"Artificial" Life?

An article in today's London Telegraph heralded the impending announcement of artificial life being created within the next five years. The reason for the optimism was due to a recent breakthrough by U. S. scientists. The article contained an interesting line, and I have a question about this process.

The interesting line is what the author of the article called this breakthrough. He referred to the quest for "creating artificial life" as "the second genesis." Very ironic. Many of the people involved in this process (and reporters covering it) would ardently deny life coming from an Intelligent Designer, yet their language is one of design and creation.

Which brings me to my question. What "materials" are the scientists starting with to "create" life? It reminds me of the joke that a scientist is standing before God. He says, "Well, we have finally done it. We can now create life. We don't need you anymore God."

God replies, "That's interesting. Tell me how you did this."

The scientist says, "First, we take some dirt and then...." God interrupts the scientist and says, "Whoa, what a second. Get your own dirt."

The arrogance and blindness of many of those involved in this process is staggering. There is no doubt, that this could potentially be a tremendous breakthrough scientifically. The possibilities are great, but so are the ethical concerns.

We must be diligent in thinking about scientific issues (stem cell research is a great example) and understand why there are ethical concerns about their implementation. As we become informed, we need to engage our government representatives to let them know what we think about these issues.