Playing God!

“Scientists have created the world's first synthetic life form in a landmark experiment that paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved”
Read the complete news item here.

When US Geneticists researching in Craig Venter’s team announced their success in producing “life” in a laboratory from chemicals, mankind has seemingly “progressed” in its capabilities to develop the rudimentary forms of life in a test tube. Media was quick to observe how the human race had crossed the threshold of divinity by developing the ability to create life forms, albeit just micro-organisms at this point in time, thereby describing the development as “playing God” by creating “life”. Some writers have been quick to imagine the consequences of such scientific advancement to lead to some disastrous results. Such life forms, some religious groups argued, are capable of forming variants and mutants, which can develop into other life forms and spread on our planet and cause environmental and ecological havoc! Besides, they would not be in our control – at least not in control of those who created them!

Skeptics would wonder whether we need these micro-organisms or their variants or mutants or whatever to cause environmental havoc on this wonderful planet when we have been doing a perfectly good job ourselves? Or do we really think we can create life in our laboratories and then have complete control over these synthetic creations? Must we not first try and control our teenage sons and daughters before even contemplating control over other life forms? Come to think of it, one wonders whether creators even seek control over their creation.

Man may not have yet understood how the human body works – but one cannot take away the credit for the success for having developed some kind of life form to the 20 scientists who toiled for 10 years , spent Millions of US$s and achieved just that! And although skeptical, religious, social opposition of the kind that had previously opposed the scientific advancement into cloning, takes effect and announces some kind of ban for the creation of such life forms in laboratories on this planet, let us salute this great achievement! I would also like to thank the scientists for naming the first synthetically created life form with a name that is more difficult to remember than mine:
1.08-Mbp Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 genome!

That said, I continue to wonder about the “playing god” by “creating life” part of the news item. What exactly is playing God, btw? To approach this question, one must face the sorting hat of the Harry Potter kind that one sees in society today. We have, I learn the following kinds of people on our planet:

Theists – who believe in the existence of God – Monotheists believe in one God. Polytheists believe in multiple Gods.

Atheists – who don’t believe in the existence of God. How boring!

Pantheists – those who believe that all existing living forms are one entity – God!

Agnostic – those who find it difficult to decide whether god exists or not. Coined by Thomas Huxley, he originally meant it to mean those who would not believe anything until proven or disproven.

But for the purpose of simplicity, let us restrict the discussion to Theists of any kind (btw I belong to the Polytheist category and am comfortable with 330 million Gods and my pranaams to each one of them).

So “Playing God” to us, Theists, is creating this universe to which this wonderful planet belongs, all the lovely life forms on earth (except of course 1.08 MBP-whatever-whatever genome) and – hold your breath – controlling all that’s going on here! Now that’s a long way from creating a microorganism called 1.08 whatever….. Nevertheless, we Theists cannot stop marveling about the several life forms – the several thousand species of birds, animals, insects, fish, trees - their beautiful manifestations in nature, their role in maintaining the ecological balance of the earth. Theists would be eternally amazed and grateful to the Creator for the world in which we live.

One cannot but admire how thoughtfully, God has given the camel its hump to store water in the desert or the giraffe the long neck to reach higher leaves on which it lives or the pouch in the Pelican’s beak to store food for more than a week; and a pouch for the Kangaroo to hold its offspring… ! One could go on and on. How could HE have done it all by HIMself, one would wonder? For Theists, it is a matter of whether to believe in one god or 330 million? But for a Monotheist, One God is enough - HE is God, after all!

But after spending some time appreciating the thousands of species of animals and birds, let us turn to the latest creation from God – Mankind! Now this animal is capable of intelligent thinking, analyzing, talking, discussing, debating, socializing, - finally of making scientific inventions! Inventions to make life easier and inventions that could blow up this planet with the nuclear arms build-up by superpowers. Mankind had already acquired capability to destroy all God’s creations on earth – before beginning on the path and taking this first step – of creating life in its micro-organismic form!

Like CERN, who believes that if matter exists, so would anti-matter, theists too believe that if God exists, so does anti-God, the Satan or Shaitan (wonder Shaitan came from Satan or otherwise). So we have plenty of scientific advancements that are depleting our resources, polluting our rivers, polluting the very air we breathe, posing a threat to the ecological balance of our planet.
One can only hope that we are closer to playing God and saving this planet than playing Satan and destroying it! Just had to post my thoughts that came to my mind on this World Environment Day 2010! Wishes for the World Environment Day to all!

