El Sitherino Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I don't have to defend this because you learn it in Biology class, and it's not my argument. Though I was under the impression something only required meeting 4 of the 5 bits listed. Either way, all this is covered in a biology class. Why are they an exception, and why cannot others 'be an exception'? How exactly, are people who are too young to be able to reproduce (i.e., kids, babies) not exceptions as well? I didn't say they weren't. Besides, kids and babies have everything there once they're born, it's just not tapped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I don't have to defend this because you learn it in Biology class, and it's not my argument."I don't have to defend it because someone told me it in biology class." Eh? I didn't say they weren't. Besides, kids and babies have everything there once they're born, it's just not tapped. So they can reproduce as soon as they're born? How exactly do children produce babies when they have no sperm or eggs to do so with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Sitherino Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 "I don't have to defend it because someone told me it in biology class." Eh? Exactly, because it's not my argument, I don't care, you've already learned it and thus know the details of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I think that this is exactly the problem. You decide you know something and you simply talk past me because I don't hold your opinion to be the truth. jmac's definition of life is not my definition, and I pointed out some problems with his ideas about what life is. Are they not problems? Can you tell me that a being who is genetically incapable of reproducing is not a human person? We're talking about fetuses though, and they are not developed enough to fulfill all of the requirements of life. Also, even if "my" definition is not how you define life, it is how the scientific community defines it, which is a community that bases their views on fact, not belief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 We're talking about fetuses though, and they are not developed enough to fulfill all of the requirements of life. Also, even if "my" definition is not how you define life, it is how the scientific community defines it, which is a community that bases their views on fact, not belief.Why is the case of someone unborn different from the case of the child that can't reproduce because (s)he is too young? That definition is generally accepted, but obviously has exceptions. Worker ants are usually classified as 'life' by scientists, though they have no way of reproducing ever. People who never have the ability to reproduce are classified as being alive. That definition does not allow children to be alive; we know they are (hopefully you do), therefore it must be inaccurate. It is important to note that life is a definition that applies at the level of species, so even though many individuals of any given species do not reproduce, possibly because they belong to specialised sterile castes (such as ant workers), these are still considered forms of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Sitherino Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 # Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. This to me seems a more likely support for early stage abortion. During most of the residency inside the mothers womb, all the process work is done by the mother, not the "child". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Children eventually grow into adults. A fetus, in any stage, cannot reproduce, because by the time it can it is no longer a fetus, it is an adult. Those who cannot reproduce, ever, should, theoretically, be able to reproduce, it's the result of an outside influence or defect that they can't. Also, for clarification, when I refer to fetuses in this thread, I'm refering to an those that can still be legally aborted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe© Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 You say fetuses are not alive because they don't apply to the above "rules" of life. But somehow fully grown humans are an exception. And this is just stated with no reason why other then if it wasn't denied the argument about fetuses being alive would collapse on itself. I agree with having to make sense of your arguments. Just because someone points out the obvious does not make them a smartass. 5. Heredity: A process whereby living things pass on genes during reproduction. All living things have DNA molecules inside their cells that encode information to direct growth and development ? a set of blueprints, called genes. I think it was already stated that embryos have genes that make them into the people they are. Please correct me if I am wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Embryos don't pass on their genes to their offspring, seeing as they have no offspring. ***Edit*** I'm going to bottomline this. Science says that fetuses are not living, thus no murder has been commited, thus there is no basis for outlawing abortion other than the beliefs of some, and the beliefs of some do not override fact and should not dictate the laws of this (or any other) country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Children eventually grow into adults. A fetus, in any stage, cannot reproduce, because by the time it can it is no longer a fetus, it is an adult. Those who cannot reproduce, ever, should, theoretically, be able to reproduce, it's the result of an outside influence or defect that they can't.A child, at any stage before puberty, absolutely cannot reproduce ever. You're not going into 'oh, look what it's going to do it the future', are you? Puberty refers to the process of physical changes by which a child's body becomes an adult body capable of reproduction. # Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. This to me seems a more likely support for early stage abortion. During most of the residency inside the mothers womb, all the process work is done by the mother, not the "child". It has an independent circulatory system and processes food itself, by necessity. It is an independent organism from the mother; obviously her tissues would reject direct contact. "The mother's circulatory system is not continuous with the fetus's. Blood does not normally flow from the mother to the fetus and back; only materials carried in the blood are exchanged. Therefore, maternal blood cells such as B lymphocytes are not normally transferred to the fetus, although the antibodies produced by B lymphocytes do cross the placenta. This separation of circulatory systems is very important for immunological reasons. Half the fetus's genes come from the mother and half from the father. The father's genes are "foreign" to the mother. The difference is potentially enough to trigger an immune response. The separation of the mother's and fetus's tissues and blood reduces the likelihood that the maternal immune cells will encounter fetal cells and launch an attack against the fetus. What about the placenta itself? Although white blood cells such as T lymphocytes and natural killer cells are plentiful in the endometrium, they do not react against the villi of the fetal chorion. The reason for this is not completely known, but it appears that proteins on the surface of the villi keep them safe." [1] Chang, Dennis. "At what stage, if any, do a mother and fetus share a circulatory system? In particular, can a mother's B lymphocytes be transferred to the fetus?" http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highlight.