OT: Superman and Stemcells

[Evil Dave]

Arryn,

Right. Newton's blind watchmaker isn't falsifiable. I don't believe that there is such a being, but we can't say that one exists or not. So, sensible people don't worry about it.

Viruses are *way* easier to create that actual living things. They are (to twist an analogy almost to the breaking point) just software, waiting to be acted on by living things. It may be possible to create life "from scratch". I kinda doubt it. The machinery barely works as designed -- our best guess is that about half of all conceptions spontaneously abort, generally in the first few cell divisions. I'm not sure we'll be able to manage "pure" in vitro creation of life, especially since folks who want to make new living things will find it much easier to simply change existing ones. (Ie, very few people will be interested in trying to figure out how.)

[Arryn]

Evil Dave said:
I'm not sure we'll be able to manage "pure" in vitro creation of life, especially since folks who want to make new living things will find it much easier to simply change existing ones. (Ie, very few people will be interested in trying to figure out how.)

Just because it seems impossible to us now doesn't make it so. 200 years ago flying was impossible. Flying faster than sound was thought impossible 60 years ago.

(Yes, I know you didn't use the word "impossible". I use it to illustrate a point.)

It is easier (by far) to modify existing DNA than create DNA from scratch. By analogy, it used to be easier to dig up diamonds than make them in a lab. That's not true anymore. I think you see where I'm going with this.

[Ygorl]

The DNA's not the hard part, is my understanding. It's what you put it into when you're done with it. If you've got a nice little undifferentiated cell into whose nucleus you can stick your DNA, you're pretty much set. I hear the phrase "make a mouse" more than I ever thought I would. If you wanted to make the initial cell "by hand", you'd have to do all kinds of crazy manipulations (assembling the cell membrane from lipid molecules, building mitochondria, etc. etc. etc.) that aren't practical or reasonable or necessary. We already clone things. We already manipulate the DNA used to do what we want. While it would be incredibly far from trivial to make a human with at least certain desired characteristics, I think it's more an issue of being willing and fine-tuning the details of the procedure.
And, while I'm talking about things I've only a limited understanding of, the "6000 years since creation" bit is based on some dodgy translation of the Old Testament. It's possible to have a moderately strict interpretation of the Bible (as long as you pick the right one and have a little imagination) that doesn't conflict with the theory of evolution.
Logic springs from a set of axioms. If you start with a different set, you get different predictions. Those required to make claims about things like morality, religion, politics, drug use, are rather complex and opaque, to the point that even things that should be irrelevant in discussing them (such as the language you're using) make a huge difference. It's possible in somce cases, but always difficult, to say "given these assumptions, these things are good and these things are true and these things are right". That's what philosophy is about. But even the best philosophers (maybe _especially_ the best) don't claim to know what all the right assumptions are.
Finally, just because something is not falsifiable does not mean it is false. It's perfectly valid to not accept something as true that is not falsifiable (well, if there's no evidence for its being true, anyway). It does not make sense, however, to accept it as false.