{"id":350,"date":"2010-06-17T15:41:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T15:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2010\/06\/17\/dr-gopee-21\/"},"modified":"2020-05-23T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T10:24:12","slug":"dr-gopee-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/dr-gopee-21\/","title":{"rendered":"God should be proud of Craig Venter"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/strong><\/span>Dr R Neerunjun Gopee\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When I read about the breakthrough exploit that Dr Craig Venter and his colleagues had succeeded in creating life through synthetic biology, I thought of a very senior doctor friend who proudly narrated to me one day how his son, who had come down for a holiday, shot at him with \u2018how can you be so stupid!\u2019 He could not quite grasp an abstruse explanation the son was giving.<\/span><\/p>\n

He felt that this was in the order of things, because science had moved so fast since his own graduation days that several newer concepts were light-years removed from what he had learnt in medical school. And this applies to all of us of course, especially if we do not keep up and are practising in different although related fields.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he was quietly happy because it showed that his son had bettered on him \u2013 which is what progress, not to say evolution, is all about. Similarly, if we are all God\u2019s children then God should be very proud that son Craig Venter has upped the ante. However, it seems that this is not the way that this extraordinary scientific feat has been looked at by some people. It is not clear whether they were appointed by God to speak on His behalf.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some comments that have been made:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Some ethicists, however, expressed concerns. \u201cVenter is not merely copying life artificially… he is going towards the role of a god \u2013 creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally,\u201d said Professor Julian Savulescu, an ethicist at the University of Oxford.<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor John Harris, an expert on biomedical ethics at Manchester University, said: \u201cThis is heady stuff which Venter admits has powerful potential for both good and ill. While Venter is very precise about the possible benefits he is not specific about the dangers. This work deserves enthusiasm, but only so long as the risks are given attention commensurate with the benefits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is really dangerous is these scientists’ ambitions for total control over nature, which many people describe as \u2018playing God\u2019. The claim of authorship of nature goes hand-in-hand with the claim to monopoly patent rights over it,\u201d said David King of Human Genetics Alert.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

God is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent \u2013 all-knowing and all powerful. One must assume that this means God knows the past, the present and the future \u2013 has known it from the beginning of creation (uh, what was before <\/em>the creation too, namely the past). Who, pray, has defined the role of a god<\/em> — or did God communicate this to someone in particular? An omniscient God must have anticipated that someday someone called Craig Venter would create artificial life? And if so, and if He was against His role being copied, since He is omnipotent, surely He could have stopped the son before he even began his experimentation? But then again, even before that stage was reached, He could simply have stopped Craig from being born, see?<\/span><\/p>\n

And why is it that life that exists naturally cannot coexist with artificial life? Could the message not have been given in advance by God to whoever, if there was any objection to this event happening someday \u2013 which event should have been anticipated through omniscience?<\/span><\/p>\n

Heady stuff no doubt, but why charge Venter with not being \u2018specific about the dangers?\u2019 <\/em>God created man, right? So was he specific about man\u2019s \u2018potential for both good and ill?\u2019 <\/em>Obviously no, because man has been allowed freedom to exercise unrestrained his potential for ill, as we can witness everyday all over the world. And He did not warn about the risks either, did He? And if he knew them, and that there was a potential for ill, then why did He in-build them into His creature? Surely God is not such a bad planner?<\/span><\/p>\n

But then, one line of thought says that God created man in His own image. Does this refer to appearance only, or does it refer to behaviour as well? In that case, big problem isn\u2019t it \u2013 means that God himself has the potential for ill? Could that be the reason that God did not give as much \u2018attention commensurate with the benefits\u2019 <\/em>to the risks?<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are getting confused \u2013 no apologies, so am I!<\/span><\/p>\n

And who placed the ambition in man\u2019s, scientists\u2019 minds, to want \u2018playing God<\/em>?\u2019<\/em> Ah, I know. It\u2019s not God \u2013 it\u2019s free will. But isn\u2019t it God who conferred this free will, and gave intelligence, and ability to think?<\/span><\/p>\n

And to come back to the image business, why should the centipede not think that he too has been created in God\u2019s image? If he is denied this right, wouldn\u2019t that be discrimination? Perhaps God should answer Bertrand Russell\u2019s question about whether he created the lowly centipede as well, and what for?<\/span><\/p>\n

In view of so many unanswered questions flowing from the God hypothesis, perhaps it might be better to leave out God altogether in this, and align with the position of people who know at first-hand what they are talking about rather than wildly speculating. Like, \u2018Scientists in Britain applauded the achievement as one of the most important moments in genome research. \u201c[It] is a landmark study that represents a major advance in synthetic biology,\u201d said Professor Paul Freemont of Imperial College London, co-director of the Centre for Synthetic Biology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis now provides a ‘proof of concept’. The applications of this enabling technology are enormous and one might argue this is a key step in the industrialisation of synthetic biology leading to a new era of biotechnology,\u201d he added. Professor Douglas Kell, chief executive of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, said the study was an important step in the development of a new area of science. \u201cSynthetic biology is a relatively new field and within the global research community there is some truly avant-garde science happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, if God so wants, He can always stop Venter right away\u2026 or he may decide that, because he is omnipotent, He does not feel threatened by a mere mortal. On the contrary he mat feel quite happy to have some company in His task as creator. How exhilarating!<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 17 June 2010<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-5E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}