This episode of ID the Future features an excerpt from an interview on the Albert Moh|more

This episode of ID the Future features an excerpt from an interview on the Albert Mohler program featuring CSC Director Stephen Meyer, author of the recent book, Signature in the Cell. Was there intelligent design in the recent experiments on artificial life? Listen in as Meyer discusses the science behind the latest headlines. For more information, read Jonathan Wells' article at Evolution News & Views. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/05/has_craig_venter_produced_arti.html A virus is just RNA or DNA in a protein capsule. The viral RNA or DNA can’t make more of itself, nor can it make the capsule. Viral RNA or DNA must first be put into a living cell (or, in the case of Wimmer’s experiment, into an extract carefully prepared from living cells), because only the cell (or its extract) contains the complex molecular machinery needed to make more RNA or DNA and to manufacture the protein capsule. By themselves, however, RNA and DNA are biologically inert. Only a living cell is alive, and in our experience, life always comes from life. That’s why spontaneous generation doesn’t happen. That’s why origin-of-life researchers have not even come close to solving their problem. And that’s why Venter and his team couldn’t create life; they had to start with it. There is much more to living cells—even relatively simple cells—than is dreamt of in Arthur Caplan’s philosophy. In contrast to Caplan’s exaggerated claims, CalTech biologist and Nobel laureate David Baltimore said that Venter has "overplayed the importance" of his results, which represent "a technical tour de force" rather than a scientific breakthrough. Venter "has not created life, only mimicked it," Baltimore said. Boston University bioengineer James Collins called Venter’s work: "an important advance in our ability to re-engineer organisms, not make new life from scratch. Frankly, scientists don't know enough about biology to create life. Although the Human Genome Project has expanded the parts list for cells, there is no instruction manual for putting them together to produce a living cell. It is like trying to assemble an operational jumbo jet from its parts list—impossible. Although some of us in synthetic biology have delusions of grandeur, our goals are much more modest."

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