Spark of life
There has always been a sense of wonder at how, even with all of our accumulated knowledge about biochemistry and genetics there's some spark of life required to get artificially made biological constituents to behave as a living organism. Gradually we are getting closer to understanding exactly what is required for biological molecules to start behaving biologically.
About five years ago, the mystery of what triggers fertilisation was solved when Tony Lai of the University of Wales College of Medicine found an enzyme that kicked the whole process off. New Scientist reported it at the same time as indicating that his research was coming to a halt for lack of funds.
It's been known for a long time that stem cells can be jolted into cell division by an electric shock so this mundane mechanism can kick of the cell replication process. The interesting question though is that starting from the biological building blocks, phospholipids, proteins, etc, what is needed to assemble them into a state identical to a living cell, and then what, if anything is missing.
At this point the research comes head to head with religion. Because if it's possible to create an organism that respires, feeds, replicates, where's the mystery of life? What need is there for souls, spirits, and the like.
We are already at the stage of being able to grow entire organs from stem cells as replacements for people who have serious damage or illness. So far we have grown skin, bone, blood vessels, and even bladders.
Nerve tissue is likewise possible offering a future in which the paralysed may walk again without the need for any miracles.
Once we can control the start of the process from raw materials, tissue becomes repairable in a manner previously unimaginable. For some this is a nightmare scenario but for those whose bodies have parts which are diseased, undeveloped, degenerating, it offers a massively improved quality of life. A blind person could have a replacement eye grown from their own cells, deaf people could have their hearing restored.
Combined with gene therapy there could be cures for diseases like diabetes in which the pancreas could contain modified stem cells leading to the production of insulin.
There is already alarm and disquiet about these techniques with the frequent assertion that it is playing God but if that's true, so was surgery, so was treating diseases with antibiotics. The reality is that God is invested with powers that are beyond our own, the supernatural, the fabulous, the omniscient. But as science advances, such possibilities become realities and what was formerly attributed to a God, becomes mundane. That's a serious problem for the religious because science always undermines their claims and always will.
God is always positioned in the world of magic with a claim that his (it's always his) powers cannot be understood. The moment they are understood, they cease to be God's and become ours and that's the way it always goes.
The spark of life is almost within our grasp. Once producing living things is mundane, the whole business of souls, miracles, the sanctity and the value of life, becomes highly socially charged. It will require a very strong sense of socially-grounded ethics to cope with the questions that come from being able to design and grow new organisms. It's more than ever important to ground ethics in social practice and keep it away from the theists.
