In May, the media had one of their regular hypes and used huge fonts to announce that a scientist had created artificial life.
Of course, often the subsequent article gives away the truth of the situation, but the uninformed public has gone away with the false headline. The Times scientific editor began his article by declaring: ‘Synthetic life has been created in the laboratory in a feat of ingenuity…’ He pointed out that this ‘could yield microbes that make vaccines and algae that turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon biofuels’.
Bringing reality
The following day, Professor Raymond Tallis brought some reality into the situation with his headline, ‘Synthetic hysteria more like’. The editor of the journal Artificial Life commented that this was a ‘defining moment in biology’! The science editor of the Daily Mail wrote: ‘The creation of a living being in a laboratory is one of the staples of science fiction. Now it is a scientific fact’. The scientist responsible for the work declared: ‘This takes us across the border into a new world’.
