Life ain't god's intellectual property

(This is probably gonna get me tons of hate mail, but here goes)

There has been considerable brouhaha ever since the creation of the first synthetic organism was announced. There has been too much debate on whether man should be allowed to create life. The popular view is that man shouldn’t obtrude in god’s matters. The mainstream sentiment is that life is god’s personal demesne and should be left to him only. So is Life, god’s personal intellectual property?

No. It is not.

The argument is that man should not interfere with nature and should not create life where it shouldn’t exist. It should be left to god to decide whether there should be life or not.  Amusingly, man has been doing precisely that for a long time and no one seems to have bothered, till now.

With the recent advances in medical science, man has been creating life according to his needs. Life has been created where it shouldn’t have existed had things been left to god only. Stem cell therapy models cells as they are needed, you could make skin cells out of them or any tissue as needed. IVF creates life in wombs where there should be none. Consequently, a baby (or organism, in science speak) spawns which should not have existed had it not been for the intervention of man. Cloning is another example, a creature is made which shouldn’t have existed in nature (remember Dolly, the sheep?)

Hell, even 'condoms' interfere with the divine workings of god by preventing life from existing where it should exist.

So, isn’t this all interference in god’s work?

The risks of creating synthetic life are great but that doesn’t mean that mankind shouldn’t proceed because of them. Every great discovery has been replete with risks. Fire, electricity, ICEs, airplanes, nuclear energy, all of them carry considerable risks.  If that would not have been the case and things would have been left to god alone, we would still be cowering in fear whenever we came across lightening or still rubbing stones together. Or perhaps we still would have been thinking that the Earth is flat and is the center of the universe.

We must continue to make progress. Even if the risks are risibly humongous. We cannot stop making progress simply because we think some things should be left to god.

Which brings me to god. The problem with the theory of god is that the evidence for non-existence of such an entity is massive. Nevertheless, people still believe in the idea of the god and anything that man is not able to comprehend is left to god. But that doesn’t prove zilch .

Any idea that is widely held does not prove its validity. Even though our ancient texts are full of incidences in which god(s) played a significant role, history has given us no superhumans or entities with supranormal abilities. Modern religion is basically nothing but stories embellished over time.

As for man playing god by creating synthetic life. Considering the fact that it took “god” nearly 700 Million (!) years to create the first semblance of life (Prokaryotes) and taking into consideration that humans have been around for only 200,000 years, and we have had only around 800 years of what we call Modern Science, Man has already  created the first living “synthetic cell”; [1]  I think humans have every right to do so.

The math is incomplex, 800 years vs. 700 Million Years. I guess nobody invented microscopes when god needed to create  life.

As for me, if I would be leaving my life in somebody else's hands, I would rather leave it in the hands of somebody who at least thinks he knows what he is doing, rather than something that probably doesn’t exist.

 

 

Note:[1] Earth was created 4.5 Billion years ago while the first life form originated 3.8 Billion years ago. Modern Humans first appeared on earth 200,000 years ago. (Read more)