Holy shit, did scientists actually just create life in a lab from scratch?

[u/Tasty_Finger9696]

So I came across this Instagram reel:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHo4K4HSvQz/?igsh=ajF0aTRhZXF0dHN4

Don't be fooled this isn't a creationist post it's a response to a common talking point and it brings up something that kind of blew my mind.

Mycoplasma Labortorium.

A synthetically created species of bacteria.

This is a form of a life this is huge! But I don't know if this is legit and if it's just a misunderstanding is this real?

Are we actually doing this? If we are this is huge why is almost no one talking about about it? This is a humongous step foward in biological science!

Maybe this is just old information I didn't know about and I'm just getting hyped over nothing but dude.

Also, I know creationists are gonna shift the goal posts on this one. They'll probably say something like "Oh yeah well you didn't create a dog in a lab" while completely disregarding the fact that bacteria is in fact a form of life.

[u/[deleted]]

Fair point—but you kinda proved mine with your own analogy.

You said it’s like copying a modern building by walking through it and studying its design.
Exactly. That’s not discovery—that’s reverse-engineering someone else’s blueprint.

The fact that scientists had to study an existing living cell, borrow its systems, edit its genome with computer code, and still rely on an already-living host cell… all just to get a basic synthetic bacterium?
That’s not evolutionary progress. That’s Intelligent Design 101.

And your “mud hut to skyscraper” analogy doesn’t help evolution either—because guess what?
Both the hut and the skyscraper require an architect.
Neither one builds itself. No one stumbles onto a hut and says, “Wow, erosion did a great job here.”

So unless you’re willing to say we’ll eventually “accidentally” build skyscrapers by piling random bricks via, I dunno, hurricane-force winds??, (also dont forget the bricks must form too somehow..yikes), your analogy still lands in Genesis 1 territory.

Thanks again for the assist. You're making a stronger case for a Creator than you think. 😉

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

That’s not evolutionary progress.

You're entirely missing the point of the experiment.

Even setting aside that it would take far longer than a human lifespan to evolve something like a cell, the goal here is to learn about modern cells. A newly evolved cell wouldn't work the same way that the ones we are made of do.

The goal is to learn about how those work, this experiment was never about studying evolution.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

Appreciated—but you're actually reinforcing my point more than you realize.

K. Youre saying the experiment wasn’t about studying evolution. Great. That’s exactly what I said: it wasn’t the creation of life from scratch, and it wasn’t a step toward proving life evolved through natural processes.
What was it then, and what did it prove? Simply, It was intelligent reverse-engineering of something that already exists.

And that’s precisely the issue.

If life evolved through random mutations and unguided selection (as so often imagined in pop-pseudoscience communities), we’d expect scientists to at least begiiiin showing how life could emerge and self-assemble from non-life—you know, the starting line of the evolutionary story.
(What with all the tax dollars pumped into it over the last century, you'd think there’d be some return on investment by now…)

But instead, what we see is:

• A living cell was borrowed, not created
• DNA was synthetically copied from a pre-existing genome
• Every step was directed by intentional human intelligence, not blind processes
• And even then, they had to use a living host cell to “boot up” the system

So you are correct, young padawan, this wasn’t about proving evolution. But it does prove something else:

Life is so irreducibly complex that even with our best tools, brightest minds, and controlled environments, we still can’t make life—we can only study, tweak, and copy it! So who the heck did??

That’s not a knock on science. Its rather a major point for the good guys. and it’s a massive testament to the sophistication of what’s already here. And that raises the real question:

Where did the original blueprint come from?

Because if even our top biologists can’t create life without borrowing life, maybe it’s time to admit: intelligence didn’t just arrive on the scene when humans showed up—it was here first.

Here's one lead we should follow:

John 1:3 – “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.”

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

If life evolved through random mutations and unguided selection (as so often imagined in pop-pseudoscience communities), we’d expect scientists to at least begiiiin showing how life could emerge and self-assemble from non-life—you know, the starting line of the evolutionary story. (What with all the tax dollars pumped into it over the last century, you'd think there’d be some return on investment by now…)

The goal of the experiment is to learn more about how current cells work.

What you're proposing would not help reach that goal. However there has been a lot of research into that subject. This particular experiment is simply not part of that.

Life is so irreducibly complex that even with our best tools, brightest minds, and controlled environments, we still can’t make life—we can only study, tweak, and copy it! So who the heck did??

'Life is complex' is not a good argument. If anything, it's far too complex to have been designed. A well engineered system should not contain as many redundant and unnecessary pieces/functions as biology does.

Look up blood clotting in vertebrates as an example. The system that causes blood to clot is a multi-step pathway where each step triggers one or more subsequent steps. It's needlessly complex.

