A friend once told me I was wasting my time writing about cross-cultural perspectives on the beginnings of life. “Your work is interesting for its curiosity value,” he said, “but fundamentally worthless. What happens in other cultures is totally irrelevant to what is happening here.” Those were discouraging words, but as I followed the American debates about the beginnings and ends of life, it seemed he was right. Anthropologists have written a great deal about birth and death rites (...) in other societies and about non-western notions of personhood, but to date our findings have had little impact on American policy, ethics, or law. The recognized experts on contentious topics such as abortion and euthanasia tend to come from the fields of philosophy, bioethics, theology, law, and biology, but rarely from the social sciences. I was a bit surprised, therefore, to be invited to address the Thomas A. Pitts Memorial Lectureship on “Defining the Beginning and the End of Human Life.”. (shrink)

To many, it seems like the debate of "when life begins" is irresolvable. This is unfortunate since this failure to make progress is largely a result of people not asking what the question means, or clarifying what is being asked, and listening carefully to try to understand the range of answers. -/- As a philosophy professor who teaches logic and critical thinking, I suggest that asking the simple, but powerful, question, "What do you mean?" and seeking to understand different (...) answers could help us move past this debate to more important, and challenging, ethical and legal questions about abortion. (shrink)

The question of when human life begins is critical in debates related to life issues. While there are a variety of proposals as to how an organism should be defined, many biologists and ethicists, particularly Catholics, have approached this issue by arguing that fertilization defines the beginning of a new organism. Examining the processes of fission and fusion, which take place before gastrulation, provides strong evidence for when human life beings and therefore how it should be defined. (...) Among the four dominant theories, regulative fission and fusion are the best explanations in terms of being the most consistent with the biological data. This explanation of twinning provides compelling evidence that fertilization is not a necessary condition for human generation, although it may be a sufficient condition. While fertilization generates the vast majority of human beings, additional human beings may rarely be generated during fission events. (shrink)

A new law has been passed by the Danish Parliament, establishing an ethical council. The law has caused considerable debate in Denmark, particularly because it states that 'the work of the council shall build on the basis that human life takes its beginning at the time of conception'.

In theory, at least, we might achieve a certain sort of invulnerability right at the end of life. Suppose that under favorable circumstances we can live a certain number of years, say 125, but no longer, and also that we can make life as a whole better and better over time. Under these assumptions we might hope to disarm death by spending 125 years making life as good as it can be. If we were lucky enough to (...) accomplish that, afterwards we would be immune to mortal harm. Especially for those who are closer to the beginning of life than to the end, however, this strategy leaves much to be desired. It is like devouring an entire banquet so as to eliminate the danger of someone stealing it from us. Like a feast, a good life is safely ours after it is over, but then safety comes too late to be of any use to us. To be of practical value, we need protection from mortal harm much earlier in life. (shrink)

This article explores the impact of Dobbs on access to assisted reproductive technologies. Clinical aspects of IVF, including embryo discard and cryopreservation, preimplantation genetic testing, and selective reduction of multiple pregnancy are potentially jeopardized by a new legal landscape that protects embryos over the interest of infertility patients.

The process of condensation of an amorphous solid into a rigid matrix can often trap molecules in reversible binding sites. Exchange of the same molecular species with such sites is known to be sensitive to small chemical differences and to distinguish between enantiomers. In addition to their usefulness in chromatographic processes, such materials can separate, by solid phase extraction, specific compounds from complex mixtures. Furthermore, the trapped molecules can have their reactions guided and catalytically changed. The combination of this spontaneously (...) formed system of templates and catalytic sites may support a type of replication cycle, and suggests some pathways from simple chemistry toward the complexities of biology. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 11: 30–35, 2005 -/- . (shrink)

Abstract. In January 1985, about 80 Muslim religious scholars and biomedical scientists gathered in a symposium held in Kuwait to discuss the broad question “When does human life begin?” This article argues that this symposium is one of the milestones in the field of contemporary Islamic bioethics and independent legal reasoning (Ijtihād). The proceedings of the symposium, however, escaped the attention of academic researchers. This article is meant to fill in this research lacuna by analyzing the proceedings of (...) this symposium, the relevant subsequent developments, and finally the interplay of Islam and the West as a significant dimension in these discussions. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of (...) medieval philosophy--does justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

