…and this is a 
They're discussing Venter's nifty new toy on Edge, and I've tossed my own contribution into the mix. It's a response to the doomsday fears I keep seeing expressed in response to the success of this project.
I have to address one narrow point that is being discussed in the popular press and here on Edge: is Venter's technological tour de force a threat to humanity, another atom bomb in the hands of children?
No.
There is a threat, but this isn't it. If you want to worry, think about the teeming swarms of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites that all want to eat you, that are aided (as we are defended) by the powers of natural selection--we are a delectable feast, and nature will inevitably lead to opportunistic dining. That is a far, far bigger threat to Homo sapiens, since they are the product of a few billion years of evolutionary refinement, not a brief tinkering probe into creation.
Nature's constant attempts to kill us are often neglected in these kinds of discussions as a kind of omnipresent background noise. Technology sometimes seems more dangerous because it moves fast and creates novelty at an amazing pace, but again, Venter's technology isn't the big worry. It's much easier and much cheaper to take an existing, ecologically successful bug and splice in a few new genes than to create a whole new creature from scratch...and unlike the de novo synthesis of life, that's a technology that's almost within the reach of garage-bound bio-hackers, and is definitely within the capacity of many foreign and domestic institutions. Frankenstein bacteria are harmless compared to the possibilities of hijacking E. coli or a flu virus to nefarious ends.
The promise and the long-term peril of the ability to synthesize new life is that it will lead to deeper understanding of basic biology. That, to me, is the real potential here: the ability to experimentally reduce the chemistry of life to a minimum, and use it as a reductionist platform to tease apart the poorly understood substrates of life. It's a poor strategy for building a bioweapon, but a great one for understanding how biochemistry and biology work. That is the grand hope that we believe will give humanity an edge in its ongoing struggle with a dangerous nature: that we can bring forethought and deliberate, directed opposition to our fellow organisms that bring harm to us, and assistance to those that benefit us. And we need greater knowledge to do that.
Of course more knowledge brings more power, and more possibility of catastrophe. But to worry over a development that is far less immediately dangerous than, say, site-directed mutagenesis, is to have misplaced priorities and to be basically recoiling from the progress of science. We either embrace the forward rush to greater knowledge, or we stand still and die. Alea iacta est; I look forward to decades of revolutionary new ideas and discoveries and technologies. May we have many more refinements of Venter's innovation, a flowering of novel life forms, and deeper analyses of the genome.
There's more at the link, with contributions from Richard Dawkins, George Church, Nassim N. Taleb, Daniel C. Dennett, Dimitar Sasselov, Antony Hegarty, George Dyson, Kevin Kelly, and Freeman Dyson so far. I have to say I like Church's response best so far, since he tries to put it into an appropriate perspective.
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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May 24, 2010 1:38 PM
Sure, but we really can leap across where evolution usually only increments.
That's why deliberately engineering micro-organisms can make them more deadly -- especially since it often pays for evolution not to make parasites too virulent.
Of course for now genetic engineering has rather more evident potential for wreaking havoc than does any de novo life forms, and it is certainly limited in its possibilities.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: RationalMind
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May 24, 2010 1:51 PM
This is exciting and interesting and has many benefits.
However, let's look rationally at the consequences.
There are many good ones but taking your comment about other things which attack humans.
When I was a teenager I would dream of being to to artificial intelligence things with my 4k memory no hard disk computer. I did manage to program it to write music harmonies. Now computer technology makes playing with AI stuff easy.
One of my classmates would experiment with making explosives. He was mentally unhinged. We all knew it. He spent much time in an asylum as an adult. Imagine placing this sort of genetic technology as it advances into the hands of teenage hackers or religious kooks who wanted to bring on the "rapture".
Let's not be hysterical but just think. When technologies become easily available any nut can use them for any nutty purpose.
Far more likely though is the invasive organism problem.
I think the real problem is the lack of understanding of ecology by many genetic engineering proponents. Releasing a novel organism to cure an oil spill sounds excellent and in some respects it is. But so many organisms introduced into foreign ecologies have caused problems that we should learn.
It is almost a law of nature that some released organisms, and it is difficult to predict which, cause problems. It seems to me that we know less about the highly complex and chaotic systems of ecology than we do about how to string DNA together to create novel organisms.
In conclusion it is a fascinating technology that has much promise but needs to be thought about
with an eye to human psychology and ecology.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/3HlPyjgGuJB4WPsKrZ0YVHxra0iLbg--#26c1f
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May 24, 2010 2:09 PM
So my options for terrorizing people of Earth are either to set up a multimillion-dollar lab and toil for years to build a novel life form or to cough on people? Tough call.
