News media have been buzzing about โSpudCell,โ claiming that scientists have finally created life in the lab. CNN, for example, offered this hyped headline, โ๐๐๐๐๐ฃ๐ฉ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐จ ๐จ๐๐ฎ ๐ฉ๐๐๐ฎ ๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ช๐๐ก๐ฉ ๐ ๐๐๐ก๐ก ๐๐ง๐ค๐ข ๐จ๐๐ง๐๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ค๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐๐ง๐จ๐ฉ ๐ฉ๐๐ข๐โ โ the implication being that the chemical origin of life via unguided natural processes is virtually solved. Perhaps you have heard the news?
There are only three problems with these claims.
First, what they built isnโt viably alive.
Second, scientists didnโt make it from scratch; they scavenged parts from pre-existing cells.
And third, though SpudCell is a brilliant accomplishment for molecular biologists, it doesnโt demonstrate life arising by natural causes. If anything, it shows that life requires intelligent design.
You see, all that happened was that scientists took pre-existing material – ribosomes, enzymes and genetic information โ from other cells and combined it to make a new cell. The most significant of these borrowed materials is the genome scientists scavenged from pre-existing cells to make their “spud cell”. This strand of DNA is the complex operating system with millions of pieces of complex sequenced information that tells the cell how to function. Scientists still have no viable explanation for how such a complex operating system could arise via unguided chemical processes.
Furthermore, this “Frankenstein” cell consisting of scavenged parts from pre-existing cells is hardly viable. It dies after only a few generations. It cannot manufacture its own army of molecular machines needed for it to function effectively. Neither can it manufacture its own proteins and ribosomes and it cannot properly manufacture and process its own nutrients. Consequently it needs to be fed a constant supply of ribosomes and nutrients from other pre-existing sources.
As impressive as the manufacture of ‘spud cell’ is โ demonstrating some ground-breaking bio-molecular procedures โ ‘spud cell’ remains a non-viable cell built from the scavenged parts of pre-existing cells.
Several years ago, I “made” my own electric guitar. In fact, I “made” three over a period of twelve months. Sounds impressive, right? But the reality is that I simply purchased kits with pre-constructed parts and put them together. The neck and headstock were already constructed with perfectly positioned frets. The body was already shaped with routings for the electrical components. All the necessary hardware came with the kits as well – tuning knobs, bridge, pickups and wiring โ all pre-made. All I had to do was bolt the neck onto the body, paint it and then add the hardware. I made none of the components myself. All of them were constructed by artisans with much more skill than me.
The construction of the ‘spud cell’ is in the same category. The scientists who put this cell together are relying on parts that were constructed by an artisan of infinitely greater skill than themselves. They were effectively borrowing from God.
The impressive biological engineering that went into the creation of ‘spud cell’ demonstrates that intelligent design is necessary for the creation of life. Unguided chemical processes could never have achieved the creation of even this weak and unviable cell, let alone a fully functioning cell teaming with tens of thousands of living molecular machines and containing an operating system of billions of specific instructions.
For these reasons and more, even the New York Times admits, โmost synthetic biologists agree that no artificial cell has yet passed that threshold between lifelike and alive โ and SpudCellโs originators do not claim to have created life.โ