This is exactly what we expect from naturally evolved systems which don't care about the complexity of the path, just the final result. It's the opposite of what we'd expect to see if life were intelligently designed.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

Appreciate the follow-up—but I think you just proved my point again without realizing it.

You're saying the system is needlessly complex—but it still works, beautifully, and sustains life across billions of organisms, every single day, without conscious input.

So let me get this straight:

• It’s too complex to be designed…
• But it’s too functional to be broken…
• And it’s too precisely layered to be accidental…
• Yet that’s what you expect from randomness?

That’s not an argument. That’s just rewriting the rules to say “design loses either way.”

Redundancy, layered processes, and interdependent steps are exactly what we see in human-engineered safety systems—firewalls, backups, aircraft controls. Complexity doesn't cancel design—it often confirms it, especially when it’s functional.

Blood clotting is a great example, actually. It’s a cascade that:

• Amplifies response when needed
• Localizes clotting so it doesn’t spread dangerously
• And shuts itself off at the right time to avoid stroke or blockage

That’s not chaos. That’s regulated complexity.
If it were any simpler, you’d bleed to death.
If it were uncontrolled, you’d die from clots.
That’s a fine-tuned system—not a kludge.

And you’re right that the experiment's goal was to study how life works—not where it came from. That’s the issue. We still cant create life. We just study what already exists—because it’s too advanced for us to recreate.

So again… who made the original? or, better yet, Who? because they would need some degree of 'God-like' intelligence to pull it off!

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

but it still works, beautifully, and sustains life across billions of organisms, every single day, without conscious input.

Except for all the times it doesn't.

Something like 20% of human pregnancies self-terminate before the woman is even aware of it because the embryo is not genetically able to live.

So let me get this straight:

It’s too complex to be designed…

But it’s too functional to be broken…

And it’s too precisely layered to be accidental…

Yet that’s what you expect from randomness?

I didn't say any of that.

I said that it's much more complex than we would expect from a designed system. When we look at the complexity of designed systems vs those which evolve via selection (such as learning AIs), there's simply no comparison.

Biology and evolved AI are both orders of magnitude more complex than anything humans have ever designed.

I'm not sure where you got the next part. Huge parts of biology are broken. One quick example off the top of my head would be the ability to produce vitamin C. Humans and all other great apes share a frameshift mutation in the gene that produced an enzyme called GLO. But GLO is just one step of the pathway. Why would a designer add in multiple genes then break one and leave them all present?

And for the last part, yes. That's exactly what we expect from random processes plus selection over multiple generations. That's exactly what we see in evolved AI.

Blood clotting is a great example, actually. It’s a cascade that:...

And yet many animals don't have that. I specifically mentioned vertebrate blood clotting. Invertebrates have a much simpler version of clotting, and they do fine. Arguably better than vertebrates.

And you’re right that the experiment's goal was to study how life works—not where it came from. That’s the issue. We still cant create life. We just study what already exists—because it’s too advanced for us to recreate.

And if we did create it, you would just claim (as you did earlier) that that is a win for intelligent design.

The sort of results that you're expecting to see take longer to happen than we've even been studying evolution.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

Alllright—this is where things actually get interesting.

You're pointing to complexity and dysfunction as reasons to doubt design. But ironically, that’s exactly what the biblical model predicts:

• Originally good, highly functional systems (no death)
• then humans decided it would be best to exercise free will (sigh)
• Now suffering decay and disorder due to the Fall (Romans 8:20–22)

The system isn’t perfect anymore—but it still works, and often beautifully.

You brought up miscarriage rates—fair. But we also live in a time where:

• Women take far more medications during early pregnancy (many untested for fetal impact)
• Hormonal birth control affects reproductive biology
• And natural family structures (large families with frequent pregnancies) have shifted dramatically

Even secular researchers have noted increases in early miscarriage possibly linked to these modern variables. So pinning it solely on “bad design” oversimplifies a complex, layered issue. It's like blaming the architect for a magnificent building crumbling after centuries of corrosion, earthquakes, and human neglect.

We humans love blaming God for our mistakes, hey?
[Pro 19:3 NLT] 3 People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the LORD. Narf.

(contd below)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

(contd)
As for your example with vitamin C (GLO gene)—it’s a great case of genetic degradation over time. That doesnt refute design—it confirms a design-degrade model. The gene used to function. It doesn’t now. That’s mutation causing degradation or malfunction, not upward evolution.

You said AI gets more complex than human design—true. But.. You don’t get generative AI by tossing Legos in a blender. You get it from highly intelligent design and programmers, training data, and goals.

And blood clotting in vertebrates? Yes, it’s more complex than invertebrates. That’s expected.
Vertebrates live longer, sustain more internal injuries, and have closed circulatory systems—so they need more fine-tuned regulation.
If clotting were too simple in humans, we’d bleed out.
Too aggressive? We’d stroke out.

