[extropy-chat] proto-extropian religions

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Fri Oct 15 04:36:15 UTC 2004


--- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:40:06 -0700 (PDT), Adrian
> Tymes
> <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > --- The Avantguardian
> <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> > > If
> > > mankind were to create life in a test tube
> tomorrow
> > > this would be just as much evidence for
> Intelligent
> > > Design perhaps more so than for abiogenesis.
> > 
> > Point of order: actually, mankind created life in
> a
> > test tube many months ago.
> 
> What? When? Huh?

Late last year.  Granted, 'twas only a virus, and some
scientists say viruses are too simple to count as
"life".  But it's no great leap of imagination to go
from there to, say, building an amoeba; it's largely
an extension of the same techniques.

http://atheism.about.com/b/a/042809.htm gives a good
summary of this and some of the religious
implications, while
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-11-13-new-life-usat_x.htm
gives the story itself.  Google for "artificial
virus" and you'll find more.

The short-term state of mankind's technological
progress appears to depend on the observer: many
people simply are not aware of some of the more
radical advances, and thus can not seek them out (and
I'm not talking about the technologies that get
integrated into infrastructure so people use them
without knowing they exist), so those advances might
as well not exist for those people.  From that
perspective...it's cool living in the future.  ^_^



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