Craig Venter is not playing God yet

By inserting a synthetic strand of DNA into a living bacterium, Craig Venter's team has made an impressive technical advance with considerable technological and basic scientific potential ( God 2.0 , 21 May). But what they have emphatically not done is "create life". DNA is a relatively inert molecule unless placed in the environment provided by a living cell. When biologists learn to create cells from scratch, then and only then will they have created life. Professor Steven Rose London • JBS Haldane once said that God had a fondness for beetles. Until Craig Venter creates a few, I don't think God 1.0 needs to worry. It would seem that all Venter has done is to take some already existing genome, modified a bit and placed it back inside some other bacterial "shell". More a small step than a giant leap. As I accept God 1.0 as real, I'm often thought of as making unreasonable claims. I don't think I do and would certainly want to examine Ventner's work in the light or reason rather than hyperbole. Geoff Bagley Nottingham • You fear that the ability to produce microbes for specified purposes may hand a gift of new biological weapons to "terrorists". A more likely horror, as we may learn from history, is that new weapons will be developed in the "defence" departments of governments. Donald Rooum London • Religious groups claim Craig Venter is playing God. Should they not be claiming that God is playing with Venter? Alun Pugh Ruthin, Denbighshire • My concern now as an atheist is that a crazed evangelist may use the technology to create God. Robert Smith Merstham, Surrey