Agreed. Organisms are alive - their constituent atoms and molecules are not. It is silly to talk about living matter. What is the difference between a living carbon atom and a dead one? :-)

Wasp stings are made of zinc. Is that living zinc??? Is the phosphorus in our DNA a living metal?

That vital spark idea is so quaint and medieval yet people, who should know better, still cling to it. I bet it's what Star Trek writers imagine the scanner are looking for when they scan for life signs.

: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gene_synthesis
: Here, grab the other end of that goalpost, and I'll help you move it.
: "Nobody has made a completely synthetic cell" seems like a safe
: place to put it for the moment.

Vital spark believers have to adopt the, 'you can't absolutely disprove it' position because there is no evidence or mechanism or observation to back up the idea.

I can't absolutely disprove the VS idea just as I can't absolutely disprove the tooth fairy. Both ideas are equally pointless/productive.

I imagine that there are two drivers behind the completely artificial cell projects:

1. doing the work will teach us a lot and the knowledge and techniques will be useful.
2. it will settle the debate and we can move on to fussing over other pointless nonsense - like, 'how do we KNOW that shoes can't think?'

But after seeing the Indoctrination Theory posts on you tube I am convinced that some people don't care for evidence - they will believe what they want to believe because they have emotional/philosophical needs that drive them to cling to what they feel they need. It is normal human behavior. We aren't very rational but then what would you expect from monkeys? :-)

: Aftertaste

Eww...

Any thought that isn't 'giant robots fighting giant monsters is cool' is just a category error when watching that film. You know what you have signed up for when you buy the ticket.

It is hard to avoid thinking, 'if they know where they appear and have advanced warning when they will appear: why can't they park an atomic mine over the fissure and detonate when the Kaiju emerges? But in the context of this movie those thoughts are just missing the point.