Complexity Digest 2010.12 - 01

2010/06/04

Editor-in-Chief: Carlos Gershenson
Founding Editor: Gottfried Mayer

A synthetic creation story, Nature News Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: Last week's announcement of the 'chemical synthesis of a living organism' by Craig Venter and his colleagues (...) heads up a very long tradition. Claims such as this have been made throughout history.
That's not to cast aspersions on the new results. (...) set in a historical context, what the researchers have achieved is not so much a 'synthesis of life' as a semi-synthetic recreation of what we currently deem life to be. And, as with previous efforts, it should leave us questioning the adequacy of that view.