Nah, it happens all over the place, including in countries that start with "Russia". The antibiotic-resistant TB there is just not quite as bad. Unfortunately, it lives in the prison system.
I could ramble aimlessly about this general topic for a while, but instead to farm karma more efficiently I think I'll make an obscure, off topic point that I think is interesting by analogy: this directing of evolution also occurs at an environmental scale. Life may find ways to survive in the presence of all the chemicals we dump into the ecosystem, but it will be more vulnerable to other stressors as a result, including those through which it would normally survive. In combination with the on-going loss of diversity caused by more direct damage to the environment, life as we know it is pretty cornered.
It's a little as if we're extremely incompetent first-year med students trying to eliminate a patient's symptoms (i.e. the planet's inherent imperfection for supporting modern life) and we're on the verge of unintentionally killing off the infection that's actually responsible. (Admittedly, this is a lousy analogy, but it's important to realise that it's happening.)
President Skroob: Did it work? Where's the king? Dark Helmet: It worked, sir. We have the combination. President Skroob: Great. Now we can take every last breath of fresh air from Planet Druidia. What's the combination? Colonel Sandurz: 1-2-3-4-5 President Skroob: 1-2-3-4-5? Colonel Sandurz: Yes! President Skroob: That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage.
I'm afraid you are indeed an abstraction. Of course, so is everything else—but don't let that make you feel bad. You and everything else are all still real. The thing is, pretty much every known biological cell—even E. coli—forms colonies when left to their own devices. Some human cells, like spermatozoa and certain leukocytes, can even survive reasonably well on their own, and it's only in the absence of the right chemical environment that most human tissues won't survive.
The idea you're describing has all but been admitted by biologists who study chemical evolution, however, in that we now believe an unprotected proto-DNA molecule (specifically, one made of RNA) was the first life form, and that it later built what we call a cell around it. Still, we biologists do love us some metabolic processes (we studied them first), so we're kinda stingy about letting go of them as a core element of the definition of our field.
Ah-ah-ah—there are many species that include unnecessary (and quite elaborate) error production processes to enhance certain types of mutation (especially the favourite of us higher animals, chiasmata.) Most species are in a position where they easily could reduce their error rates, but because of the evolutionary benefits of not doing so, such mechanisms and imperfection remain. To evolutionary biologists, that's close enough to intention that we're comfortable with making that particular personification for the sake of convenience. There's no need to let the blatant mental dysfunction of creationism influence a perfectly harmless and well-understood categorical error made in good confidence between rational people.
That's a much better way of putting it—which I've used in a few other responses here.:) We do need to still explain away non-reproductive organisms like skin cells and worker ants. They, instead, act to further their groups' reproduction, which is, well, close enough since they're the same species.
To perform homeostasis, your car would also have to seek out gas, oil, windshield washing fluid, radiator fluid etc., avoid bad weather and bad roads on its own, and (ideally) also drive itself to the auto mechanic when necessary. You're kinda on the right track, though.:)
Alas, I haven't put nearly as much work into organising my site as I'd like to; I'm much too busy with other things (and the framework beneath it) to give it the sense of sanity necessary to make it properly usable. This is not to say I don't have the skills—I've applied them elsewhere countless times, and have even used the site's framework in a very successful project with hundreds of users—but I just haven't had the time to stop and think. Some day, I hope.
Of course I understand the desire and drive to go to an extreme extent for one's hobbies, even dangerous ones. I'm really, really just complaining that arcade-style fighting games are characterised to an excessive extent by ergonomic hazards, and berating the fans thereof for not taking up a slightly less RSI-inducing hobby. Short of chessboxing and "Is It A Good Idea to Put This In The Microwave?", there aren't too many geek hobbies so prone to causing injury.
That's a pretty good way of viewing it—another trick that makes the definition easier to swallow is to consider multicellular organisms as colonies of single-celled organisms doing the same thing.
