Thursday, April 03, 2008

 

Calling Igor

The London Telegraph is wondering if we are stepping into God's territory?
The first artificial genetic code - the software of life - and the method of producing it from scratch from four kinds of chemical are unveiled today by a team in Maryland, marking the completion of the second of three steps towards the dawn of synthetic life.

Is science creating a new Frankenstein's monster by dabbling in such experiments? One critic of this latest venture has commented: "God has competition". Do you agree?
One should never forget the old joke where the scientist challenged God to a creation duel, God accepted, and when the scientist reached down to pick up some dirt to work with, God looked at him and said, "Get your own dirt." We underestimate God when we assume that simply creating life is usurping His authority. After all, the creation of life is a perfectly natural function - it is where babies come from. we have been about creating life for a very long time.

The problems here lies not in the creation, but in the control, and the destruction of life. For example, suppose we create from "alcohols of four carbons or less and phenol" (excuse me, but that is how every organic chemistry synthesis problem in the world begins) a hodge-podge of life forms, only one of which is the desired result. In other words, our yield is low, do we rightfully get to destroy the undesired creations? Suppose those creations were potentially sentient, even humanoid?

Suppose we made a man in this fashion, would this creation be person or property? Not such a far out question when you consider how close to chattel property we currently consider children. When would be the age of emancipation for such a created being?

OK, enough speculating questions. There are just a couple of points I want to make. The question is over simplified and designed, I think, to create a panic. Secondly, ethics is a complex business and we need to be serious about it, not just rifle off platitudes.

Where is the church on this? Where are the seminary courses on how to become involved in and smart about these kinds of issues. The church, especially the evangelical church, cannot keep its head buried in the sand and just keep preaching the gospel, unless the gospel grows to include some serious consideration of these more complex matters.

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