Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!codon1.berkeley.edu!mkkuhner
From: mkkuhner@codon1.berkeley.edu (Mary K. Kuhner;335 Mulford)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Creating life
Message-ID: <1989Nov5.014949.25863@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 5 Nov 89 01:49:49 GMT
References: <2461@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <4516@utastro.UUCP> <4782@jane.uh.edu>
Reply-To: mkkuhner@codon1.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Mary K. Kuhner)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 21

I think this debate might prosper if we noticed that
"creating life" means two different things in various
postings:

1.  Making an exact copy of an extant organism out of non-living
parts, and without an organism intervening;

2.  Making a novel organism.

I will argue that (1) is quite possible, if viruses are alive,
whereas (2) (aside from simple variations on extant organisms)
is a *long* way away.

Would reversing the chirality of the entire organism change
its chemical properties?  I seem to recall reading that it
would.  Certainly you would have to reverse every chiral molecule
involved in the synthesis.  We may accomplish (2) eventually,
but chirality reversal sounds an order of magnitude harder to me.

Mary Kuhner
mkkuhner@enzyme.berkeley.edu