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Author Topic:   What is Life?
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 43 of 268 (592905)
11-22-2010 6:34 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by mosassam
09-02-2010 10:00 PM


Sad Sad Sad
This thread is a sad commentary of the intellect of those in this forum. Three pages of semantic garbage and not one attempt at a scientific definition. Well that's not science it is religious equivocation.
Yes science defines life. There are definitions in every science textbook printed. Biology is the study of life and life is definable.
Here is probably the best definition I've seen. It is from a peer reviewed article on this subject and is fairly recent.
The first pillar of life is a Program. By program I mean an organized plan that describes both the ingredients themselves and the kinetics of the interactions among ingredients as the living system persists through time. For the living systems we observe on Earth, this program is implemented by the DNA that encodes the genes of Earth's organisms and that is replicated from generation to generation, with small changes but always with the overall plan intact. The genes in turn encode for chemicalsthe proteins, nucleic acids, etc.that carry out the reactions in living systems. It is in the DNA that the program is summarized and maintained for life on Earth.
The second pillar of life is IMPROVISATION. Because a living system will inevitably be a small fraction of the larger universe in which it lives, it will not be able to control all the changes and vicissitudes of its environment, so it must have some way to change its program. If, for example, a warm period changes to an ice age so that the program is less effective, the system will need to change its program to survive. In our current living systems, such changes can be achieved by a process of mutation plus selection that allows programs to be optimized for new environmental challenges that are to be faced.
The third of the pillars of life is COMPARTMENTALIZATION. All the organisms that we consider living are confined to a limited volume, surrounded by a surface that we call a membrane or skin that keeps the ingredients in a defined volume and keeps deleterious chemicalstoxic or dilutingon the outside. Moreover, as organisms become large, they are divided into smaller compartments, which we call cells (or organs, that is, groups of cells), in order to centralize and specialize certain functions within the larger organism. The reason for compartmentalization is that life depends on the reaction kinetics of its ingredients, the substrates and catalysts (enzymes) of the living system. Those kinetics depend on the concentrations of the ingredients. Simple dilution of the contents of a cell kills it because of the decrease in concentration of the contents, even though all the chemicals remain as active as before dilution. So a container is essential to maintain the concentrations and arrangement of the interior of the living organism and to provide protection from the outside.
The fourth pillar of life is ENERGY. Life as we know it involves movementof chemicals, of the body, of components of the bodyand a system with net movement cannot be in equilibrium. It must be an open and, in this case, metabolizing system. Many chemical reactions are going on inside the cell, and molecules are coming in from the outer environmentO2, CO2, metals, etc. The organism's system is parsimonious; many of the chemicals are recycled multiple times in an organism's lifetime (CO2, for example, is consumed in photosynthesis and then produced by oxidation in the system), but originally they enter the living system from the outside, so thermodynamicists call this an open system. Because of the many reactions and the fact that there is some gain of entropy (the mechanical analogy would be friction), there must be a compensation to keep the system going and that compensation requires a continuous source of energy. The major source of energy in Earth's biosphere is the Sunalthough life on Earth gets a little energy from other sources such as the internal heat of the Earthso the system can continue indefinitely by cleverly recycling chemicals as long as it has the added energy of the Sun to compensate for its entropy changes.
