Re: Attn: Atheists & Skeptics - What's wrong with answersingenesis.com?


Mark VandeWettering wrote:
> ["Followup-To:" header set to talk.origins.]
> On 2005-08-23, Jim Spaza <spaza9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > John Drayton wrote:
> >> David Jensen wrote:
> >> > On 11 Aug 2005 08:04:21 -0700, in talk.origins
> >> > "Jim Spaza" <spaza9@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> >> > <1123772661.832644.147750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> >> > >
> >> > >David Jensen wrote:
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> > >> Are you unfamiliar with Monsanto, Biogen and dozens of other companies
> >> > >> that are doing genetic modifications today? Are you unfamiliar with the
> >> > >> scientific research that allowed this to happen and is bringing even
> >> > >> more options to the future?
> >> > >
> >> > >I am familiar enough to know that slight genetic modifications have
> >> > >been performed. I'm looking for something across a family line. Maybe
> >> > >Biogen could one day make a rice plant evolve quickly into a cactus.
> >> >
> >> > Nature has done this already. While it is clear that one could
> >> > genetically modify a rice plant to be a cactus, I have no idea what you
> >> > think that would prove to you.
> >>
> >> It's also a major mistake to think that if we understand a
> >> natural mechanism, we should be able to manipulate it to
> >> do pretty much anything we like.
> >>
> >> No-one uses this kind of argument to dismiss theories about
> >> volcanoes, the composition of stars, or the composition of
> >> atoms.
> >>
> >> It's just as valid to say: "if you *really* know about the
> >> structure and composition of atoms, why isn't anyone using
> >> it to turn lead into gold by the ton?"
> >>
> >> After all, these knowall scientists claim to know the
> >> composition of both kinds of atoms :)
> >>
> >> Would you argue this Jim?
> >
> > Yes. But, as far as volcanoes, stars, and atomic structures are
> > concerned, to reproduce those reactions would take huge amounts of
> > money, energy, and time and be much more dangerous. Much more so than
> > it would take to sequence one set of DNA and change the base pairs to
> > in effect force a mutation into something much different.
>
> At the start of the Human Genome Project, funders thought that it would
> cost $3 billion dollars. Rapid improvements in automation and Moore's
> law significantly cut that number, but it was still a huge investment of
> time and money.
>
> Mark
>
> >
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> --
> >> John Drayton
> >

The original estimate was 10 billion. They wanted to get the cost
below 1 dollar a base. At the time 10 billion was an estimate that
some people thought that they couldn't make. 3 billion sounds like the
final cost and people are still working on it. There is a lot of
research in that cost. By the time the chicken genome was sequenced
they were able to do a 5 fold shotgun sequence of the genome for 30
million. The costs are even lower today.

Ron Okimoto

.

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