Blogger's Postscript: My apologies to my readers if this post didn’t make enough whatnonsanz. You'd rather be polite and say it makes a lot of sense! My apologies too if it was too long – but then I did not even touch upon the subject of destiny – who decides about my next post btw…

From Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact

If there is any work of fiction that has fascinated me, it has been for the imagination that goes into its making, which also perhaps happens to be the primary reason for its success . Writers have often gone beyond the realms of possibilities and challenged limitations of their days to put forth ideas that apparently seem nearly impossible in the age of its creation, but turn out to be indeed possible in time to come. One always wondered whether the ‘Pushpak Vimaan’, which transported Lord Rama, Sita and Lakshmana, was one such idea and whether the great epic, Ramayana contained such kind of imagination of the creator of the great epic, that would one day became a common mode of transport for every Tom, Dick and Hari. Or whether the ‘Aakashwani’ that one heard about in the epics was really the writer’s imagination of the things that would make life simpler (and which turned out that science and technology advanced to make it a sci-fact some time later), when millions would to listen to All India Radio’s “Aakashwani” or to put it in perspective for today’s youngsters, Radio Jockeys on FM radio today? Or even the Station Master’s announcement of the train you rushed in for is arriving on altogether another platform just for the day?!

One has always been very choosy about picking books to read, often taking the decision after several recommendations and rave reviews. Not surprising then that one decided to read the Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie only after it was awarded the Booker of Bookers – the best in 25 years of Man Booker’s award. Apart from the feeling one gets when treating oneself to an amazing masterpiece of literature, which deals with a setting in history that an Indian would easily connect to, what really caught my attention was the science fiction content it offered. Sci-fi, could I be joking, one may wonder? Perhaps even Salman Rushdie did not intend to pour an ounce of it into this marvelous work of art that deserved such acclaim. Perhaps i was only imagining! But then if any book could make me imagine things, it had succeeded to do what so many institutions did not.
After all, don’t we believe that the need of the hour in educational reform is to have schools that teach children how to think and imagine better? It was in this part of the story, when the protagonist, Salim Sinai, begins to connect to all the other children born at the stroke of the midnight hour or thereabout and can hear their voices, experience their feelings, exchange their thoughts without the use of any technology whatsoever. In what the author calls it “midnight conferences”, several children who share amongst themselves the most wonderful of traits – of having been born at the same moment as the birth of a free India, wherever they are, whatever they do, connect instantly and talk about their hopes, their dreams, their anguish, their frustrations and more. Imagination has been the key ingredient for a success of a book. It has also been the main ingredient of sci-fi. This couldn’t have happened in the ‘60s or ‘70s and like all good sci-fi, which can become a reality some day, this too has almost become a reality now. With the advent of Social Networking websites like Orkut, Facebook and Twitter, all Salim Sinai would need to do is to form a Group on such sites - ‘All those born on 15th August 1947 at the stroke of midnight or thereabout!” Salim Sinai would not need that extraordinary telepathic nose anymore.

While my daughter always wishes she could do with an ‘invisibility cloak’ that the likes of Harry Potter and Hermione wear to move around unnoticed, as the magical kids do. So do I hope and pray that we can apparate as envisioned by JK Rowling, by using their magical powers for performing acts of ‘apparition’, wherein they transport themselves to distant places of their choice with a snap of the fingers! One always hopes that this wonderful imaginative means of transport reserved for magical folks soon becomes available to muggles (non-magical folks) like me, especially when one is caught in an agonizing traffic jam in the Maximum city of Mumbai and is a couple of hours behind on a scheduled important appointment.

No surprise then that a recent report talks about the possibility of an invisibility cloak due to technological breakthroughs make this a distinct possibility some time soon. It may also interest one and all to know about the recent tech breakthrough which will enable computers to read one's minds! So i can now make out what's going on in your mind when you type in those 'nice blogpost' comments -haha!

May be my wish to apparate at my own free will, too will be a reality soon?!
Expect me to pop up with my nonsanz somewhere near you soon!
Hey so you're hoping there's a way to block someone popping up with some anti-pop product fixed at your place? You can count on that to happen too!