Reclassifying Viruses as Living?

[Richard Pyle]

But....if we didn't classify things into boxes to which we apply labels,
what would we talk about?

:-)

Aloha,
Rich

P.S. I have always been in the habit of considering the universe as a single
whole structure in a state of dynamic flux; but as a taxonomist, I do see
the value in establishing "artificial" (=defined by humans) compartments to
which certain properties consistently apply in most of the cases, most of
the time -- in order to facilitate communication.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Gordon Ramel
> Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 9:24 PM
> To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
> Subject: Re: Reclassifying Viruses as Living?
>
>
> While I cannot claim to be a professional taxonomist, I have always
> thought that the problem is not, where do we draw the line between life
> and non-life, but why do we want to draw the line.  We humans tend to want
> to catagorise the world into a series boxes, but we know, when we look
> closely that these boxes are only constructs of our own minds, in reality
> nature does not have any boxes, just inumerable continuums which, although
> the representation may be thinner in places, facilitating our
> compartmentalisations, are generally not broken, especially once you start
> to consider things from a 4D point of view.  Once you get into the habit
> of considering the universe as a single whole structure in a state of
> dynamic flux and learn to see the flows rather than trying to pinpoint
> moments of stability to build your understanding on the whole thing
> becomes much more comprehensible.
>
>                  Gordon Ramel  www.earthlife.net/