Posted by: vanharris
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May 24, 2010 2:17 PM
Doc Craig, can I haz crocoduck soon ,pleez?
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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May 24, 2010 2:26 PM
That's right; we could engineer an airborne virus that could kill one instantly before they had the chance to pass it on to someone else, but it would be very unlikely for such a virus to evolve in nature except for under very unusual conditions.
Caution is of course warranted; we don't need another near-miss like Klebsiella planticola.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmqD_mcUIrSfOTlK3iGVsnEDcZmI43srbI
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May 24, 2010 2:44 PM
Those who are afraid of this advance have absolutely zero understanding of how easy it already is to manipulate the genes of living organisms.
They should sit through some of the recent conferences I've been to. Every presentation is about deleting this gene or that, massaging the genetic code of this organism or that.
Heck, we have transgenic primates now.
Not to denigrate Venter's achievement. It certainly makes the gap (wherein a god is inserted) a LOT smaller than it used to be. And, I suspect, most of the objections are based on this fear -- that we really ARE masters of our own destinies and not the plaything of some invisible genie.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
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May 24, 2010 2:51 PM
I look on Venter's achievement rather like that of building a ship in a bottle--the result is not the astounding thing. It's the way he did it.
Posted by: RationalMind
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May 24, 2010 2:52 PM
"Those who are afraid of this advance have absolutely zero understanding of how easy it already is to manipulate the genes of living organisms."
Not at all. That is already a problem for the genetic hacker or religious kook scenario.
It is rarely sensible to talk in absolutes about
the understanding level of those with whom
you disagree.
However, for ecological problems the more foreign or novel an organism is the less predictable the effects. Simply because your understanding of the frame of reference is more limited.
Posted by: csreid
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May 24, 2010 3:13 PM
The progress of science should never be even so much as slowed for fear of what we might find out.
Posted by: Screechy_Monkey
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May 24, 2010 3:14 PM
I had almost posted a comment here saying something to the effect of "let me guess -- Taleb's contribution is to call this a Black Swan and imply that this is a bad idea because even a minute possibility of disaster is unacceptable."
Then I thought, no, that's unjust, I should read his response first.
Turns out I needn't have bothered. The guy is a total one-trick pony.
Posted by: JB
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May 24, 2010 3:15 PM
#8
?
Nope. Don't get that. It is currently possible to mix and match genes and other genetic elements from any organism into viruses and bacteria with 'traditional' molecular biology. It is routine for up to a dozen genes, and feasible for any number. We are, however, astonishingly bad at designing anything de novo. Proteins being a particularly obvious case and I suspect we will find similar results with single-cell organisms.
So anyone who worries about the creation of a new superbug with Ventner's technology can have no understanding of what is currently routine. Or in a Poe's Law variation is pretending ignorance for the scare value. Or did you have another point?
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
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May 24, 2010 3:32 PM
"Rational Mind",
What is being done here is no different than what has been done for years via gene splicing, etc. and before that by selective breeding. What matters is what the genes do, not how they get into the organism.
Posted by: robertdw
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May 24, 2010 4:02 PM
There are some awfully anthro-centric viewpoints expressed in some of these comments.
Yes, a virus that is too aggressive at knocking off its host species won't survive. But nothing says that the host species must be human.
That's the basis of the scares behind swine/bird flue and SARS after all - they are virus that are hosted in animals, so when they cross to humans there is no reason, evolutionary, for it not to be massively fatal.
Nor are viruses the only bio-threat. Given the increasing prevalence in animals of antibiotic resistant bacteria strains, it's probably just a matter of time before we get a serious epidemic from that vector too.
Posted by: Cobolt
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May 24, 2010 4:54 PM
Wrong! this is totally different from taking an existing organism, breeding it with a another of it's own kind and then sorting the offspring.This is taking an organisms DNA, digitising it, re-writing a portion of the code and then jumpstarting a new organism from the results. The difference from "parent" to child can be, no, are by definition a completely different species.
Now I have no reason to not trust Venter or his team not to do something that would affect the real world biologically, they are after all experimenting with the technology in a lab. I can't see them taking the petrie dish outside to let the little buggers be free. It's the next step of commercialising this technology. For all of PZ's, and others, suggesting these wee organisms didn't evolve in the real world and so won't survive in the real world, why not? What steps are going to be put in place to make sure? Who will be responsible? The same sort of people who thought an emergency shut off valve was a step too far in the Gulf of Mexico?
In a fictitious world let's say BP buys the technology to create an oil eating bacteria to help clean up their mess. Due to cost constraints they decide to take a shortcut and use a bacteria that already eats oils and just give it super procreating powers to be able to eat more oil faster. The bacteria is released and the oil slick disappears very quickly. And then the bacteria mutates so plankton is now edible.
