Help me answer this question...

[JRF2k]

A friend of mine, who is a theist, posed this question to me and I couldn't answer it at the time. I thought I would pass it along and see if anyone knew.

He asked why can't we take the constituent parts of a thing, the atoms, molecules, compounds, say of a  sunflower seed and make a sunflower seed out of it. Or if we knew the all the parts of an apple why cannot we make an apple out of those parts?

Thanks for the responses.

[curiosityandthecat]

A friend of mine, who is a theist, posed this question to me and I couldn't answer it at the time. I thought I would pass it along and see if anyone knew.

He asked why can't we take the constituent parts of a thing, the atoms, molecules, compounds, say of a  sunflower seed and make a sunflower seed out of it. Or if we knew the all the parts of an apple why cannot we make an apple out of those parts?

Thanks for the responses.

...where does it say we can't?

The only thing stopping us is having "tweezers" on that scale. It's something they run into in nanotechnology: if you want to move individual atoms, you need "tweezers" (of some sort) that are of an appropriate size. Think of trying to move a pea while wearing boxing gloves; pretty difficult. That's essentially what happens. Problem is, at that size, electrical charges get funky and things just tend to stick together. So it's a matter of finding "tweezers" with atom-sized tongs with stickiness that can be turned on and off.

Once we get to that point, there's absolutely nothing stopping someone from, were they so inclined, making an apple from its essential blueprint. That's not to say the constructed apple would be alive, per se. Merely constructed. I believe a woman named Mary, whilst trapped inside a lodge by inclement weather, wrote a book about just that thing...

[Asmodean]

Yup. What Cat said.

Although I'd like to add that if you are working on a molecular scale, you can build somethig by following a blueprint. It is incredibly energy consuming and impractical with today's technology though.

[LARA]

At one point in the past we had no concept of chemistry; the world was thought to be composed of the four elements of fire, earth, air and water.  Gradually a picture of how atoms fit together came into focus, we discovered more about their nature, constructed the periodic chart and could determine scientifically how elements came together to form molecules.  And later, we could synthesize naturally occurring molecules that were important to us.  Take for example, vitamin C, which was first synthesized in 1934.  We can now mass produce this vitamin as well as others and they work exactly the same as if we were to obtain the same pure vitamins from a natural source.  I used to joke to my friends and family about producing meat in vats for human consumption, and have read that growing muscle tissue in vats is now basically possible, albeit technically difficult, expensive and far less appealing to most people than the hoofed variety.  And on the entire artificial life forefront, Craig Venter is heading up a project to create an artificial lifeform with the simplest genetic code possible, to be dubbed Mycoplasma laboratorium.  I see no reason why we couldn't eventually produce fruit, or some reasonable fruit tissue facsimile thereof, from it's basic chemical constituents and a basic DNA blueprint in the future.  As to why we would want to, rather than just plant a tree...well maybe just because we could, but it probably would be too expensive and technically difficult to catch on.

[Moses]

There is something in science called the Heisenberg Uncertainty prinicple. It pretty much states that we cannot know the EXACT position in space-time of a particle. This is due to the fact that all particles are essentially like little waves that move slightly and this causes confusion between the momentum of a particle and the position of the particle.

However, maybe someday we will figure out a grand unified science that could show us if the universe is deterministic or indeterministic. If it is deterministic than we hypothetically predict the location in space-time of a particle 100%. I am skeptical of that however.

Here is a link:

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/208/jan27/hup.html

[myleviathan]

A friend of mine, who is a theist, posed this question to me and I couldn't answer it at the time. I thought I would pass it along and see if anyone knew.

He asked why can't we take the constituent parts of a thing, the atoms, molecules, compounds, say of a  sunflower seed and make a sunflower seed out of it. Or if we knew the all the parts of an apple why cannot we make an apple out of those parts?

Thanks for the responses.

Theists are very quick to point out the flaws in science to their supposed advantage. Maybe you'll accept Jesus as your own personal Lord and Savior if you stop worrying over particles and such.

[dodgecity]

A very interesting question. In no way does it prove or even suggest the existence of a god. Apologist's are really pulling random shit out of their asses these days.