The Science Of Obscurity

Even Nostradamus would have been a little more specific.

Yahoo! News, front page - "Artificial life in 3 - 10 years"...followed by the incredibly vague and open ended notion that "experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of wet artificial life."

Did I just hear that experts of a little known scientific field believe that somebody, possibly anybody, within a 7 year window starting at least three years from now will have an announcement regarding artificial life? How exciting!

Immediately pursuant is the bullshit-valanche of PR from the COO of a company that seems poised to make the big discovery...as soon as they can figure out what it is.

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

Funny how everybody is going to know what a big deal it is that it would still be impossible to predict any of the seemingly fundamental ways it would change the world. Good thing this bellowing windbag has whittled the problem down to a few small issues...

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

• A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

• A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

• A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

Wow, it seems so obvious, like my idea for an inter-dimensional spacecraft. I too am very close to making an announcement. All I'm lacking before I make my great discovery is a power source capable of propelling an engine beyond the speed of light, a craft constructed of material able to withstand 4th-10th dimensional forces, and a map of the universe and points of singularity for navigational purposes. Not really major obstacles so much as they are fundamentally important to achieving success. But identifying what I need puts me that much closer to completion, just like my a-life brothers, right?

Surprisingly, ProtoLife was not actively soliciting investors for their endeavors, which really make me wonder why the hell this is even being addressed. This is definitely suspect behavior...I expect that artificial life is going to make the stem cell debate look like a symposium on Sea Monkey care when it finally happens, but why stir up the shitstorm now, with nothing to show for it?

As usual, the media ran a story where there is none, and a company drummed up hype where there was nothing to draw attention to -- be patient and we'll see a motive...they did their clumsy best to present it a gently and innocently as possible.