In this fascinating journey to the edge of science, Vidal takes on big philosophical questions: Does our universe have a beginning and an end or is it cyclic? Are we alone in the universe? What is the role of intelligent life, if any, in cosmic evolution? Grounded in science and committed to philosophical rigor, this book presents an evolutionary worldview where the rise of intelligent life is not an accident, but may well be the key to unlocking the (...) universe's deepest mysteries. Vidal shows how the fine-tuning controversy can be advanced with computer simulations. He also explores whether natural or artificial selection could hold on a cosmic scale. In perhaps his boldest hypothesis, he argues that signs of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are already present in our astrophysical data. His conclusions invite us to see the meaning of life, evolution and intelligence from a novel cosmological framework that should stir debate for years to come. (shrink)

Islam gives legal precedence to purity of lineage and known parenthood of all children. In Islam treatment to infertility using IVF is permitted within validity of marriage contract with no genes mixing. The paper shows that the Qur’ān, the word of Allah, and science, the deeds of Allah are not in major conflicts in defining the start of human life. The Holy Qur’ān provides an elegant description of origin, developmental stages of intra-uterine life. The Hadith explains two positions (...) one that believes human embryo get ensouled at conception and the other after 40 days of conception. The paper aims to find that Islam confers moral respect to human embryo, but it also clarifies the absence of full human rights to a developing foetus. In Islam, human embryonic use is probably permissible for therapeutic and reproductive purpose keeping intact the principles of Shari’ah. (shrink)

How can the abortion issue be resolved? Many believe that the issue can be resolved if, and only if, we can determine when human life begins. Those opposed to abortion choice typically say that human life begins at conception. Many who favor abortion choice say that we will never know when human life begins. The importance of the when-does-human-life-begin issue is not so much argued for as it is taken to be self-evident. Furthermore, belief that (...) this issue is fundamental is taken for granted – at least outside of philosophy – by many of the people who seem to disagree about almost everything else concerning abortion. It has been my experience that – with rare exceptions – even those who insist that the issue of abortion should focus on the interests of pregnant women believe that this focus is warranted because fetuses are either not yet fully alive or not yet fully human. (shrink)

In The Life of a Style, Jonathan Gilmore claims that such narrative developments inhere in the history of art itself.By exploring such topics as the discovery ...

Some disability rights advocates criticise prenatal testing and selective abortion on the grounds that these practices express negative attitudes towards existing persons with disabilities. Disability rights advocates also commonly criticise and oppose physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia on the same grounds. Despite the structural and motivational similarity of these two kinds of arguments, there is no literature comparing and contrasting their relative merits and the merits of responses to them with respect to each of these specific medical practices. This paper (...) undertakes such a comparison. My thesis is that a number of potentially significant weaknesses of the expressivist argument against reproductive technologies are avoided when the argument is used against PAS. In particular, I try to show that three common criticisms of the expressivist argument applied to reproductive technologies, whatever merit they have, have even less merit when they are used to reply to the expressivist argument applied to PAS. This is important because the expressivist argument applied to the end of life scenario does not get as much attention as the argument applied to the beginning of life scenario, and yet it has a relatively stronger position. (shrink)

It will engage bioethicists and philosophers as well as inform policy and law regarding issues at the beginning and end of life.

Both in criminal law science and in the judicial practice there are a lot of discussions as to what should be considered as the beginning and end of human life. Birth and death are not instantaneous acts, but rather processes made up of time-spans that can be construed as evidence of the beginning or end of a human life. From a biological point of view the human life is a constant, continuous metabolic process after cessation of which (...) the human life also ceases. These circumstances very much aggravate the definition of criteria of the moments of beginning and end of human life. There are disagreements in the criminal law science with respect to from which moment the human life is to be protected by the criminal law. Herewith this presupposes also the other problematic question—what is to be considered a “living human” as a homicide subject (a victim). Complication of the said question is also determined by the fact that it is related not only to legal but also to medical, religious, and moral aspects. This article exactly analyses certain aspects of the beginning and end of human life in the context of the homicide composition attributes. (shrink)

Much has been written on the life of Muhammad, prophet of Islam. (“Mohammed” and the French “Mahomet” are the result of a long-standing and now traditional deformation.) Aside from his picturesque and romantic character, sure to excite the interest of Occidentals drawn to active, impassioned lives of genius, the importance of the Moslem achievement which he initiated has given rise to important works, the solid and honorable production of historians and specialists of Islam.We see, then, that many pages have (...) been written on this astonishing man. Critical discussions, often heated ones, have been devoted to the least of his words or deeds. However, very few of these pages have been devoted to the fundamental problems raised by his life in the minds of those who reflect on the evolution and the destiny of societies. (shrink)

