Evolution in schools; legal trap (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, June 11, 2012, 22:42 (4526 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

A good article as applied to this topic. Remarkably, it does not simply pander to creationist propaganda, and manages to encapsulate the argument of most anti-evolutionists in a very clear and reasonable manner.
> 
> http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v9i12f.htm-That site was rather surprising. I've always agreed that a GOOD definition of life has been lacking, for precisely the reasons this one mentions. -But I'm nothing if not an habitual critic. I have to do it or my reputation would be at stake.-Here goes...-I take issue with this statement:-" Therefore, a living thing must be at least as complicated as the simplest computer."-The simplest computer--no joke--is a light switch. This also means that the orbit of a planet could be considered a "computation" and fire is also a computer.-I think that the masses are just now starting to understand enough about computers, to see them in everything. A cell as a computer is a *useful abstraction* but a misleading one as well. -Next issue: 6. Cell, Heal Thyself-This section has one "imperative."- "6. Self-monitor and repair its constantly deteriorating physical matrix of bioinstruction retention/transmission, and of architecture"-This is where I start to see an unnecessary bias towards cellullar life... -What about Virii and prions? Virii work by taking over a cellular host, by directly altering some physical structure. This process require energy... and meets all the other criterion of life.-Further, there is nothing I've read to counter the idea that virii didn't evolve from a more complex form... meaning that under this definition life can become animate nonlife--creating a category we've never dealt with.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"