Today I have developed a cold. I dislike colds so very much. The fact that a cure is impossible drives me crazy. Fortunately, my immune system is engaged in a valiant (and winning) struggle against the invasive pathogens which cause me to ail. Take that, cold. Soon, I'll have antibodies galore that will prevent your evil grasp from clutching me any longer.
According to Wikipedia, a virus is a "sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell." The sneaky little things, in a nutshell, attach to cells, break inside, and then force the cells to make more of themselves. They're like little robots. Supposedly there is an argument as to whether or not viruses are living organisms. If you ask me (not being a biologist, but offering my opinion anyway), I'd say they aren't. I don't think the presence of genetic material qualifies them as being living any more than does a computer program make a computer living. The parallel isn't perfect, but it seems that often these things are a matter of essence rather than form. Thinking outside the box is often required, as opposed to strict definitions. This is in a similar vein to the main issue addressed in Michael Crichton's most recent novel, Next.
At one point, in a forum discussion on global warming, someone argued that Crichton's opinion (specifically taken from State of Fear, a novel about the legitimacy of urgent claims regarding climate change) was not relevant, as he isn't a scientist. Strictly defined, he isn't a scientist. But of course, that is what leads us to the issue in the first place: strict definitions. He does not hold a doctorate in any branch of science, and does not perform scientific research. In other words, he's not an "expert," as defined by the Academia. But the essence of a scientist is not a certain amount of training, it's a desire to ask and answer questions about the universe. I reject that Michael Crichton is not a scientist. For one thing, he is a medical doctor, practicing or not. That itself requires extensive training in several fields of science. For another thing, he does research. Not in a lab, or in the field, perhaps, but collecting the opinions of other scientists in order to put together the pieces, so to speak, is still research. He uses the research to write novels, yet underneath the novels are important scientific issues, increasingly more about the politics of science than the actual science itself. At the end of the day, knowledge is knowledge, and whether public awareness of certain aspects and issues of science comes from fiction or non-fiction, it ends up the same. Therefore, I consider Michael Crichton a scientist based on his pursuit of answers to what he considers important questions.
That's all kind of tangential to my original point. In my opinion, viruses lack a sort of essence that living organisms possess. They would seem to me more like natural robots, pre-programmed (yet adaptable) to simply assemble more of themselves. After all, assemble themselves (via a host cell, akin to a factory) is what they do, rather than actually reproducing. They're like Terminators.
In which case my immune system can be John Connor.
According to Wikipedia, a virus is a "sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell." The sneaky little things, in a nutshell, attach to cells, break inside, and then force the cells to make more of themselves. They're like little robots. Supposedly there is an argument as to whether or not viruses are living organisms. If you ask me (not being a biologist, but offering my opinion anyway), I'd say they aren't. I don't think the presence of genetic material qualifies them as being living any more than does a computer program make a computer living. The parallel isn't perfect, but it seems that often these things are a matter of essence rather than form. Thinking outside the box is often required, as opposed to strict definitions. This is in a similar vein to the main issue addressed in Michael Crichton's most recent novel, Next.
At one point, in a forum discussion on global warming, someone argued that Crichton's opinion (specifically taken from State of Fear, a novel about the legitimacy of urgent claims regarding climate change) was not relevant, as he isn't a scientist. Strictly defined, he isn't a scientist. But of course, that is what leads us to the issue in the first place: strict definitions. He does not hold a doctorate in any branch of science, and does not perform scientific research. In other words, he's not an "expert," as defined by the Academia. But the essence of a scientist is not a certain amount of training, it's a desire to ask and answer questions about the universe. I reject that Michael Crichton is not a scientist. For one thing, he is a medical doctor, practicing or not. That itself requires extensive training in several fields of science. For another thing, he does research. Not in a lab, or in the field, perhaps, but collecting the opinions of other scientists in order to put together the pieces, so to speak, is still research. He uses the research to write novels, yet underneath the novels are important scientific issues, increasingly more about the politics of science than the actual science itself. At the end of the day, knowledge is knowledge, and whether public awareness of certain aspects and issues of science comes from fiction or non-fiction, it ends up the same. Therefore, I consider Michael Crichton a scientist based on his pursuit of answers to what he considers important questions.
That's all kind of tangential to my original point. In my opinion, viruses lack a sort of essence that living organisms possess. They would seem to me more like natural robots, pre-programmed (yet adaptable) to simply assemble more of themselves. After all, assemble themselves (via a host cell, akin to a factory) is what they do, rather than actually reproducing. They're like Terminators.
In which case my immune system can be John Connor.
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