This is the sort of thing that preys on the back of the mind. I think what Venter and his team has done is exciting and full of potential but...
Posted by: RationalMind
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May 24, 2010 4:57 PM
I do have a full degree level molecular biology level of understanding of what is possible now.
The assumptions that I do not understand are typical reactions from those with a poorer understanding of ecology and who are overconfident on our level of understanding. The overconfidence that I am ignorant is symptomatic.
I am concerned about the ATTITUDES to this technology.
It is not some Poe type scare. There are genuine rational reasons for caution in this technology. I base this partly on the rather gung-ho macho attitudes of some of the GM industry. We do not have the right to be scientifically certain on any of these points.
The attitude that we are masters of nature and can and should do every thing with it seems actually a fundamentally christian attitude of biblical dominion over nature. It is faith that man can't do any harm because we understand science when in fact the complexities are greater than is at first realised.
I'd love to be as positive as some of you are. However my knowledge does not permit me to be so.
Let's give a minor example of what is probably a small risk that is ignored by a standard GM approach. Bt has its genes removed and put into plants. We know that resistance will evolve and indeed. It has already been observed. Most of the textbooks will tell you it is a "soil bacterium" well it is sort of. You can get it out of soil.
A far better description is an insect pathogen.
to evaluate the risks properly we need to know something about its natural role in ecology as a pathogen. A few years ago I did a massive literature search for work on this role. THERE WAS NOTHING THERE. We have encouraged greater resistance to a disease that potentially controls pests without even realising that we might be doing this. If you doubt me look into the complexity of the Bt toxin and that in nature it only works because it is digested in several steps inside the insect. Natural selection would surely remove such an energy consuming and complex substance from the genome of Bt if it did not have a survival role. That survival role is as part of the armoury of a pathogen.
I am not saying we shouldn't use these technologies I am saying we should have a better understanding of ecology before we make assumptions on risk that may not be valid.
Assuming that humans are special in a nature and specially clever in their handling of it has a suspiciously religious tone about it
Posted by: NixNoctua
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May 24, 2010 5:24 PM
How so? If you have one, or even multiple genes different from your parents, does that make you a completely different species?
*laughs a little* Maybe I'm just missing something, but you sound kinda like the guy that was upset about giving terrorists regular trials because they might get off free and then become american citizens.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
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May 24, 2010 5:26 PM
"rational mind" et al.,
You are raising a straw man argument. No one is arguing that we shouldn't understand things better. That is the goal of this research. Again, as I said, what matters is what the genes do, not how they got into the organism. We've added another tool to our toolbox for understanding nature, and now we see that some of the things that we formerly took to be nails take on the characteristics of screws.
Indeed, it is quite possible that this technique may prove to give us far greater control and allow us to avoid the undesirable effects of traditional GM methods.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler
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May 24, 2010 5:31 PM
PZ Myers: I have to say I like Church...
/quotemine
Posted by: Cobolt
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May 24, 2010 5:47 PM
@ NixNoctua
1) no, as a child of two parents of the same species I am the same species as my parents, all of my genes have been handed down from my parents. In the case of the created organism the new genes are not from the parent - and so a different species.
2) I have never commented on terrorist trials. I'm not sure why you are laughing though. Bacteria Mutating tickle your funny bone? It's not really that funny.
Posted by: clonearmy
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May 24, 2010 5:58 PM
I've pointed it out elsewhere and I've pointed it out here: there is absolutely no reason to fear that terrorists will infiltrate the biohacking community in order to discover how to create genetically modified organisms. They'd get much better value for their training dollar by sending people to a four-year university or a well-equipped community college.
The 9/11 hijackers didn't start by figuring out how to build airplanes in their garages -- they went to flight school.
Posted by: MadScientist
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May 24, 2010 6:01 PM
Ugh. Nassim Taleb at NYU-P, "Professor of Risk Management": The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Gee, if you let that twerp have his way, he'd destroy every tool on the planet because they're all dangerous you know. He's probably the sort who thinks confiscating knitting needles from grannies at the airports is good "risk management". He's obviously no damned good at his job because he's making ridiculous statements about potential risk without understanding the subject at all. So to all of Taleb's students: better find another school!
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:01 PM
I have to say I like Church...
Yeah, I do too.
Dr. Stuart Church used to work on the ecology of vision at Briston University.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/204/14/2491
Is that not what you meant?
hoser.