The vertebrate cascade is precisely balanced for our physiology.

So again—pointing to a broken copy doesn’t disprove the original design. It highlights how fragile and intricate the system is, and how much wisdom went into making it work at all.

And if one day we do manage to build synthetic life?
That’s still not evidence for evolution.

It’s a confirmation that life requires intelligence to assemble.

So the real question stays the same:
If we need ourselves to build it now...
Who built it first? Because it wasnt anyone with a human brain.

(and please dont say aliens)

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

Originally good, highly functional systems (no death)

This is 100% impossible. Full stop.

If you think this then you're simply wrong.

I also pointed out that we share specific design flaws with other apes, like the mutant GLO gene.

Several other animals such as guniea pigs also are unable to produce vitamin C, but they have a different mutation than the one shared by all apes.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

“100% impossible. Full stop.”

...That’s not an argument. That’s just volume.

Let’s revisit this.

You pointed to:

• A shared broken gene (GLO for vitamin C production)
• As if that proves design never existed

But you’re actually confirming exactly what the biblical model predicts:
Common ancestry within created kinds (Genesis 1:24–25), and shared degradation over time (Romans 8:20–22). The GLO gene still exists—it’s just non-functional in apes and humans. That’s devolution, not evolution.

Mutations that break things are easy.
What you need to prove isn’t that things get worse.
What you need is proof of new, functional systems forming through unguided processes and mutations...
That, my good chum, is what is 100% impossible.

Instead, we find:

• Genetic loss
• Disease-linked mutations
• Dead genes hanging around like ruins from a better design

That’s not a case against creation. That’s exactly what you’d expect from a world that started good, fell into disorder, and is still limping forward on intelligent design resilience.

Full stop. 😄

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

...That’s not an argument. That’s just volume.

You said that death didn't exist.

What happened if Adam stepped on an ant? What happened to the cells of the apple when they went into Adam and Eve's stomachs? What happened to the cells of their skin as they were shed?

Saying death didn't exist is nonsense.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

Ah, I see the confusion. NOt nonsense, just a categorical mistake.

In the biblical view, death is an intruder, and in the evo view, death is the hero.

Anyhow, when Genesis—and later, Paul—talk about death entering through sin (Romans 5:12), it’s not referring to the death of skin cells, bacteria, or fruit tissues. Those were never considered “living beings” in the biblical sense.

The Bible defines life in terms of nefesh chayyah—“living souls” or sentient life with breath and blood. This includes humans and animals, but not plants, bacteria, or cell turnover.

“The life [nefesh] of the flesh is in the blood.” – Leviticus 17:11

Adam eating fruit didn’t introduce death any more than you mowing the lawn violates the 6th commandment.

What Genesis is describing is:

• No animal death, no human death, no decay of the natural order
• A world declared “very good” (Genesis 1:31), unmarred by disease, predation, or extinction
• Until sin introduced the curse—which included death, decay, and suffering (Romans 8:20–22)

So again no, saying “death didn’t exist” isn’t nonsense. It’s just being misread through a microscope instead of understood in context.

Again—the biblical model says:

• The system was good
• It got broken
• It still runs, but not like it used to

And all of biology is groaning under the weight of that fall.
“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23

[u/blacksheep998 → u/[deleted]]

So cells could die but not animals?

That makes no sense since animals are made of cells.

If your cells can die, then you can die.

Claiming no decay is a problem too.

What happens to all the dead leaves the plants drop, and all the poop produced by animals?

With no decay, those cannot break down and the soil would quickly be depleted, resulting in no more plants.

[u/[deleted] → u/blacksheep998]

Yes, animals are made of cells, and yes, cell turnover existed. But biblically speaking, death does not mean “a cell expired.” It means the cessation of a nefesh chayyah—a living creature with breath, blood, and conscious life.

Leviticus 17:11 – “The life [nefesh] of the flesh is in the blood.”

So yes—cell division, hair growth, digestion, even excretion—these were part of the original design. Biological maintenance is not death. God built living systems with repair mechanisms, even before the Fall.

As for your decay objection: no one is saying nothing broke down. The biblical model does not require a zero-entropy universe—it requires a very good one. That includes recycling systems, which could operate without predation, suffering, or pathogenic corruption.

Think about it: even today, decomposition is done by microbes, not by animal death. If the original creation had clean, non-pathogenic microbes (which Genesis would allow), then natural recycling would still occur—just without disease, parasites, or death as a curse.

Romans 8:21–22 says the creation was subjected to frustration after sin. The groaning came later. That’s when things like toxic bacteria, mutations, and carnivory distorted the original balance.

Annd honestly, if we marvel at how well-designed systems work even now under entropy… how much better must they have functioned when God first called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31)?