Let me just say I hope they aren\'t funded by my taxes and ...........good luck! IF evolution is true and IF it took millions (if not billions of years) then these guys must surely be gamblers. Better odds by far putting the money into satellites to look at more places in space for other life forms, or for that matter, buying a lotto ticket! Better returns and better odds by a massive (some would say infinate) magnitude.

@Australian - lolwut
Back on planet earth; Wow this is looking good, looks like biological engineering is a future possibility game changer, maybe this century.

I\'d agree we generally only apply the theory of evolution to what we see (i.e. carbon-based life), but I wouldn\'t say say the theory of evolution is carbon-specific. It already is a general theory.
And, Australian, they\'ve clearly made a huge amount amount of progress already. I wouldn\'t be so certain. Your god of the gaps shrinks ever further ;-)

I don\'t see how even in the success of this so called creation of life can prove abiogenesis to be possible.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.skeptic/msg/c959e739f100f825?pli=1

One step closer to the Zombie apocalypse!

Is that why the bible claims that Adam is made from dirt. Perhaps he will be silicon based life form.
Also, A crop circle implies silicon based humanoids exists.

If they are successful in this project, they will have proved that it didn\'t take intelligence to create life (lol sarcastically).

Whuang86, if it\'s the creation of life from inorganic matter, then what is left to prove? It\'s certainly possible if it is in fact DONE.
But then, the last person I discussed this with dismissed abiogenesis because he\'d \"never seen rocks get up and start walking around\". I rebutted that I\'d never seen Eden on Google Earth. :-)
This is incredibly fascinating research, and in some ways overdue.

Lol we are going to invest countless man hours purposefully creating a non self replicating model of a cell, using the real self replicating organisms as a model by design. After doing this we will be justified in concluding life arose spontaneously by chance from inatimate matter by some random process.
Does this prove that humans are injection molded because mannequins are? Sad the utter lack of logic employed is too often uncritically accepted but then again they will become vain in their imaginations was foretold. Miller and Urey surely will be enthused.

The Australian makes me laugh (and cringe). It\'s not really and IF and it\'s a more credible idea than the concept of the big imaginary being in the sky with the pearly gates - or any other bedtime story (depends on your religion I suppose).
Humans exploring their world and pushing the boundaries of their knowledge, now that\'s more interesting than dreaming up faery stories to scare the little children isn\'t it?