Posted by: NixNoctua
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May 24, 2010 6:05 PM
1) Not exactly, you do have a very small amount of mutations that are unique to you. And just because a new gene is unique to an individual does not make them a different species. It takes a hell of a lot more than that to be even considered a new species (not that anyone can even agree on what makes separate species).
2) I didn't say you did. I said your slippery-slope reminded me of it. And while slippery-slopes aren't completely invalid, sometimes ... they can sound a little silly...
Ugh... why'd I'd have to post anything? I hate arguing...
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:05 PM
...let me rephrase that:
what an amazingly astute contribution to the thread there, Pierce!
/sarcasm
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:11 PM
It seems to me that we know less about the highly complex and chaotic systems of ecology than we do about how to string DNA together to create novel organisms.
On a basic level, you're right. I hope you have written to your congressional representative to stress the importance of increasing funding for basic ecology research, instead of yet more funding for molecular/cell biology then?
you will keep seeing the schism you perceive grow ever wider unless more money does become available for basic research in ecology.
and soon.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:22 PM
A few years ago I did a massive literature search for work on this role. THERE WAS NOTHING THERE.
you must fail at using a library, then.
http://www.botanischergarten.ch/biodiversity/Dale-Pot-Imp-nbt0602-567.pdf
that was the last paper i read on it, in 2002. I recall seeing papers on the effects of transgenic releases in the FDA literature at least 10 years before that.
In fact, there is quite a bit of literature on the subject, much of which has been used to produce the FDA regulations and policies regarding the use of transgenics in agriculture.
*shrug*
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:24 PM
If you are actually interested in the subject, you might try using the bibliography from that paper, and going back to one of the very early publications and then using the Science Citation Index.
then you could try writing your paper again.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 24, 2010 6:26 PM
...final note:
I'm not saying I wouldn't approve of more funding for research in understanding basic ecology, btw.
In fact, I think I just did that in a previous post.
Posted by: True Bob
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May 24, 2010 8:32 PM
I think you are missing the most egregious error that PZ seems to have made. The monster wasn't Frankenstein, it was Frankenstein's Monster! Frankenstein was Venter, the organism is his Frankenstein's Monster.
Posted by: Kagato
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May 24, 2010 9:05 PM
Ichthyic uses Post.
5 hit combo!
It's super effective.
Posted by: John Scanlon FCD
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May 24, 2010 10:01 PM
Richard Dawkins in The Greatest Show on Earth, on transformation of bacteria by a killed virulent strain:
Well, I don't think DNA cares about being stored in a computer either. So I agree with what a_r_i_d_s and Ichthyic are saying.
Hadn't heard about Klebsiella planticola before (Brownian #5), so I went straight to wiki... somebody needs to fix that article, it's not nearly sensational enough.
Posted by: Peter H
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May 24, 2010 10:17 PM
"...[T]his is totally different from taking an existing organism, breeding it with a another of it's own kind and then sorting the offspring.
This is taking an organisms DNA, digitising it, re-writing a portion of the code and then jumpstarting a new organism from the results. The difference from "parent" to child can be, no, are by definition a completely different species.'
So, then, perhaps a few/some/many "transitional forms" are leapfrogged. How is the "end result" (actually only the most recent expression) different when arrived at by either path?
Posted by: RationalMind
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May 24, 2010 11:01 PM
"A few years ago I did a massive literature search for work on this role. THERE WAS NOTHING THERE.
you must fail at using a library, then."
Then Icthyic you fail at reading what I said. That paper is NOT about the wild role of Bt. In fact it makes the very error I am complaining about. It describes it as a "naturally occurring ubiquitous SOIL BACTERIUM. (My emphasis.) The evidence says it is a PATHOGEN. I have found no work on its NATURAL ECOLOGY.
You fail to notice the orthographic clues in my postings, not to labour a point, that I do not have a congressional representative. :)
It is another assumption you have made without checking.
I concur with the comment about the people who missed the need for a shut off valve in the Gulf of Mexico. If you don't even realise the natural ecological role of the organism you are engineering you are likely to make similar kinds of mistakes to that one.
Posted by: Harbo
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May 25, 2010 4:31 AM
The fact that this has been done was inevitable.
That it is in the open, and we are discussing it, is cause for celebration.Yes, caution should apply, as with all emerging technology , but any attempt to censor or restrict will drive secrecy and promote underground/unmonitored developments.
The bottle is open lets drink from it .....with our eyes open.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 25, 2010 4:43 AM
I have found no work on its NATURAL ECOLOGY.
again, you are very unclear here.
"That paper is NOT about the wild role of Bt."
the "wild role of Bt", what does that even mean?
