PROGRESS PLUNGE

All our lauded technological progress---our very civilization---is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein

Artificial life will be created within four months, a controversial scientist has predicted. Craig Venter, who led a private project to sequence the human genome, told The Times that his team had cleared a critical hurdle to creating man-made organisms in a laboratory. “Assuming we don’t make any errors, I think it should work and we should have the first synthetic species by the end of the year,” he said.



***


I believe that an error has already occurred, and it's that you have created new, man-made organisms.

But that’s man for you.

Or science.

No stone left unturned.

Nothing will stop the march of science.

It’s like the pool where I swam when I was a boy.

The pool’s name was Progress Plunge.

First, the pool water is clean and clear, and then there appears a kids’ big turd, floating around…

Yikes!

Run...

I mean swim for your life!

It all begins quite innocently, and with all of the best intentions, and then the uh-ohs begin to befall the scientists, and then ...

Earth.

The serenity of science suddenly slides into insanity and destruction.

You can take the atom as an example, or lasers, or rockets, or hydrogen energy---

Or even our blessed computers that we’re all so addicted to.

Yes, one of these days they, too, will be a danger for us.

Love turns into Hate.

Progress becomes a horse of a different color, or in this case an entirely new organism.

Maybe, though, we’ll need these new life-forms to fight those super-intelligent computers.


Dr Venter said the research was particularly important because it opened the door to altering algae and bacteria to perform useful functions. “This could be one of the most powerful tools in biology,” he said.


From

Artificial life is only months away, says biologist Craig Venter

August 21, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6804599.ece