The chapter provides a response to Patrick Toner, “Critical Study of Fabrizio Amerini’s Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 2, 211–28. The chapter corrects two misrepresentations in Toner’s review. First, it proves that, given Aquinas’ assumptions on substantial form and human soul, Aquinas could not give up his preference for delayed hominization of the embryo even if he were acquainted with contemporary embryology. Aquinas takes as the starting point of his embryology (...) Aristotle’s characterization of the human soul as the act of an organic physical body having life potentially, and this characterization leads him to the conviction that the human soul can enter into the human body only after the principal vital organs are formed. Second, the chapter corrects Toner’s unusual interpretation of the clause “organic” in the Aristotelian characterization of the human soul, by specifying the different senses of potentiality in Aquinas’ embryology. The chapter reaffirms the core idea that establishing when the hominization of the human embryo begins is not decisive for rejecting abortion. The chapter suggests relating the question of abortion to the identity or continuity of the human embryo rather than to the beginning of hominization. (shrink)

In my paper, I attempt a phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of intersexuality, which I view from the perspective of the problem of indeterminacy concerning the horizon of the givenness of homeworld founded on the broader basis of the pre-givenness of lifeworld. These horizons define the structure of the sedimentation of subjective experience, as well as the layers of cultural meanings sedimented in the lifeworld. The sedimented layers of self-experience and of the shared lifeworld function as a sphere of (...) indeterminacy, that is the horizons of constituted phenomena. In this sense all intentional acts have the nature of horizontal indeterminacy, the layers of which are revealed in the genetic question (Rückfrage) directed toward them. Horizontal indeterminacy also accounts for the distinction between homeworld and alienworld, which appears as something unobvious and unexpected against the obviousness of the homeworld, at the same time thematizing the latter. One of the elements of the sedimented conceptual system, functioning as the horizon of indeterminacy of both self-experience and the pre-reflective life-world, is the notion of human corporeality as given in the binary sexuality/gender. A unique opportunity for phenomenological insight into the constitution of the phenomenon of sex/gender is provided by Hida Viloria's lived experience of intersexuality. Her lived body, originally experienced pre-reflectively as a transparent medium and a perfectly handy tool of undisturbed intentionality, unproblematized also in the sexual activities, gradually undergoes alienation under the objectifying gaze determined by the binary pattern of sexuality. Becoming an alienated object, her body loses its transparency. Viloria begins to experience her corporeality and identity in a way determined by the sedimented "ideology" of sex and gender, trying on the "constructs" of masculine and feminine identities, eventually overcoming alienation and, in a process of secondary self-identification, reclaiming her lived body in its intersexuality and her identity in its non-binary gender fluidity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life by Fabrizio AmeriniJohn LanganReview: Fabrizio Amerini, Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life, trans. Mark Henninger, Harvard University Press, 2013The ongoing and apparently interminable debate over the moral and legal status of abortion has come over the years to resemble the Western front in World War I, with two contending armies facing each other with (...) limited maneuvering room, familiar and overused weapons, periodic artillery barrages, increasing casualties, not much new to report, and a deadly ‘no man’s land’ between them in which virtually nothing survives. Against the gloomy monotony of the abortion wars, in which reductivist accounts of the opponents’ views and repetitious restatements of familiar and cherished views predominate, this book by Fabrizio Amerini, a professor of philosophy at the University of Parma, appears as a refreshing surprise. It is surprising for a number of reasons, which I shall present later. But its refreshing character comes primarily from its moderate tone and the care with which its arguments are presented. Amerini is clearly familiar with the Catholic tradition on abortion and euthanasia; he is respectful of this tradition, which he does not directly challenge, but his sense of scholarly integrity prevents him from simply presenting Aquinas as a defender and synthesizer of all the positions championed in that tradition or by its papal custodians. He has an impressive command of the relevant texts in Aquinas and the Fathers of the Church, which he joins with a scrupulous style of [End Page E-103] philosophical argument which has an affinity with the clarifying labors of G. E. Moore in the early days of analytic moral philosophy. The result is not easy reading, but the reader can be confident that the desire to score rhetorical points and political victories will not distort the philosophical and historical analysis. The book is intended primarily for those who can benefit from careful scholarship, but it should be instructive for all who regard the questions of abortion and euthanasia as genuinely difficult and as deserving our best intellectual efforts.The most important surprise is Amerini’s focus on the issue of delayed versus immediate hominization in the development from embryo to complete human being. Since Pius IX in 1867, the Vatican has insisted that from the moment of conception the embryo becomes a human person whose life is sacred and deserves full protection. This view is ordinarily discussed as ‘immediate hominization’. In Amerini’s view, the embryo lacks the development and differentiation of organs which would enable it to have a sustainable potentiality to perform the acts which are proper to a human