The fifth pillar is REGENERATION. Because a metabolizing system composed of catalysts (enzymes) and chemicals (metabolites) in a container is constantly reacting, it will inevitably be associated with some thermodynamic losses. Because those losses will eventually change the kinetics of the program adversely, there must be a plan to compensate for those losses, that is, a regeneration system. One such regeneration system is the diffusion or active transport of chemicals into the living organism. For example, CO2 and its products replace the losses inevitable in chemical reactions. Another system for regeneration is the constant resynthesis of the constituents of the living system that are subject to wear and tear. For example, the heart muscle of a normal human beats 60 times a minute3600 times an hour, 1,314,000 times a year, 91,980,000 times a lifetime. No man-made material has been found that would not fatigue and collapse under such use, which is why artificial hearts have such a short utilization span. The living system, however, continually resynthesizes and replaces its heart muscle proteins as they suffer degradation; the body does the same for other constituentsits lung sacs, kidney proteins, brain synapses, etc.
This is not the only way the living system regenerates. The constant resynthesis of its proteins and body constituents is not quite perfect, so the small loss for each regeneration in the short run becomes a larger loss overall for all the processes in the long run, adding up to what we call aging. So living systems, at least the ones we know, use a clever trick to perfect the regeneration processthat is, they start over. Starting over can be a cell dividing, in the case of Escherichia coli, or the birth of an infant for Homo sapiens. By beginning a new generation, the infant starts from scratch, and all the chemical ingredients, programs, and other constituents go back to the beginning to correct the inevitable decline of a continuously functioning metabolizing system.
The sixth pillar is ADAPTABILITY. Improvisation is a form of adaptability, but is too slow for many of the environmental hazards that a living organism must face. For example, a human that puts a hand into a fire has a painful experience that might be selected against in evolutionbut the individual needs to withdraw his hand from the fire immediately to live appropriately thereafter. That behavioral response to pain is essential to survival and is a fundamental response of living systems that we call feedback. Our bodies respond to depletion of nutrients (energy supplies) with hunger, which causes us to seek new food, and our feedback then prevents our eating to an excess of nutrients (that is, beyond satiety) by losing appetite and eating less. Walking long distances on bare feet leads to calluses on one's feet or the acquisition of shoes to protect them. These behavioral manifestations of adaptability are a development of feedback and feedforward responses at the molecular level and are responses of living systems that allow survival in quickly changing environments. Adaptability could arguably include improvisation (pillar number 2), but improvisation is a mechanism to change the fundamental program, whereas adaptability (pillar number 6) is a behavioral response that is part of the program. Just as these two necessities are handled by different mechanisms in our Earth-bound system, I believe they will be different concepts handled by different mechanisms in any newly devised or newly discovered system.
Finally, and far from the least, is the seventh pillar, SECLUSION. By seclusion, in this context, I mean something rather like privacy in the social world of our universe. It is essential for a metabolizing system with many reactions going on at the same time, to prevent the chemicals in pathway 1 (ABCD for example) from being metabolized by the catalysts of pathway 2 (RSTU). Our living system does this by a crucial property of lifethe specificity of enzymes that work only on the molecules for which they were designed and are not confused by collisions with miscellaneous molecules from other pathways. In a sense this property is like insulating an electrically conducting wire so it isn't short-circuited by contact with another wire. The seclusion of the biological system is not absolute. It can be interrupted by feedback and feedforward messages, but only messages that have specifically arranged conduits can be received. There is also specificity in DNA and RNA interactions. It is this seclusion of pathways that allows thousands of reactions to occur with high efficiency in the tiny volumes of a living cell, while simultaneously receiving selective signals that ensure an appropriate response to environmental changes.
Now, the only reason the evos won't attempt to define life is because it resticts them on their origin of life mythologies. Sad, sad, sad.

