Hold on!

Craig Venter talks on TED about working on genomes and the creation of synthetic life.

Asked:

Couldn't you be accused of playing God?

He said:

Oh, we aren't playing.

Humour aside, his talk is absolutely fascinating if somewhat inaccessible. Another TED talk I watched talked about how early on we are in the realm of human development and civilization. If you think how long people have been around, then where we were 4000 years ago, then 2000, then 500, then 100, then 10 years ago... the pace of change is quite remarkable.

I have a friend who is doing his PHD in molecular genetics... the rest of our flat at university was doing commerce. He doesn't tell us much about what he does other than that it involves stem cell research and potentially healing quadriplegics!

Between understanding biology, harnessing the exchange and processing of information and getting over many of the biases that have held us back, it is difficult if not impossible to comprehend the world that we could live in in 50 years time.

Trying to keep up.

Talk about something simple like social evolution, people haven't even figured out the etiquette of status updates on Facebook! We aren't used to people knowing everything. We aren't used to communication being so easy. We aren't used to honestly challenging the way we think and changing.

We are used to barriers, prejudice, hiding, lying, fooling ourselves and others, and being in clicques.

Hold on to your seat belts!