[Posted October 6, 2007]

Artificial Life

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

But after all it's the same pre-existing living entity, except for a new set of chromosomes riding piggyback... This is something like President Bush announcing that he has created a new nation on Earth just because he has successfully invaded Iraq, and injected hundreds of thousands of troops and appointed a puppet government to assert control and alter the constitution and character of Iraq.

GuardianAugust 12, 2007 - ED PILKINGTON

I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth.

The Guardian can reveal that a team of 20 top scientists assembled by Mr Venter, led by the Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, has already constructed a synthetic chromosome, a feat of virtuoso bio-engineering never previously achieved. Using lab-made chemicals, they have painstakingly stitched together a chromosome that is 381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code.

The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up. The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome, which the team have christened Mycoplasma laboratorium, has been watermarked with inks for easy recognition.

It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome. go to story

The Bhaktivedantas World Sankirtan Party and Inside Nam Hatta are hosted by Hansadutta das, a senior disciple of Srila Prabhupada and trustee of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Participate or learn more about World Sankirtan Party.

Origin of Life

Colossal Hoax and Cash Cow A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

People are amazed at seeing a big machine with many, many parts, but an intelligent person knows that however wonderful a machine may be, it does not work unless an operator comes and pushes the proper button. Therefore, who is more important–the operator or the machine? So we are concerned not with the material machine–this cosmic manifestation–but with its operator, Krishna. Now you may say, "Well, how do I know that He is the operator?" Krishna says, mayadhyakshena prakritih suyate sacharacharam: [ Bhagavad-gita 9.10] "Under My direction the whole cosmic manifestation is working." If you say, "No, Krishna is not the operator behind the cosmos," then you have to accept another operator, and you must present him. But this you cannot do. Therefore, in the absence of your proof, you should accept mine. more

They may create the body, but not the living entity

excerpt from conversation with Shyamasundar das on Charles Darwin [Note: This conversation took place sometime in 1972-73 ]

SHYAMASUNDAR: There is a scientific subject which has become very popular now, called genetics, which has to do with the origins of life.

PRABHUPADA: Well these so-called scientific theories are popular now and unpopular after few years. That's all. Again something popular. They are not science. Science cannot be popular now and unpopular after some days.

SHYAMASUNDAR: But it's only because they have just discovered it.

PRABHUPADA: Discovering, partial, that's like... They cannot discover. The things are there passing on, so many things, passing on.

SHYAMASUNDAR: What it means in essence is that they have analyzed the individual cell of the living entity and they have found in each cell a set of genes, 46 in each cell. These genes contain the blueprint for the whole body, like the seed of a tree contains the whole tree. So it is possible, they say, by rearranging these genes or changing them slightly that a new type of person can come out, or a new type of living entity, from the original.

PRABHUPADA: Definitely. What we call the jiva, they might be talking of the jiva or genes. The genes, the jiva, they can have any type of body.

ATREYA RSI: Can the scientists control that, the type of genes, the kinds of body, the child will get? The theory is...

PRABHUPADA: Not theory... Just like we give dimension of the soul, so that statement is given by some man. Just like one ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair, we get information from the Puranas. So this statement is also given by a man, but he is not ordinary. He is not ordinary. So any extraordinary man can give it.

SHYAMASUNDAR: These genes are visible through a microscope, so they are not...

PRABHUPADA: This is also visible. When I say that one ten-thousandth part of the hair, it is visible. Otherwise how I say? But it may not be visible to you.

SHYAMASUNDAR: I mean these genes are not the same as the jiva [living entity] in this case.

PRABHUPADA: That is different thing. But jiva can be given any type of body. That is not difficult.

SHYAMASUNDAR: So they say that each person is different from every other person because the arrangement of the genes in his cell is uniquely his, but the same genes will be passed on...

PRABHUPADA: That depends on the father and the mother.

SHYAMASUNDAR: The same genes will be passed on to their children, so they will have characteristics like their parents in that way.

PRABHUPADA: That is the body–this body.

SHYAMASUNDAR: So they are considering that by altering these genes in certain ways, they can make very highly intelligent persons come out or very low-bred persons come out.

PRABHUPADA: But that is already there. What is their credit?

ATREYA RSI: They want to control more.

PRABHUPADA: What is the control? It is already there. It is not under your control.

SHYAMASUNDAR: Their idea is that they can make xerox copies of whatever type of personality they like.

PRABHUPADA: That's right; xerox copy means the original sample is already there. So what is the credit there?

DEVOTEE: There may be only one very, very intelligent person, but by their method they may think that they may create a whole society.

SHYAMASUNDAR: I'll read you some of their predictions. They're very frightening. They say by 1980–that's eight years from now–that they will be able to create synthetic life in the form of artificial viruses which will be used to cure some forms of genetic diseases. Artificial life. In eight years they say they will have artificial life.

PRABHUPADA: And that artificial life?

SHYAMASUNDAR: Small viruses or living organisms, very small. But by the year 2000 they say they will be able to keep...

PRABHUPADA: 2000!

SHYAMASUNDAR: Yes. That's 28 years from now. They say that they will be able to deep-freeze embryos, that means unborn babies, as insurance against nuclear holocaust and for interplanetary colonization. In other words, they can send these unborn babies in frozen form to other planets and have an arrangement for them to be born and grow in the spaceship and then go out.

PRABHUPADA: Don't waste your time with these rascals.

