Anyone remember the Tower of Babel?

[blacknblue]

Or maybe the Ancient Greek stories about hubris?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ ... matechange

[Distracted]

Lordy. That's scary. What if he accidentially creates a superbug? Anybody recognize the species he's working with? There's another mycobacterium that's killed millions over the centuries. It's called Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

[JadziaKathryn]

Personally, I wish people that smart with science would try to do useful things, like cure cancer or AIDS. And yes, the Tower of Babel parallel is striking.

[justTripn]

In "Life as We Do Not Know It:The NASA Search for (And Synthesis of) Alien Life" by Peter Ward it said the creation of life in a test tube was only a matter of time and money, and that it would happen like in the next five years. And I think they were talking about something even more fundamental than this. Where they get the chemicals to go through all the required steps WITHOUT using any existing life as a template. (I think). The process is a speeded up, artificial survival of the fittest, where the scientist try to get the chemicals to go through a certain step and throw out whatever doesn't work and keep what does.

I believe the book is on my desk at work. I'll double check what it said.

http://www.amazon.com/Life-We-Not-Know-Synthesis/dp/0670034584

[TPoptarts]

Ohhhh... can I have my own pet cylon?? Pretty please??

[blacknblue]

I recall reading how captive Amerindians were deliberately given disease infected blankets by the army in order to start epidemics. I recall germ warfare research during the cold war. I recall agent orange. I recall federally funded research in the forties and fifties where black men were deliberately left untreated for syphillis, while being led to believe that they were being given a new, improved treatment, in order to provide information on exactly what kind of long term damage the virus causes as it progresses.

I am scared shitless.

[Elessar]

Personally, I wish people that smart with science would try to do useful things, like cure cancer or AIDS. And yes, the Tower of Babel parallel is striking.

That's exactly what this is about, it's not just somebody's toy novelty... How about a bacterium that goes through your body and eradicates cancerous cells one by one instead of chemo that kills an entire cluster or clusters... or a cultured injection that works its way through your arteries, genetically designed to process and remove blockages? That's exactly what the purpose of this is, to take the building blocks of nature and build something useful to our purposes.

[CX]

And I can already see military applications...

[pookha]

heyal
it isnt bad enough there is a real super staph that has killed both people i have heard of and people i know we have this stuff.

[blacknblue]

And I can already see military applications...

"If a weapon exists, it will be used."

[Asso]

And I can already see military applications...

"If a weapon exists, it will be used."

It's just so!

[Linda]

Yes, scary. And will we use this knew knowledge wisely? The jury is out on that, yet. Kind of sobers your speculation of things like a Vulcan/Human hybrid. We might never get to the point where we would be considering how to do that because now in addition to nukes, we have an alternate way to self-annihilate by using Human created bugs.

[Elessar]

It may have military applications (I'm SURE it could), but to discuss whether or not to "open that pandora's box" is a moot question because each individual technology like nuclear, biochemical, nano-tech, etc - aren't individuals Boxes. Knowledge itself is the box, and it's already open, has been for a long time, so there's not even any debate to be had about whether we should open it. It's already open, and it always will be, for better or worse.

[justTripn]

Wasn't there a DS9 episode where some race was going to ceremoniously destroy all their knowledge of some biological weapon? So all the scientists involved gathered at some remote outpost to destroy the records and the materials, AND . . . . discovered that the powers that be had decided to assissinate them as well. It was the only way to truly destroy the knowledge of the weapon. Miles O'Brien was caught up in the events.

[blacknblue]

I remember that one vaguely. Am I confused, or wasn't there one person who secretly hoarded a copy of the knowledge anyway? Or is that my paranoia?