A friend of mine was working in an organic chemistry lab with a particularly cavalier graduate student once who had the nerve to open a vial of triflic acid outside of the fume hood. It began protonating the air around it and gave them both nosebleeds. (Said graduate student was ejected shortly after he got his PhD, for an unrelated reason.)
Not a bad suggestion—but the point is that just because successive generations of something vary, that doesn't contribute to their life-worthiness. Elsewhere I gave an example about successive generations of photocopies: they may change, but that change is only relevant if someone actually looks at the photocopies; i.e. it must be able to change in a way that is subject to evolutionary pressure. May seem not super-important, but that detail shouldn't be left out.
Usually when we talk about reproduction as a requirement for being alive, we're talking about unicellular organisms. Multicellular organisms are thought of more as colonies—and in that sense, just like sponges, the genus Volvox, and many kinds of fungi, organisations like the Roman Catholic Church do reproduce, as ideas in the minds of their followers. The church as an entity is (at one level) an abstraction, just like the multicellular organism itself.
Nope; I'm afraid you're more inclusive than biology currently is. The livingness of the virus-host system is under debate; a virion (the particle itself) is simply an inert lump of organic molecules. For similar reasons, transposons are also considered non-living.
Congratulations on being late to the party; I already apologised for the abbreviated and dehydrated list. And cited the Wikipedia article. "Fail" may be a bit harsh.
I think this is actually a physical chemistry talking point, so don't feel too bad.:) When a chemical reaction occurs, very rarely is it an instant on/off thing caused during a single, instantaneous collision. Most reactions take a number of steps, each of which has a certain probability of occurring. Misreactions also have a small probability of occurring, albeit generally lower; in organic chemistry every reaction has a percent yield and needs purification afterward (an imperfect process.) Because of all this, reaction as complex as a biological enzyme binding, modifying, and then releasing its substrate can take many, many attempts (I don't have the magnitude on hand, but you can bet it's many times larger than a billion molecular vibrations) before it occurs, and is never perfect. To make things worse, the reproduction of DNA requires multiple enzyme reaction steps per nucleotide, and one of the steps is responsible for verifying that the nucleotide being inserted is correct. There are additional steps on top of things that try to do proofreading, but since everything is error-prone, the whole process can, ultimately, fail.
While that definition certainly encompasses all of what biologists consider to be life (and I've pondered it, too,) it misses several properties of living organisms that we find interesting to study. Life is different from a computer in that it is also partially defined by what functions it computes, not merely that it can compute anything; these functions are those that lead to an increase in its tendency to proliferate and persist in its environment for a longer period of time. For a biologist to consider a glider gun alive... well, I'm a little too tired to ponder that now, but ask me again later and we can see what comes out of it.:)
Well, that's what I get for oversimplifying things for the Slashdot audience and not remembering lectures verbatim from four years ago. But you may want to take your ad hominems out back and shoot them: the Wikipedia page is somewhat more thorough, and includes organization, which is the critical quality that rules out fire. To be living, an organism must do all of these things (evolve, adapt, reproduce, respond to stimuli, and maintain its internal environment) through orderly, controlled means. In standard organic Terran terms, that means metabolic chemical pathways.
And for your information, the exceptions I listed aren't exactly classic exceptions. The question of whether viruses constitute life is under debate, and sterile organisms are essentially modifications of other members of their species, which are very much capable of reproduction.
Finally, the definition is supposed to be used to differentiate large groups of phenomena from life, and has widely been recognized as inexhaustive and incomplete for a long period of time. You expect too much of experimental science if you believe that a scientific definition must be so rigourous.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, it happens all over the place, including in countries that start with "Russia". The antibiotic-resistant TB there is just not quite as bad. Unfortunately, it lives in the prison system.