person, particularly reasoning and choosing. In the Vatican’s view, the soul is immediately infused by God, though it obviously requires many years of development before it is able to function as a complete and distinct human person. Amerini regards this position as untenable within Aquinas’s metaphysical system and finds in Aquinas’s own texts evidence that he teaches a discontinuous process in fetal life. Amerini regards the insistence on immediate hominization as an arbitrary effort to maintain an absolute uniformity of moral status in all the stages of embryonic and fetal life. He sees the Vatican’s position as leading to an equation of abortion and homicide which he regards as unjustified. He does, however, affirm that there is an identity of subject running from the embryo to the developed person and also that this grounds an ethic of respect for life in all of its stages. The practical conclusions in bioethics he would draw from this position “could allow space for a judicious and discriminating ethical evaluation of individual cases,” as he puts the matter in the concluding sentence of the book.Other surprises are the author’s discovering from a careful reading of Aquinas’s texts that he taught a progressive plurality of substantial forms in the development of the embryo. For Aquinas, it is the substantial form which answers the question about what sort of being the object of our inquiry is. In the case of human persons, the substantial form is the soul, which includes the intellectual properties of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life by Fabrizio AmeriniPatrick LeeAquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life. By Fabrizio Amerini. Translated by Mark Henninger. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. xxii + 260. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN: 978-0-674-07247-3.This book provides a comprehensive and textually grounded presentation of Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on embryology and an assessment of its bioethical implications. Despite (what I (...) regard as) some mistakes on the application of that teaching to contemporary embryological data, it is an invaluable sourcebook for Aquinas on this issue. At times, Amerini’s “aporetic” style makes for convoluted arguments, but it raises challenging questions and thus will assist anyone working through these issues. (As the title indicates, it also treats the end of life—but only very briefly, in a couple of pages near the end of the book.)The first two chapters examine Aquinas’s general principles regarding matter, form, and substantial generation (the coming to be of a substance), and his positon on the human soul as both subsistent and the substantial form of the human body. Amerini’s treatment is thorough and provides an extensive bibliographical guide to this issue. However, it seems to me that Amerini is less than clear on the distinctiveness of substantial change. Since there are (according to Aquinas and Aristotle) no degrees in the category of substance, generation is not a process but an instantaneous change. Amerini’s frequent use of the term “process of generation,” as well as the position he later proposes on the identity of the embryo, seems to conflict with that point. [End Page 489]Chapters 3 and 4 contain detailed exposition of Aquinas’s basic embryological position, and chapter 4 raises various questions about this position (including doubts that Amerini evidently has about the unicity of the human being’s substantial form). Applying his basic metaphysical principles to what he at the time believed were the embryological facts, Aquinas concluded that the human being with a rational soul is not present until forty days after fertilization for males or ninety days for females. The father and the mother generate the offspring, but the mother provides only the material cause in the form of menstrual blood; the father is the efficient and formal cause, acting through the semen as an instrumental cause. With the power (virtus) of the principal cause in it, the semen gradually organizes the menstrual blood provided by the mother to form, first, a being with a vegetative soul, then an animal, and finally an animal with a body suited to be formed by a rational soul, which God then infuses into it. Aquinas holds that, unlike a sensitive or vegetative soul, a rational soul must be directly created by God, since the rational soul is the source of operations that are independent of matter, that is, performed by the human being but without a bodily organ. Only matter that is suited to a form can receive it. Therefore the matter must be suitably disposed. Just as one can make a knife only with matter capable of supporting its function—and so the matter must be hard and capable of being sharp—so only a body with sense organs, and thus capable of supporting those actions prerequisite to rational operations, can receive a rational soul.Chapter 5 sets out in detail Amerini’s exposition and interpretation of Aquinas on the identity of the embryo. Amerini recognizes, of course, Aquinas’s mistakes and ignorance regarding basic embryological facts—inevitable given the time in which he wrote. Still, Amerini holds that Aquinas’s main conclusion regarding delayed hominization is still valid. He agrees with Aquinas that the general proportionality requirement implies that the embryo/fetus must first possess sensory organs to have a body apt for the reception of a rational soul.On the other hand, Amerini also advances what he believes is a via media between proponents of delayed hominization and proponents of immediate hominization. He argues that although the embryo is not numerically identical with the human being (which comes to be only with the infusion of the rational soul), nevertheless, the embryo from... (shrink)

Many declare the debate about abortion to be hopelessly polarised, between conservatives and liberals, between forces religious and secular. In this book Mumford upends this received wisdom and challenges consensus, arguing that many dominant attitudes and argument fail to take into account the particular way human beings 'emerge' in the world.