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 47 of 268 (592933)
11-22-2010 9:21 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Panda
11-22-2010 6:46 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
Why don't you quit being sad, sad, sad, and comment on his definition of life. The people in this forum have yet been able or willing to define it. So do you agree with his scientific definition of life? And if not why? And support your reasons.

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Replies to this message:
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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 49 of 268 (592935)
11-22-2010 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by frako
11-22-2010 6:44 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
So how do creos, id-ists,... define life? If the rock got breathed on its life if
not its a rock?
No, it's more like if the rocks evolved it's life, if not it's a rock.

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 50 of 268 (592936)
11-22-2010 9:27 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by jar
11-22-2010 9:24 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
It's not really a scientific definition. It was an interesting essay though.
Please support your claim

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by jar, posted 11-22-2010 9:24 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 58 of 268 (592962)
11-23-2010 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Dr Adequate
11-23-2010 12:27 AM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
This thread is a sad commentary of the intellect of those in this forum. Three pages of semantic garbage and not one attempt at a scientific definition.
This is, of course, not true, as anyone reading this thread can see.
Well it is true. Read the three pages. Not one scientific definition of life was provided the OP writer until I provided one. Sad, sad, sad. If you think there was one prior then enlighten us all on it.
Well that's not science it is religious equivocation.
No, that's a falsehood that you made up in your head so that you could have something to whine about.
No, the only falsehood in this thread is that life is undefinable, and that is religious equivocation. Science is not religious. Science is science. And science has defined life in one way shape or form since the beginning of the use of the term "biology".
So ... viruses are not alive?
That seems to be the scientific concensus.
And, apparently, God is dead. Nietzsche would be thrilled.
More irrational thought processes. This is a category error. Science deals with the natural. The definition of life is for natural life. Science doesn't deal with the supernatural, and make no attempt to define supernatural life.
You note, by the way, that he makes evolution part of the definition of life?
The second pillar of life is IMPROVISATION. Because a living system will inevitably be a small fraction of the larger universe in which it lives, it will not be able to control all the changes and vicissitudes of its environment, so it must have some way to change its program [...] In our current living systems, such changes can be achieved by a process of mutation plus selection that allows programs to be optimized for new environmental challenges that are to be faced.
Nope, he does define IMPROVISATION. In it he mentions mutation and natural selection, but this is just a portion of evolution.
So if the standard creationist denial of optimization by mutation and selection was correct, then according to your chosen definition we would have to say that nothing was alive.
Well first off your premise is false. No major creationist organization I know of denies that mutations and natural selection happens in living organisms. (So, is it you that is lying?)
AIG, CMI, ICR, even Hovind agrees with mutation and natural selection happening in living creatures. I can't speak for all creos, but I can speak for those widely published on the web. So you have constructed a rather decietful strawman argument. Why do you do that?
Now, the only reason the evos won't attempt to define life ...
You just quoted one doing so. Do try to lie less often.
You inability to read and comprehend does not constitute me lying. The evos in this thread have purposely mislead the public that life is not definable. The reason those evos do that is they need the wiggle room of equivocation when it comes to the origin of life.
I didn't say "all evos don't define life." I said that "the only reason the evos won't attempt to define life ..." .
Yes, Koshland is an evo, and so are most of the writers of Biology textbooks. All of these athors do provide definitions of life contrary to what the equivocators in this forum are doing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-23-2010 12:27 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 59 of 268 (592963)
11-23-2010 8:57 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by Larni
11-23-2010 8:40 AM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
It's a good a definition as many.
But the point is it is an arbitary definition that is to say it is a construct such as apathy and incredulity. Tehy don't exist as anything other than arbitrary definitions.
Then support your claim. The definition is not arbitrary at all. It is quite specific.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Larni, posted 11-23-2010 8:40 AM Larni has replied

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 60 of 268 (592964)
11-23-2010 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 53 by Blue Jay
11-22-2010 10:30 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Yes science defines life. There are definitions in every science textbook printed. Biology is the study of life and life is definable.
Which means... what, exactly?
That natural life is definable.
The fact remains that many things that do not fit the definition of "life" are still more similar to things that are defined as "life" than other things that are not defined as "life" (e.g. a virus is more like "life" than it is like a grain of sand).
Yes, so....
I hire employess. A requirement in certain positions is a high school doploma or GED. Completing 12 grades with no diploma is not necessarily any better than completing 10 grades with no diploma. But a diploma does have meaning.
A brick is a buiding block of a brick house. But it is far away from the definition of a brick house. You can organize bricks and make a fireplace with bricks and mortar. This is closer to the definition of a brick house, but it still does not meet the definition of a brick house.
What do you do with things that match five of the seven pillars, or four, or six?
You give them a special scientific name. Something like "virus". And you recognize that they meet 5 of the 7 criteria, but they do not meet the full criteria.
Assigning things to discreet categories doesn't make the gradients between them magically disappear.
Sure it does. That's what definitions are for. A definition defines and takes away arbitrary gradients. Equivocation removes the boundaries and causes confusion. Is that what you want in science?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by Blue Jay, posted 11-22-2010 10:30 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 61 of 268 (592965)
11-23-2010 9:38 AM
Reply to: Message 52 by Panda
11-22-2010 10:28 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
Aaaw diddums...did I point out that you were wrong?
Were you unable to defend your stupid comment?
And I didn't even bother correcting your ignorant mistake of "Evolution" = "Origin of life".
Cry me a river.
Build a bridge.
Get over it.
Go ahead, run away from the definition of life....
"Run, run as fast as you can;
You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"
See ya Ginger.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Panda, posted 11-22-2010 10:28 PM Panda has replied

