Re-designing life

I want you and I to play a little game… I want you to pretend that you and I are sitting at dinner together. I am the owner of a very large car manufacturer, and our conversation turns to cars and pollution. You state that we should build a car that creates zero pollution and doesn’t require gas to run... I reply “okay YOU design it and we will build it.” If you are successful we will pay you $50 million.

There are some basic rules in this game. You cannot ask anyone who knows how the original car was designed for assistance. You cannot look at a blueprint of the design of a car, you must through trial and error, design your own car. Furthermore it must look and operate like current car models, but require no gas and create zero pollution.

For the purpose of this game let’s pretend that you have some knowledge of cars and how they work. You have been driving for many years and have owned and driven a number of different types and models of cars. However, you have NEVER created (designed) a car or even understand the WHOLE mechanics of how a car operates.

Some time passes and with some trial and error, you have your design for the car that will “save the world.” My company builds a prototype of your design and conducts a few basic tests. It looks like a car; it appears to operate just like any existing car, we do find a few little problems; some of the cars just explode, while some of the other the cars suddenly go into reverse.

Regardless of the potential risks, we build the car and sell them all over the world. We will certainly make a lot of money!

Would you drive a car built under those conditions, and carrying the potential risk of certain death? Would you put your kids in those cars? Even if in the short term you might save money on gas.

So what is my point? While my little game may seem rather silly, think about this - YES scientist have discovered and understand a lot about the creation of life – BUT just how much DON’T we know and understand. Scientists themselves often address just how much we don’t know, and what we know or thought we knew about each component of creating life changes all the time. Yet prior to discovering something isn’t true we often present it to be a true fact - but that doesn’t make it true.

In the past it was believed with all certainty that Scurvy was a deadly, incurable disease. It was later discovered that it was simply a deficiency in Vitamin C and simply eating fruit high in vitamin C was the total cure. It took the medical community over 40 years to adopt this as a truth! How wrong we were and how many people died unnecessarily.

In presenting the information to you, defining (based on our current understanding) the basic principles of how life is created. My goal is not to confuse you, but to demonstrate the almost unfathomable complexity of life, so you will be able to use this information and make your own decision as to whether we KNOW ENOUGH to RE-DESIGN THE CREATION OF LIFE!