Artificial Life

While browsing through reddit today, I came across an article discussing recent innovations at the University of California's chemistry lab. They have successfully created a container that will eventually be able to support the first artificial life forms ever made. This is being done to better understand how life "spontaneously" emerged on our planet, and to better asses the conditions on extra terrestrial planets that would be conducive to life.

This reminded me of a press release I saw on TED.com about a year ago. A team of biologists had been the first to imprint synthetic DNA onto a cell, making it the first reproducing organism with a computer for a parent. To further prove that this in fact occurred, they wrote names, quotes, and even a website URL into the genetic code as a watermark - signatures of their achievement. If you look at the comments below the video, the first thing that you see is a heated 'creationist vs. scientist' debate, centered around the dilemma of whether or not humans should have the power to create life, and whether this is ethically (or spiritually) wrong.

This brings up the very important question, that I believe to be relevant the class, of whether simply having the technology and knowledge necessary for scientific advance means that it should be done. This intrinsic ethic that seems to exist in certain scientific communities could potentially be dangerous, but only to individuals that subscribe to particular ethical paradigms, or to ones that let their faith or religion dictate their ethics. When viewed from the perspective, which I'm certain many academics have, that the quest for knowledge and understanding is an ultimate goal, humanity's control over life is just the next step in our understanding of our world and our origins. If humans currently have the power to control disease, alter their physical surroundings, wipe out entire species, and destroy continents with a whim, is generating new life for scientific understanding such an radical idea?

It would be naive to think that new technological advances and abilities will never be used maliciously, but I believe that in most cases the knowledge and understanding that comes with these advances outweigh the ethical problems. The issue is likely to become very significant as more and more significant innovations occur, particularly in the fields of AI and genetics. Ultimately though, as was the case with human cloning, it is not up to the society to decide whether these fields will be explored to their full potential - sooner or later a group will decide that for themselves. The question then becomes how we choose to react to the results, and whether to accept the implications and advances that come, or reject them on ethical grounds.