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 62 of 268 (592967)
11-23-2010 9:46 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by jar
11-22-2010 9:24 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
It's not really a scientific definition. It was an interesting essay though.

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 63 of 268 (592968)
11-23-2010 9:52 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by Panda
11-22-2010 6:46 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Now, the only reason the evos won't attempt to define life is because it resticts them on their origin of life mythologies. Sad, sad, sad.
quote:
The author is in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3206, USA, and a former Editor-in-Chief of Science.
So you think he is not an 'evo'?
What does that have to do with anything?
Yes, he is an evo. And so are most of the authors of biology textbooks. But these evos ARE willing to define life.
They do not fit the category of those evos that "won't attempt to define life." Do you know what a category error is?

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 64 of 268 (592969)
11-23-2010 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by jar
11-22-2010 9:47 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
Life ain't a simple concept and so often we fall back on really generalized non specific language as in this essay.
How much more specific can a scientist be?
The essay boils down to "When I see it I will know it; possibly."
How can a rational person read this essay and come to this conclusion?
Finally, for most things "life" is simply not that important a thing to define.

Well it seems imprtant enough to have a whole field of science named after it.
It's just fine for now to have the fuzzy edges.
Yeah, I think they call that "fuzzy science".

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 Message 51 by jar, posted 11-22-2010 9:47 PM jar has replied

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 66 of 268 (592971)
11-23-2010 10:15 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by frako
11-23-2010 10:04 AM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
I submitted a quality definition of life. I accept that definition. I have many problems with the wiki article.

