Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Biochmborg@aol.com <Biochmborg@aol.com>
To: alexanian@uncwil.edu <alexanian@uncwil.edu>; entheta@eskimo.com
<entheta@eskimo.com>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>; evolution@calvin.edu
<evolution@calvin.edu>
Date: Saturday, May 08, 1999 3:05 AM
Subject: Re: Life in the Lab -- Fox and the Nobel Prize
>In a message dated 5/7/99 7:22:26 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
>alexanian@uncwil.edu writes:
>
>> That is precisely the point. Death is an integral part of what life is.
Yet
>> I never her the proponents of "life-in-a-test-tube" talk about it. Death
is
>> the cessation of life. You see, such deep issues are always circular.
>>
>
>Which is exactly why biologists do not discuss it. Biology is the science
of
>life; hence biologists cannot study it when it no longer exists. Nor can
>they study something that cannot be measured or experimented with. Death
is
>part of life only in that death is what you have when life stops. As such,
>no one can say what it is, only what it is not. Like any science, biology
>can only study what is; it cannot study what is not. Death is not a
physical
>concept like life; it is metaphysical, and science cannot study
metaphysical
>concepts.
>
>Besides, as you admit your argument is circular. You are saying that to
>prove protocells are alive we have to show that they can die, but before we
>can do that we must prove that they are alive in the first place. In other
>words, since death is the cessation of life, to use death to prove the
>existence of life we have to know that life exists and thus can cease.
>That's why it is better to define life by what it does, not by what you
have
>when it stops doing what it does. Which is exactly what Fox accomplished.
>As such, knowing that his protocells are alive, we can now also say that
they
>can die.
>
>Kevin L. O'Brien