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new species - how long before we play 'god'?

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In that case, making insulin in bacteria was playing God, too. In fact, doing heart transplants could be considered playing God. If it's so easy to be God, then he can't be all that powerful, eh? 🙂
 
The expression "playing God" is emotionally charged with all kinds of negative connotation, yet devoid of actual reasoning. Mankind is a part of nature; anything we do is therefore by definition "natural".

If there is a God (I am agnostic) and He does not want us doing this stuff, then He will stop us from doing so.
 
Originally posted by: Astaroth33
The expression "playing God" is emotionally charged with all kinds of negative connotation, yet devoid of actual reasoning. Mankind is a part of nature; anything we do is therefore by definition "natural".

If there is a God (I am agnostic) and He does not want us doing this stuff, then He will stop us from doing so.
Click to expand...
Damn, but you're a man after my own heart...
 
Originally posted by: Astaroth33
The expression "playing God" is emotionally charged with all kinds of negative connotation, yet devoid of actual reasoning. Mankind is a part of nature; anything we do is therefore by definition "natural".

If there is a God (I am agnostic) and He does not want us doing this stuff, then He will stop us from doing so.
Click to expand...


You've got a point. I have spent the last 9 years studying/working in a particular part of the biotech industry that gets shunned for playing god all the time. Yet I've never heard anyone phrase it so well.

It makes me wonder, if we actually could play god, even for a day. Then how many men "playing god" would it take to become as powerfull as god?



I'm going to hell, I just know it. Either that or im going to get hit by lightning sometime real soon. I love my field, but my field is growing in power at a rate of moores law squared. Just watched GATTACA this morning, and I realized that I'm one of those bastards that will destroy life as we know it. Oh well, better than nukes I guess.
 
wacki: And once we answer that, we can figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin! 😉
 
I think they coined the phrase "playing God" because we are tinkering with the great unknown when we are tapping into a new field. I imagine that question will always be raised when there are so many questions and variables involved. Just because man declares they can do godlike things, does not mean we are actually doing things on the level of God. Obviously we don't have any kind of conclusive foresight. Who are we to even think we can operate on such a level? We base everything off of science, which, I am thinking, merely "mimics" god, thus the phrase "playing God". Science says nothing will ever be %100 certain, but by repeating experiments and getting predicted values time and again tells us that said values is the "truth". For all we know, God is always %100 certain. Any true scientist will tell you that there could be a God. If they tell you there is ABSOLUTELY no god, they are violating the "< %100" principal of science. Of course, most scientists will tell you that that principal does not matter when thinking about something like God, they will simply tell you "God" is not quantifiable.
 
Eh? So God is just what is not yet known? As we know more and more, God becomes less and less? Heh. What a weakling.
 
That might me true if there were only a finite amount of knowledge in existence.

I doubt the combined knowledge of every sentient species in existence can even scratch the surface of an "all knowing" being like God.
 
How do you know there isn't?

How can we be sure that we 'know' anything?

My statement was hypothetical, of course, and I make no claim as to whether or not the sum of all knowledge is finite or not.

Perhaps a better question might be whether or not the total amount of information in existence is constant. Does God learn?
 
Originally posted by: rjain
How do you know there is an infinite amount of complexity to the universe?
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I think it was in mathematics where a theory is proven showing how in order to prefectly describe a system (aka "know" everything in the Universe) with another system (such as an equation or set of rules) the first system must be completely contained within the second system. The way I interpret that is to say that in order for any single human (unlikeley) or group of sentient beings to know everything there is to know about the universe, then they must either be all there is in the universe or be more than the universe. In that light, one can easily see that the universe will always contain unknown elements.
 
There is a difference between perfectly describing a system and discovering all of the laws that govern a system.

In the distant future, we may not be able to model the universe, but I bet we come darn close to understanding a vast majority of the rules that govern it.
 
Originally posted by: daddy-o
There is a difference between perfectly describing a system and discovering all of the laws that govern a system.

In the distant future, we may not be able to model the universe, but I bet we come darn close to understanding a vast majority of the rules that govern it.
Click to expand...

There is no difference between describing a system and discovering the laws that govern it. The definition of perfectly describing a system asserts that all laws that govern that system are known.
In the distant future, we may have a better model for the universe. Yet, how are we to know that we are "darn close to understanding a vast majority of the rules that govern it"? Without a better model to compare the then current model, we wouldn't know how far we would be from knowing all the rules. For all we know, we could be missing just one or two rules right now or we could be missing an entire new field of physics involving reverse entropy. We don't know. That's why we have models to incorporate what we DO know.
However, if you follow that train of thought, eventually you'll come to the conclusion that we can never fully understand the universe. The whole point of "discovery" is finding something previously unknown. It's like trying to figure out how far you are from the end of a race when you don't even know the layout of the course.

Few people know that how one views the universe is dependent upon the observer.
Fewer still realize that there is no absolute reality or truth.

That is why the universe is infinitely complex.
 
I would definitely, DEFINITELY, not say a "vast majority". Maybe an infinitesimally small amount of the laws, but nowhere near a majority. But I guess either of us could be right, as without knowing EVERYTHING I can't say how much of the whole we know.
 
there's a company in texas that's going to sell glow-in-the-dark fish next year. i think that's pretty cool. i'd get one.
 
Research indicates there?s more to genetics then was until recently supposed. We do indeed share much of our genetic makeup with lower species. Also about 45% of our DNA is due to virus DNA from eons of infections, the genetic remnants of which remain and are passed to each generation. Apparently we have evolved a means to suppress the activity of the viral DNA. This suppression activity seems to come from DNA strands that used to be considered ?garbage? DNA, as it did not produce proteins. Now it seems the garbage DNA has a vital role in how and what genes are expressed or suppressed.

This suppression also helps in preventing genetic defects. For instance human males have an X and Y chromosome, whereas the female has 2 X chromosomes. This would be bad for the woman if both X borne genes were expressed, as the woman would produce an excess of hormones as well as other unwanted effects such as large mammary glands, curvaceousness, long silky smooth hair, excessive sex drive, male subservience, velcro lips and exceptional cooking skills. As it happens, one of the X chromosomes is completely suppressed in the normal female. It was also unknown why one identical twin would suffer from a genetic defect, while its sibling would not. Identical twins have identical genes. Again it seems that one twin suppressed the activity of the abnormal gene while the other did not.

A few years ago, the human genome was successfully mapped. This was thought to be all the information we needed to determine which gene produced which protein, and what its effect on the person would be. Now its found we must also map the garbage DNA to find its roll in our lives.

So even if our genetic makeup is similar to a chimp?s, the way it is expressed may be quite different.
 
Geniere,

Actually sex drive is depenndent on testosterone, and yes, women do have a measurable low level of the stuff. That's why they lose interest in sex after they crap out a baby-the estrogen completely suppresses testosterone. Fortunately I know this, so i smear a little androgel on my bitches twice a week, and they like to fsuck like bunnies.
 
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