SHYAMASUNDAR: They'll have an artificial and mechanical baby factory, effective control of most human defects. Single-celled life will be created from chemicals off the shelf. They can make intelligent animals to do menial work. And then in 78 years they say that they will be able to regenerate...

PRABHUPADA: Just like there was Pan American, they were selling tickets for going to Chandraloka [moon]. Reservation.

ATREYA RSI: Prabhupada, is it possible that man could ever make even a one-celled living being?

PRABHUPADA: Even if he makes, what is credit there? Cells are already there. What is the question of making?

SHYAMASUNDAR: All they're doing is creating the conditions for the jiva to enter, actually. Isn't it?

PRABHUPADA: Whatever their proposal, these things are already there. So even they can create something, xerox copy, what is the credit?

SHYAMASUNDAR: But then they'll have control over it. That's their...

PRABHUPADA: No, no control, because you are beginning from something on which you have no control. So where is your control?

SHYAMASUNDAR: "From now on I am the master. I can create more Einsteins. I can create many Einsteins."

PRABHUPADA: But first of all keep Einstein living. Why he is dying?

SHYAMASUNDAR: That's on their program too.

PRABHUPADA: That's on their program–that is is another foolish thing.

SHYAMASUNDAR: Postponement of death by at least 50 years...

PRABHUPADA: So what is the profit? After 50 years he has to die. Stop, stop death, then that is credit.

SHYAMASUNDAR: They say they will be able to take out someone like Einstein's brain when his body dies and keep it alive, a disembodied brain, and use it like a computer.

PRABHUPADA: All right. Whatever. No. All rascals, fools. As if in the brain there is the thing. What is this brain? It is a material substance, what is there, lump of matter.

SHYAMASUNDAR: Just like they can take a heart out of a living being and they put it in a machine and keep it alive and then they transplant it to some other person.

PRABHUPADA: The same intelligence, yasyatma-buddhih kunape tri-dhatuke [Srimad-Bhagavatam 10.84.13], they're trying to find out life in this lump of matter. That is their defect.

SHYAMASUNDAR: They'll spend so many billions of dollars, and years of work.

PRABHUPADA: The same example. Just like computer machine. They do not find that the machine is made by a brain which is different from this material. But he's trying to find out a brain from this. This is their childish... The brain is different from machine. The machine is lump of iron. And the one who is working with the machine is a different from the machine. That they do not know. That they do not know. That is their defect. Now what is this computer machine will do unless there is a worker in the computer room, highly salaried man?

SHYAMASUNDAR: Unless it's plugged into the wall it doesn't work.

PRABHUPADA: Lump of matter, iron, that's all. But that they do not know. They are so foolish and rascal. Then they're trying to find out... This is same childishness, that "I'm trying to find out the singer within the box, within the box." It is like that.

SVARUP DAMODAR: Actually the proposals that they made here are very speculative type. It's just a projection that can be made by their own speculation.

PRABHUPADA: That's all. It is simply mental speculation.

SHYAMASUNDAR: They haven't even come near to these things yet.

PRABHUPADA: They'll never come.

SVARUP DAMODAR: Mostly scientists are digging up, trying to find out something when they get some very basic preliminary ideas, they speculate so much about this, so on. "In such and such time I'll be able to make such and such things." Every scientist does like that. Ultimately it is all, it is always...

PRABHUPADA: Failure.

SVARUP DAMODAR: Something on the way, something comes up.

PRABHUPADA: Then there, it has changed. It has changed. The circumstances have changed.

SVARUP DAMODAR: [indistinct] very, very delicate, the substances that they are handling, the cells of the the microorganisms. They are also subjected to different changes, without knowing anything. So, but they're taking that things are thus perfect, based on their perfect thinking, what they have learned is infallible.

PRABHUPADA: Therefore our shastra says these classes of men are no better than cows and asses. Sa eva go-kharah [SB 10.84.13]. Go-kharah means cows and asses. We take them like go-kharah, cows and asses. They may speculate, but we take them, "You are no better than asses and cows."

SHYAMASUNDAR: They work very hard for a little morsel of grass.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. That's right. Some fools will give them credit, and that credit is given by such class of men: dogs, hogs, camels and asses. No good men. Krishna conscious men will never give them anything. But men like dogs, hogs, asses and camels will give them. Samstutah purushah pashuh, this they are. Shva-vid-varahoshtra-kharaih samstutah [SB 2.3.19]. Samstutah means eulogized. This class of men will be eulogized by whom? By dogs, hogs, camels, and asses. No Vyasadeva will give them credit; no Narada will give them credit; neither Krishna will give them credit, nor followers of Krishna consciousness will give them credit. Because they have a criterion to know what kind of man he is. They have got shastra, and from the shastra it is understood one who is accepting this body as the self, he is no better than cow and ass. That is our culture. He has not still found out that the worker of the machine is different. This body is just like machine. May be composed of highly mechanical arrangement, electronic parts and this and that, so many things, but after all, it is a machine! And this machine must be worked by somebody. He must be living. He is not machine.

SHYAMASUNDAR: They can't create a machine that will act like a human?

PRABHUPADA: No, no. Even if it can act, still it has to be worked. Unless I push the buttons, you cannot work. That they are missing. Just like you say that computer machine is the same, or so many things, but as soon as you say that "I want this," immediately. But you have to push the button. This machine is working when I push this plug into the electricity.

Sri Guru and Gauranga