I could ramble aimlessly about this general topic for a while, but instead to farm karma more efficiently I think I'll make an obscure, off topic point that I think is interesting by analogy: this directing of evolution also occurs at an environmental scale. Life may find ways to survive in the presence of all the chemicals we dump into the ecosystem, but it will be more vulnerable to other stressors as a result, including those through which it would normally survive. In combination with the on-going loss of diversity caused by more direct damage to the environment, life as we know it is pretty cornered.
It's a little as if we're extremely incompetent first-year med students trying to eliminate a patient's symptoms (i.e. the planet's inherent imperfection for supporting modern life) and we're on the verge of unintentionally killing off the infection that's actually responsible. (Admittedly, this is a lousy analogy, but it's important to realise that it's happening.)
Observe, as actually making the joke magically garners mysterious karma points ... from beyond!
President Skroob: Did it work? Where's the king?
Dark Helmet: It worked, sir. We have the combination.
President Skroob: Great. Now we can take every last breath of fresh air from Planet Druidia. What's the combination?
Colonel Sandurz: 1-2-3-4-5
President Skroob: 1-2-3-4-5?
Colonel Sandurz: Yes!
President Skroob: That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage.
Replied to this in my other reply (#38685130). Because two conversations is possibly excessive.
I'm afraid you are indeed an abstraction. Of course, so is everything else—but don't let that make you feel bad. You and everything else are all still real. The thing is, pretty much every known biological cell—even E. coli—forms colonies when left to their own devices. Some human cells, like spermatozoa and certain leukocytes, can even survive reasonably well on their own, and it's only in the absence of the right chemical environment that most human tissues won't survive.
The idea you're describing has all but been admitted by biologists who study chemical evolution, however, in that we now believe an unprotected proto-DNA molecule (specifically, one made of RNA) was the first life form, and that it later built what we call a cell around it. Still, we biologists do love us some metabolic processes (we studied them first), so we're kinda stingy about letting go of them as a core element of the definition of our field.
There aren't too many acids that make the air shimmer when you expose them to it. It's (about) as aggressive as these sorts of things can get.
Sadly, no. Car analogies have their place in biology, but they can't address fundamental questions about the nature of life. Or Life.
Ah-ah-ah—there are many species that include unnecessary (and quite elaborate) error production processes to enhance certain types of mutation (especially the favourite of us higher animals, chiasmata.) Most species are in a position where they easily could reduce their error rates, but because of the evolutionary benefits of not doing so, such mechanisms and imperfection remain. To evolutionary biologists, that's close enough to intention that we're comfortable with making that particular personification for the sake of convenience. There's no need to let the blatant mental dysfunction of creationism influence a perfectly harmless and well-understood categorical error made in good confidence between rational people.
That's a much better way of putting it—which I've used in a few other responses here. :) We do need to still explain away non-reproductive organisms like skin cells and worker ants. They, instead, act to further their groups' reproduction, which is, well, close enough since they're the same species.
To perform homeostasis, your car would also have to seek out gas, oil, windshield washing fluid, radiator fluid etc., avoid bad weather and bad roads on its own, and (ideally) also drive itself to the auto mechanic when necessary. You're kinda on the right track, though. :)
Alas, I haven't put nearly as much work into organising my site as I'd like to; I'm much too busy with other things (and the framework beneath it) to give it the sense of sanity necessary to make it properly usable. This is not to say I don't have the skills—I've applied them elsewhere countless times, and have even used the site's framework in a very successful project with hundreds of users—but I just haven't had the time to stop and think. Some day, I hope.
Of course I understand the desire and drive to go to an extreme extent for one's hobbies, even dangerous ones. I'm really, really just complaining that arcade-style fighting games are characterised to an excessive extent by ergonomic hazards, and berating the fans thereof for not taking up a slightly less RSI-inducing hobby. Short of chessboxing and "Is It A Good Idea to Put This In The Microwave?", there aren't too many geek hobbies so prone to causing injury.
That's a pretty good way of viewing it—another trick that makes the definition easier to swallow is to consider multicellular organisms as colonies of single-celled organisms doing the same thing.
