Reclassifying Viruses as Living?

[Richard Jensen]

OK, I'll bite - how do we determine whether a box is natural as opposed to artificial?

Dick J

----- Original Message -----
From: John Grehan <jgrehan at SCIENCEBUFF.ORG>
Date: Thursday, March 16, 2006 8:14 am
Subject: Re: Reclassifying Viruses as Living?

> > But....if we didn't classify things into boxes to which we apply
> labels,
> > what would we talk about?
> >
> > Aloha,
> > Rich
>
> Maybe we would talk about non-boxes. Biogeography, for example, is
> rifewith schemes to put geographic boxes around life. Croizat
> showed that it
> was possible to do biogeography without the boxes, and that approach
> sure generated a lot of talk (or non-talk for those who chose
> suppression). Perhaps it is a matter of whether the boxes or
> boundariesare "natural" or artificial.
>
> John
>