I took it to mean you were interested in how transgenic organisms interact with surrounding flora and fauna on release.
are you saying you mean natural ecology of the soil bacterium it was modeled on?
If that's the case, again, there IS literature on that as well.
sorry, but I think there is something of a language barrier here maybe?
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 25, 2010 4:45 AM
"naturally occurring ubiquitous SOIL BACTERIUM. (My emphasis.) The evidence says it is a PATHOGEN
E. Coli can be both pathogen or ubiquitous happy-go-lucky bacterium.
it entirely depends on the strain and the circumstances.
same with other bacteria.
is this what is confusing you?
Posted by: Ichthyic
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May 25, 2010 4:48 AM
5 hit combo!
I've been reading this online guide to internet communication:
http://www.leedberg.com/mk/umk3/moves.htm
that one was...
HP,HP,HK,LK,B+LP
next I will try...
D,D,F,U,RUN
Posted by: Zernk
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May 25, 2010 5:45 AM
#22 #24 - Ya big meanie. Warning to all: Only ichthyic's gamer humor allowed in this thread
Posted by: edinblack
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May 25, 2010 11:13 AM
You posted two pieces on this and still no one has mentioned the true danger! It was announced back in 2007 by Thomas Horn, author of Nephilim Stargates (Anomalos Publishing): "Did ancient biotech create Nephilim?"--you guys! Playing with gene-splicers will bring back Biblical demons! As he explains in the ancient Biotech piece, Genesis 6 shows "that 'animals' were included in whatever cross-species experiments were being conducted, and that this activity resulted in judgment from God." (Video here.)
Posted by: edinblack
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May 25, 2010 11:25 AM
I left off the end of the full title to that article: "Did Ancient Biotech Create 'Nephilim'? Will modern science bring them again?"
Thomas Horn: "...imagine the staggering implications of such science if dead Nephilim tissue was discovered with intact DNA and a government somewhere that was willing to clone or mingle the extracted organisms to make Homo-nephilim."
Posted by: Cobolt
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May 25, 2010 4:38 PM
@32
The difference generated could be as small as creating a pink rose from a red rose parent, or it could be as large as creating a lion from a house cat. The biggest difference of course is that the new organism hasn't had to survive through evolution to exist. There is potential for mechanisms required to exist in the natural world through the evolutionary process to be skipped in creating the new organism meaning humans have created something that wouldn't otherwise be able to come about. For example - using my hypothetical oil eating bug from before - the scientists replaced the code controlling how quickly the bacteria procreated and how efficiently it consumed oil. The evolutionary path required to do this may be blocked because the genes required to procreate so fast would require a greater food consumption for which the mutation would not have happened at the same time. So the organism which started procreating faster would not be able to feed itself fast enough to keep up with the procreation rate. Another strain which ate faster would consume the food too quickly before procreating thus removing the food source for the offspring. Neither mutation would end up with an advantage and so would not evolve to survive.
Now I know this is a very very simplistic argument to a much more complex issue. But PZ's argument that because these organisms didn't fight their way through evolution they are "safe" is a two edged sword.
Now I have trust in the scientists with this technology, that they will be cautious with their work. It is the commercialisation of this technology that concerns me and the tendency of corporations to cut corners. Loss of billions of dollars out of an economy or the GoM fishery will be small fry if this technology is not given the proper respect it deserves.
Posted by: Zernk
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May 26, 2010 8:09 AM
@41
After it was "intelligently designed", wouldn't the new organism be subject to evolutionary pressure? I don't think anyone is expecting to manufacture the entire population of new organisms. Once the initial organisms are created, they will need to reproduce on their own, thus they have to withstand their environment and the competition around them.
Posted by: Cobolt
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May 26, 2010 4:57 PM
Yes they would, but my point is the "intelligent design" would skip the process of evolution which would otherwise have prevented the resultant organism in the first place.
You could look at this like the introduction of a species into a new environment. Environments which have not evolved to contend with the new species. Rabbits were introduced into New Zealand for sport hunting, however because there were no natural predators the rabbit population exploded, so ferrets, weasels and stoats were introduced to curb the rabbit population. Unfortunately the local bird life proved tastier and easier to hunt for these new species because the locals had not evolved with predators. You could say the predators had an evolutionary jump on the locals in the same way a created bacteria may have an evolutionary jump.
Posted by: Jennifer
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May 28, 2010 5:43 AM
check this out:
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/05/25/synthetic-life-form-accuses-god-of-playing-science/
Posted by: credit rsa
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January 29, 2011 8:56 AM
People should not be afraid of science. It is not for us to resolve future problems that may arise. Science should be funded at a much higher level.
IMHO.
Casaria
comment avoir un credit au rsa