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fdevelopmental%2Fans_004.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe© Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 But they are living things. Because they have those genes that their parents pass onto them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 They have to fulfill all of the requirements. Also, you just brought up another requirement that fetuses do not meet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe© Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 No. I pointed out that they come under the text... "...All living things have DNA molecules inside their cells that encode information to direct growth and development ? a set of blueprints, called genes..." I don't want to have to point out every little thing and me too get called a smartass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK-8252 Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I'm going to pop back in here to just point something out: I think we all need to agree that a fetus is technically alive. It is a form of life. But of course that doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to the morality behind killing it. Cows are alive and yet we kill them. Murderers are alive and yet we kill them. Bacteria is alive and yet we kill it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Science doesn't recognize them as life, reguardless of what you believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK-8252 Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 All I'm saying is that if a fetus is really alive or not has no impact on the debate. We kill all sorts of living things and consider it to be moral. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Science doesn't recognize them as life, reguardless of what you believe.I haven't seen you post many biologist's definitions of life in this particular case. You posted about something that is generally accepted (with qualifications!), then said that all five of the points are the only way to define life and then start denying the qualifications (made by the biologists you curiously leave out of your arguments!). You're not sounding terribly scientific yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe© Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I don't have time to argue this point to the depth that it needs to be. But you are only repeating what you read or are told. It only took a logical eye to see flaws in those 5 laws of life that you posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK-8252 Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Here's how wikipedia defines life: 1. Organization - Living things are comprised of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life. 2. Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. 3. Growth - Growth results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. 4. Adaptation - Adaptation is the accommodation of a living organism to its environment. It is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the individual's heredity. 5. Response to stimuli - A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. Plants also respond to stimuli, but usually in ways very different from animals. A response is often expressed by motion: the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey. 6. Reproduction - The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Here's how wikipedia defines life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life I'm interested in knowing exactly why you left out the qualifications. Surely, those are part of the definition? In particular, these points: Although there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, the generally accepted biological manifestations are that life exhibits the following phenomena: Exceptions to the conventional definition It is important to note that life is a definition that applies at the level of species, so even though many individuals of any given species do not reproduce, possibly because they belong to specialised sterile castes (such as ant workers), these are still considered forms of life. One could say that the property of life is inherited; hence, sterile hybrid species such as the mule are considered life although not themselves capable of reproduction. It is also worth noting that non-reproducing individuals may still help the spread of their genes through such mechanisms as kin selection. For similar reasons, viruses and aberrant prion proteins are often considered replicators rather than forms of life: they cannot reproduce without very specialised substrates such as host cells or proteins, respectively. However, most forms of life rely on foods produced by other species, or at least the specific chemistry of Earth's environment. Viruses reproduce, flames grow, some software programs mutate and evolve, future software programs will probably evince (even high-order) behavior, machines move, and some form of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce presumably existed. Still, some would not call these entities alive. Generally, all six characteristics are required for a population to be considered a life form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 @Samuel Dravis- It's not just one biologist, it's biologists in general Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 @Samuel Dravis- It's not just one biologist, it's biologists in general So you somehow know their opinions because...? Have they collectively told you? Do you have a study or some statistics on how many of biologists recognize fetuses as alive or not, or are you, uh, 'just saying'? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK-8252 Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 I'm interested in knowing exactly why you left out the qualifications. Surely, those are part of the definition? In particular, these points: Umm... because I posted the link to it? I posted how it defines life... if you wanted to know more that's why the link was there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Det. Bart Lasiter Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 It's not a matter of their opinions, it's the consensus that appears in things like biology text books and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samuel Dravis Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 It's not a matter of their opinions, it's the consensus that appears in things like biology text books and such.So the entire collective of biologists wrote any specific biology book? I seem to remember them being attributed to a specific author... This is rediculous. Either come up with something real, like statistics, that supports your supposition or be ignored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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