First living cell ... artificial!

[sen-no-sen]

I agree Zorglub, technologies can serve good as well as evil ...
But there are some "Pandora's boxes" that you shouldn't open.
It is essential that its technologies are closely monitored.

[Flytox]

I agree Zorglub, technologies can serve good as well as evil ...
But there are some "Pandora's boxes" that you shouldn't open.
It is essential that its technologies are closely monitored.

The problem also comes from the fact that when a "commercial circuit" smells a good blow, it will find on the market skills, unexpected aid from certain governments, discreet locals, and all the people without scruples and without faith or law. set up shop and try what they want in the greatest discretion / opacity. The best and the worst will come out of it, and we will of course be faced with the accomplished fact once the commercial outlet has been found.

We talk about ethics after and not before ...

[sen-no-sen]

We talk about ethics after and not before ...

Exactly Flytox!

And we could add: we talk about ethics when the damage is done ...

Anyway:"We do not stop progress"...

[Obamot]

Unbelievable: the Vatican has just said that it did not make an ethical judgment, since nothing had yet been done ... They would not take a position of principle when it comes to industry? So why are they against condom use? Because the church is short of people in the parishes?

I see a huge contradiction in it. As far as I know, everyone understands that by absorbing carbon, they want to reproduce bacteria and then destroy them ....

[Ahmed]

Small reflection about this common place "We do not stop progress"..., (used here in an ironic way): I think, beyond a resigned or admiring statement, its apparent meaning is very superficial and not very consistent.
However, its deeper meaning may be that a system always goes to the end of its logic, whatever the consequences ; it is in any case the central thesis of Bertrand Méheust in his recent work, "Oxymore politics".

[Obamot]

Just my two cents from Euro. Wouldn't he miss the negation: "You can not stop progress"?
It can also become a fallacy if it is taken in the first degree and depending on the context, and especially as you describe it underlined, right?

[sen-no-sen]

Ahmed wrote:

However, its deeper meaning may be that a system always goes to the end of its logic, whatever the consequences;

The human being thanks to its large Neo cortex, is the only animal to have a capacity of creation with exponential tendency (even if certain animals, like the chimpanzee for example, one developed rudimentary techniques like the use of tools, but these remain very limited).

Our species has this peculiarity of wanting to constantly create new things for good and for bad.
It would be relevant to ask the question: where does this "trend" come from? (from what brains, I mean).
Personally I would lean for the "reptilian brain" although at the end of the day it is the Neo Cortex which is tackling the task of creating its technologies ...

[gegyx]

The human being thanks to its large Neo cortex, is the only animal to have a capacity of creation with exponential tendency
Our species has this peculiarity in wanting to constantly create new things for good and for bad.

I do not know.

"Wanting to create" is simply having a little savvy, and wanting to improve your daily life with the tools you have at your disposal.

It is simply to be a handyman, by manufacturing with scrap available.

The monkey does it to eat more easily or to have small pleasures.
Only he has only stone for hammer, straw for sucking, stick for hitting.

Human, it's the same thing, except that there are now a multitude of means, techniques, sciences, communications and individuals…
You understand that developments are becoming exponential.

Is it still very useful? Must see ...
But if it is a "need", due to the pressure of a boss, to the justification of a salary allowing to live ...

Suddenly, we can quickly get to excesses.

Look at the cormorants, the bears that come to eat in the trash, it is out of need or convenience.

A rat or a mouse can very well use modern utensils to achieve its goals.
He uses the tool at his disposal.
But if at the end of his quest for food, he makes a short circuit, drops a candle, and sets fire to the neighborhood, or infects the city's water network, he does not know and does not care .

On the other hand, we realize that the action can be globally negative, by making statistics…

[sen-no-sen]

Human, it's the same thing, except that there are now a multitude of means, techniques, sciences, communications and individuals…
You understand that developments are becoming exponential.

These means, techniques, sciences did not fall from the sky, it was necessary to invent them.
Human beings are different from other animals because of the fact that there is often a short circuit between intellect and instinct (which explains among other things our creativity ... our hyper aggressiveness, and our ego ...) .

Coming back to biotechnology, I would say that there are two points that justify this scientist "exponentiality":

1) "We do not stop progress"

2) "if we don't do it, others will do it for us"

[dedeleco]

This beginning of century for biology is like the last century was in 1910, with the beginnings and hopes in planes, cars, radio, electricity, radioactivity, etc, which makes our current life.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the future, but clearly, the real understanding (currently very insufficient) of life will allow us to use it in an unimaginable way, like domesticating each cell in microburn, to achieve what 'we want, as life shows us, ants, or termites which obey us, make chemicals, organs to transplant, any chemical, medicine, computer based on a brain, etc ...
Already, the cloning of Dolly is miraculous, because carried out without really understanding, by forcibly transferring the genetic material.
By understanding, we will be able to change as we want, but we must not believe that we understand and rush towards unforeseen disasters, with GMOs, hastily swept up.
We believed, or made believe, that the genetic code is like that of a computer, and that it was enough to know it to understand and act !!
In fact this code is of the secret type with nested hidden codes, the result of 2 billion years of evolution, full of chance, and of all living beings, up to viruses, in strong interaction.
For these reasons, it is necessary to impose limits and safety rules, much stronger than at present.