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 102 of 268 (593764)
11-29-2010 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 94 by Blue Jay
11-24-2010 1:04 PM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
First, you can't really complete 12 grades without getting a diploma: if you didn't get a diploma, it means you didn't complete at least 1 grade.
Well, first off your premise is wrong. Diploma's are base on credits nowadays, not the completion of grades. You can complete twelve grades, and not complete the credit requirements. And you don't graduate.
Second, if people who've completed 12 grades are not necessarily more capable of handling the job than people who've only completed 10 grades, then there is no meaning to completing 12 grades beyond that arbitrarily assigned to it by the arbiter. That is, the diploma holds meaning only because you, the employer (or the law that you're abiding by), say it does.
Again, the diploma holds meaning in a variety of contexts outside of hiring. Completing a job assignment is irrelevant. The main meaning has nothing to do with education or intellect. It has to do with understanding and completing a goal. That's why the goal is defined and has meaning.
Likewise, in defining life, we're not just looking for something to which we can assign meaning: we're looking for something that has meaning beyond what we assign to it. Clearly, the diploma has no such meaning in your example, so it is not a good analogy for things that actually hold meaning.
Baloney! We ARE looking for something we can assign meaning. The living organisms are distinctly different from those which are non-living. Including viruses.
All life, 100%, meets the seven pillars definition given. Other things do not. That's why definitions are good and logical. We can't discuss them logically without definitions.
At what point does a pile of bricks become a brick house?
When the last brick is put into place?
When the mortar dries?
When the electrician approves the wiring and the water main is turned on?
At the point the contractual obligations are met. There is a plan. A design. There is a requirement to meet the plan. It is the plan and the legal requirements (laws) that define the house.
Even in building a hut, there is a plan. There may not be any building requirements, but there is a plan. It is the designer or owner who decides the definition of their house. That doesn't mean it cannot be defined.
If you were showing off your 75%-completed house, and you said to your friends, "look at my new house!"---would you be justified in using the term "house"? I wouldn't make a fuss about it.
Of course, but this language assumes the planned end result doesn't it? If construction stopped and we came back ten years later, you wouldn't be using this language now would you?
And then, when the brick house is completed, how many bricks have to fall out of the west wall before we have to stop calling it a brick house?
If a tornado took a chunk out of the garage, would you have to revert to calling it an "organized pile of bricks"?
You do realize there are definitions for this as well. Houses are condemned for certain levels of damage. I loose hair all the time. That does not disqualify me from being a living human. But at some point, I will no longer be breathing and I will have no more hair. I will be dead. You see. It can be defined.
"Brick house" is not all that clearly defined in relation to "pile of bricks," so this is yet another example of a pair of terms that are only distinguished insomuch as we choose to distinguish them.
Ummmmmm.....yeah! We choose to distinguish them via definition.
And then what? Treat them like "not life"? Consider them the equivalent of rocks and sand? Or acknowledge that they fit somewhere between rocks and "life," and thereby reject the idiot classification that has us claiming that "life" is discreetly and distinctly different from "not life"?
Treating them as not life is a "vital" step in understanding what they are. Viruses predominantly destroy life.
No they are not equivalent to rocks and sand. We know this, because rocks and sand have definitions. And viruses don't meet those definitions.
Why would you say "the idiot classification that has us claiming that "life" is discreetly and distinctly different from "not life"?" Do you have some sort of definition for idiot?
Actually, virologists treat viruses just as if they were "life." They study their behavior as if they were "life." They study their physiology and genetics as if they were "life." They study their evolution as if they were "life."
Nope. Nope. Nope. and Nope.
In fact, biologists consider people who study viruses to be a type of biologist.
That's because virologists study how viruses effect/destroy life.
This raises the question of why we defined "life" to exclude viruses in the first place.
So you agree that there is a definition and it excludes viruses. That sort of negates your whole argument doesn't it?
Clearly, that definition hasn't had much effect on how we treat them; also clearly, that definition doesn't prevent them from being more like "life" than like other things that are "not life."
Well actually we mainly treat the living, who have the virus. We haven't learned too much about treating viruses yet. And no, I agree with you that they are more like the living than the non living, but only when they, like all the living things gain their "life" from the living...LOB. Virions, by themselves aren't anywhere close to life.
This is what a biologist means when they argue about the definition of "life" being unclear:
Oh I disagree. Biologists argue that the definition of life is unclear ONLY for the reason of allowing equivocation in abiogenesis.
not that it's impossible to cobble some things together into a workable definition,
Yes, you are right. It is possible to define life. It is in every biology textbook and in the paper I cited. It wasn't cobbled up though.
but that the definition doesn't really hold much meaning in terms of how things function, behave or evolve.
Oh contraire! The main aspects of the definition of life have to do with how things function, behave, and evolve.

