Recently in the media there has been a lot of hype about creating synthetic life or artificial life. Did scientist really create life? Could non-life evolve into living things? Is abiogenesis (spontaneous generation) true? Well, the answer to these questions is no. Actually, these scientists continue to support the Law of Biogenesis that life only comes from pre-existing life. Let us look at the rest of the story. It took the following: 20 highly ‘qualified and intelligent scientists’; the use of high tech computers and equipment; 40 million dollars; about 15 years of research; and yeast cells (that were already created by God) to change bacteria into bacteria. These scientists did not make bacteria from scratch, because they started with already living materials. They first had to search for two very closely related species of bacteria (Mycoplasma mycoides and Mycoplasma capricolum). Then, they removed the DNA from M. capricolum and replaced it with a synthetic copy of M. mycoides. At first the procedure did not work because of some very minor DNA copying errors, and so it appears that conditions have to be just right for this procedure to work. These scientists used bacterial cytoplasm, which was created by God, and copied the DNA code of another bacterium to make bacteria. This experiment demonstrates the fact that life does not happen by chance and accident, but by intelligence! The Bible has been stating this fact for thousands of years! The Law of Biogenesis states that life comes from life, and so we see it could not have evolved from dead material. Life had to be created by an eternal living being – God. True science continues to fit with Scripture.
Rich Stepanek
