Whether Craig Venter & Co. have “created life” is just lexicographical quibbling. Define “create.” Define “life.” A friend reminds me of Carl Sagan’s observation that his recipe for making an apple pie totally from scratch would begin with: “First create a universe…”
That kind of terminology smacks too much of folk metaphysics — vitalism, mentalism, “like can only come from like,” and so on. Scientists like Dr. Collins should steer clear of language like that and just address themselves plainly and clearly to what the work under discussion claims to have accomplished — in this case the synthesis of a fully-functional genome. (Although if, as right-to-lifers argue, life begins at conception because that’s when a unique genome comes into existence, it’s hard to see how we can deny Venter’s team the credit of having created a life…)
I thought your original post was objectionable because it was sneering at honest scientific endeavor. Venter’s people have been toiling away for years on this project, applying rigorous methodology and great ingenuity to a really hard problem. The result is a very striking one, and certainly newsworthy, even if subeditors do fall back on folk metaphysics for their headlines. Your observations about “cheap sausage” and “stuffing” were, I though, low and coarse. They were of a kind to reinforce the notion of American conservatives as gap-toothed rubes hooting at the pointy-head perfesser — a notion that is a hindrance to our winning over thoughtful, well-educated people.
And I’m still trying to figure out what a false claim of heterogenesis in 1905 has to do with a true (so far as you or I know) claim of genome synthesis in 2110. There are plenty of hoaxers and fakers in the history of science, and many honest blunderers too. Everybody knows that. Do you have any evidence that Venter and his colleagues fall into any of those categories? If you do, let’s see it. If you don’t, quit sneering.
On the larger issues arising from Venter’s result, I don’t know a better survey than this one from The New Atlantis. It’s a couple of years old, but not out of date in any important way. For a witty send-up of Venter’s self-promotional efforts, see here (and the links at the end give a good range of news coverage, including Nicholas Wade’s downbeat New York Times piece).