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AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 107 of 268 (593888)
11-30-2010 8:41 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by Dr Adequate
11-23-2010 10:38 AM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
AOKid writes:
Well it is true. Read the three pages. Not one scientific definition of life was provided the OP writer until I provided one. Sad, sad, sad. If you think there was one prior then enlighten us all on it.
AZPaul3, post #6 writes:
Everyones own pet definition can be shown to harbor inconsistencies, anomalies, omissions and absurdities.
But since you asked:
Life is complex chemistry in continuous action.
I guess you can’t recognize the difference between someone’s pet definition and a scientific definition. Sad, sad, sad.
frako, post #9 writes:
im guessin the simplest and closest exsplenation for a sientist would be somthing is alive if it reproduces itself naturaly in some way
Dr Adequate, post #10 writes:
In the context of these boards, the convenient place is that point at which the (short) answer to any given question is "evolution". That is, the significant features defining "life" should be reproduction with variation.
jar, message #25 writes:
It means that the thing seems to be something that reproduces by one of many different methods, capable of movement, that takes in some form of energy and expels some form of waste at least during part of its life cycle and that at some point can be said to be not alive.
Parasomnium, post #30 writes:
I believe Richard Dawkins said somewhere that life is molecular information technology, and I think he was pretty much on the mark there.
Again nothing but pet definitions here. My argument, so you understand clearly is that science does and has defined life. It is in every biology text book. It is in the article I provided. The problem is not defining life, the problem is that the definition prevents origin of life scientist from equivocating. So they want to pretend, like the evos in this forum that life cannot be nailed down with a definition.
Parasomnium, post #41 writes:
Ever since Darwin we know quite well what the driving force behind the increasing complexity of life on earth is: it's Darwinian evolution. This suggests another interesting way of defining life, for which I'll quote Gerald Joyce (look under the heading "Proposed", a bit further down):
"Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution."
Now this is an interesting pet definition that does come from a scientist! So let’s discuss it briefly. This scientist in particular is one who specializes in the field of OOL, so he is prone to not like traditional scientific definitions of life. So in this lecture he gives the above definition.
Now what is sad about this scientist is that his definition is totally circular. Darwinian evolution only applies to living organisms. Therefore, any chemical assembly that undergoes Darwinian evolution is by definition living. What a nice circle.
All this does is shift the definition life to the definition of Darwinian evolution. It is just circular silliness. This shouldn’t be tolerated in science, but it is.
I guess now you're going to thank me, right?
For what? Pet definitions? Circular definitions? Now I would thank you if you would have at least provided one reference to a scientific source for the definition of life. There are plenty. Like I said, every biology book has one, and I provided a very good one from a highly read scientific journal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-23-2010 10:38 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Panda, posted 11-30-2010 9:31 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied
 Message 109 by jar, posted 11-30-2010 9:59 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied
 Message 110 by nwr, posted 11-30-2010 10:16 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied
 Message 111 by New Cat's Eye, posted 11-30-2010 10:25 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 112 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-30-2010 10:53 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 113 of 268 (594019)
12-01-2010 9:03 AM
Reply to: Message 112 by Dr Adequate
11-30-2010 10:53 AM


Re: Sad Sad Sad
I guess you can’t recognize the difference between someone’s pet definition and a scientific definition. Sad, sad, sad.
I see. So when you lied in post #43 and wrote that: "the evos won't attempt to define life", what you would have said if you were an honest man was that "the evos" hadn't provided a definition of life that you wish to class as "scientific".
But you lied instead. Why did you do that? Is it part of some Secret Creationist Oath?
Again, your inability to read and comprehend does not constitute me lying.
Again nothing but pet definitions here.
And you've supplied your "pet definition".
No, to the contrary. I supplied a scientific definition from a noted scientist published in a scientific journal. I supplied a scientific definition.
My argument, so you understand clearly is that science does and has defined life. It is in every biology text book.
And yet I just checked my copy of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and their definition only has six of your "seven pillars".
Ahhh. I see that you actually do understand, you just want to call people liars when you don't understand. Sad, sad, sad. But thanks for confirming that Biology books do have definitions of life in them. That was my point. None of those six or seven pillars were listed together by anyone's pet definitions in this forum. Sad, sad, sad.
The problem is not defining life, the problem is that the definition prevents origin of life scientist from equivocating.
This is an interesting lie. But in order to equivocate, it is necessary to be equivocal.
Said like a true, well trained atheist.
So they want to pretend, like the evos in this forum that life cannot be nailed down with a definition.
You are, of course, lying. Many of the evos in this forum have offered definitions.
Jumping in and out of comprehension. You may want to see someone for help. I think they define that as lunacy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by Dr Adequate, posted 11-30-2010 10:53 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by jar, posted 12-01-2010 10:13 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 124 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-01-2010 1:11 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
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