliant creationists at AIG to fully study every aspect of Venter’s work, and then provide an insightful critique. These things take time, you know.
AIG notes that “all of the components required” already existed. Good point! Venter didn’t create his own hydrogen. And it’s not “molecules-to-man” evolution, so it’s really nothing. Nothing at all.
Jeepers, we were all worked up over the news, but it turns out that Venter’s accomplishment hasn’t impressed the creationists at all.
Update: See Creationists React to Venter’s Breakthrough, Part 2.
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Ah Ha! This proves it takes an intelligent designer to create new life forms, doesn’t it?
AIG notes that “all of the components required” already existed. Good point! Venter didn’t create his own hydrogen.
I think I like AIG-logic. Both my parents already existed before I did, therefore I can’t be the result of descent with modification. Parental preexistence is clearly evidence in favor of storkism, not evolution!
I’m waiting for the Discoveroids to trumpet that this is just support for ID. You see, Venter just designed the cell and their genetic makeup, yada yada yada . . . . . . . .
Creationist of all stripes are constitutionally unable to understand science.
Oh, and I can’t wait to hear from that great scientist Doctor Georgia Purdom, Ph.D. I’ll bet she shovels out a real howler.
The creationists are trying very hard to pretend they don’t get it. Simplified greatly from the paper in Science (I’m AAAS) and with my own interpretational errors is what Venter’s group did (with apologies to Venter’s group!):
They took the blueprint of the genome from critter A. Not the genome, but the blueprint; the sequence of nucleotides.
They modified the blueprint adding “watermarks” and took out some pieces.
They synthesized a new genome from their modified blueprint. Not critter A’s genome anymore, rather genome A.1; does not exist in Nature.
Some introns and point mutations cropped up in the process which were apparently non-lethal.
They inserted their synthetic genome A.1 into a dead critter B that had it’s genome removed. Critter B is dead. Not resting, taking a break, kipping nor pretending to be a statue.
Critter B came back to life and started replicating as critter A.1.
Thirty generations later they had produced over a billion copies of a living, functioning, replicating critter A.1.
Now, AIG, can anyone spell “resurrection?”
waldteufel says:
I don’t always mention the names of AIG authors, but I did mention her work once. See: Creationism and Morality.
It’s true that the new bacterium, or rather the parts of it, were pre-existing, but this demonstrates that we may soon be assembling genomes that have no possibility of existing in nature. I think we can look forward to an exciting game of “moving the goalposts” with AIG and the creation of artificial life.
Thus creationists prove that the Wright Bros, never created a man-made flying machine.
And yet again AiG manages to make themselves look stupid by denigrating work they can’t begin to understand. Why did they even bother waiting a day when they obviously are going to put forward their only counterargument.
And the other half of the argument is that an intelligent designer can’t do it.
That covers the argument from design pretty well.
“AIG notes that “all of the components required” already existed.”
Oh right, I see now – it’s not really grandma’s cake from scratch, just Betty Crocker out of the box.
Molecules-to-man? When will the IDiots and creotards get that ABIOGENESIS and EVOLUTION are different processes (one being about organic chemistry and the other being about biology)???
*sigh*
LRA, never. Considering that they still mouth off about Piltdown Man and watches on beaches, arguments approaching or exceeding 100 years of age, expecting them to get a fairly basic point about the differences between sciences is hopeless.