A friend of mine was working in an organic chemistry lab with a particularly cavalier graduate student once who had the nerve to open a vial of triflic acid outside of the fume hood. It began protonating the air around it and gave them both nosebleeds. (Said graduate student was ejected shortly after he got his PhD, for an unrelated reason.)
Not a bad suggestion—but the point is that just because successive generations of something vary, that doesn't contribute to their life-worthiness. Elsewhere I gave an example about successive generations of photocopies: they may change, but that change is only relevant if someone actually looks at the photocopies; i.e. it must be able to change in a way that is subject to evolutionary pressure. May seem not super-important, but that detail shouldn't be left out.
Usually when we talk about reproduction as a requirement for being alive, we're talking about unicellular organisms. Multicellular organisms are thought of more as colonies—and in that sense, just like sponges, the genus Volvox, and many kinds of fungi, organisations like the Roman Catholic Church do reproduce, as ideas in the minds of their followers. The church as an entity is (at one level) an abstraction, just like the multicellular organism itself.
Nope; I'm afraid you're more inclusive than biology currently is. The livingness of the virus-host system is under debate; a virion (the particle itself) is simply an inert lump of organic molecules. For similar reasons, transposons are also considered non-living.
Maybe! But there's room for your offspring to evolve. And you might not be a perfect clone!
Congratulations on being late to the party; I already apologised for the abbreviated and dehydrated list. And cited the Wikipedia article. "Fail" may be a bit harsh.
It's a little weak, but there's only so much to work with.
I think this is actually a physical chemistry talking point, so don't feel too bad. :) When a chemical reaction occurs, very rarely is it an instant on/off thing caused during a single, instantaneous collision. Most reactions take a number of steps, each of which has a certain probability of occurring. Misreactions also have a small probability of occurring, albeit generally lower; in organic chemistry every reaction has a percent yield and needs purification afterward (an imperfect process.) Because of all this, reaction as complex as a biological enzyme binding, modifying, and then releasing its substrate can take many, many attempts (I don't have the magnitude on hand, but you can bet it's many times larger than a billion molecular vibrations) before it occurs, and is never perfect. To make things worse, the reproduction of DNA requires multiple enzyme reaction steps per nucleotide, and one of the steps is responsible for verifying that the nucleotide being inserted is correct. There are additional steps on top of things that try to do proofreading, but since everything is error-prone, the whole process can, ultimately, fail.
While that definition certainly encompasses all of what biologists consider to be life (and I've pondered it, too,) it misses several properties of living organisms that we find interesting to study. Life is different from a computer in that it is also partially defined by what functions it computes, not merely that it can compute anything; these functions are those that lead to an increase in its tendency to proliferate and persist in its environment for a longer period of time. For a biologist to consider a glider gun alive... well, I'm a little too tired to ponder that now, but ask me again later and we can see what comes out of it. :)
I suppose that could happen. :)
Well, that's what I get for oversimplifying things for the Slashdot audience and not remembering lectures verbatim from four years ago. But you may want to take your ad hominems out back and shoot them: the Wikipedia page is somewhat more thorough, and includes organization, which is the critical quality that rules out fire. To be living, an organism must do all of these things (evolve, adapt, reproduce, respond to stimuli, and maintain its internal environment) through orderly, controlled means. In standard organic Terran terms, that means metabolic chemical pathways.
And for your information, the exceptions I listed aren't exactly classic exceptions. The question of whether viruses constitute life is under debate, and sterile organisms are essentially modifications of other members of their species, which are very much capable of reproduction.
Finally, the definition is supposed to be used to differentiate large groups of phenomena from life, and has widely been recognized as inexhaustive and incomplete for a long period of time. You expect too much of experimental science if you believe that a scientific definition must be so rigourous.
No, now you're going off topic. We're talking about Street Fighter players getting into fist fights. Brain trauma is unlikely.