Introduction The act of caring in nursing requires previous deliberation and decision, however this perception only arises when an ethical problem emerges. Objective: Identify ethical problems of nurses action in the area of beginning of human life Method: Exploratory and descriptive method, with a qualitative approach. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data, who were submitted to content analysis. The sample was constituted by 26 nurses. Results 18 categories of problem areas and 56 ethical problems in early human (...) class='Hi'>life were identified. The results obtained are very diverse, including areas such as termination of pregnancy, informed consent or maintaining privacy. However, other problem areas also emerge and numerous new subcategories/ethical problems, including: dealing with miscarriage, extreme situations, minors’ pregnancy, serious malformations detected at birth, consent regarding care during childbirth, Non- identification of a ethical problem, nurse social recognition and non-involvement of the person in labour. Conclusion Nurses face different ethical problems that impact their lives. We intend to contribute in helping to make decisions in this field, which the outset is of hope and joy, but which hides, behind this evidence, countless situations of suffering for everyone involved. The identification of ethical problems in this field, it is the first step to reflect about theme and helping decision-making for nurses that are taking care in this area of beginning of human life, when confronted whit the same type of ethical problems. (shrink)

Philip Reed’s interesting and welcome comparison of the expressivist case against, on the one hand, prenatal testing and abortion and, on the other, physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary active euthanasia (VAE), indicates the relevance of the expressivist case against the latter and its resilience to criticisms of the expressivist case against the former. Advocates of PAS/VAE commonly argue that they should be lawful out of respect for autonomy: everyone has the right to choose a physician-hastened death if they meet specified (...) conditions such as ‘terminal illness’ or ‘unbearable suffering’. The focus on autonomy is distracting, for the real work of justifying PAS/VAE is done by the argument that life with the conditions specified is not ‘worth living’. Legalisation endorses, and expresses, the judgement that it is reasonable for people with those conditions to think their lives no longer worth living and obtain medical help to end them. Were the justification to respect autonomy, why limit the choice? It is small wonder, in light of the discriminatory nature of such a judgement, that disability groups have been outspoken opponents of legalisation. As society’s ‘canaries in the coalmine’ they have warned of the …. (shrink)

Human Aspiration is the first chapter of the magnum opus book "Life Divine". Here in in this chapter Sri Aurobindo one of the most modern prolific philosophers of Renaissance India has highlighted his focal points as to what Man's eternal aspiration has been, that is, God, Light , Freedom & Eternity. Despite technological and scientific advancements, Mans is still thirsty, it is because he aspires for a Divine Life. The article talks about the "Human aspiration" of eternity in (...) details. (shrink)

The morality of abortion is a longstanding controversy. One may wonder whether it’s even possible to make significant progress on an issue over which so much ink has already been split and there is such polarizing disagreement (Boyle 1994). The papers in this issue show that this progress is possible—there is more to be said about abortion and other crucial beginning-of-life issues. They do so largely by applying contemporary philosophical tools to moral questions involving life’s beginning. The first (...) two papers defend the pro-life view from recent objections involving miscarriage and abortion doctors. The third shows how the social model of disability and the concept of transformative experience applies to classic debates like abortion and euthanasia. The final two papers address how rights and harms apply to children and to beings that do not yet exist. All five papers make a noteworthy contribution to the moral issues that arise at the beginning of life. (shrink)

For Aristotle, animals, by contrast to plants, possess a perceptual soul. However, there is disagreement concerning the point at which the perceptual soul is acquired, for him. On one influential interpretation, Aristotle thinks that the perceptual soul is acquired not during the initial formation of the embryo, but at some later stage of its development. On such interpretations of Aristotle’s view, the newly formed embryo is not yet an actual animal, but a plant-like living being or even inanimate matter. We (...) argue, by contrast, that Aristotle views the embryo, from the very beginning, as an actual animal exercising basic nutritive and perceptual functions. We show that this interpretation is consistent with Aristotle’s views on embryogenesis in the GA, HA, PA, and the Metaphysics. (shrink)

From Dawn till Dusk embraces the conceptual challenges often associated with Bioethics by taking the reader on a journey that embodies the circle of life and what it means to be human. The beginning and the end of life have always been an impossible riddle to humans. Bioethics does not aspire to unveil utter truths regarding the purpose of our existence; on the contrary, its task is to settle controversial issues that arise within this finite, very fragile and (...) vulnerable life, yet a life we still have to live. This book discusses thorny ethical issues that transcend time and are related to the dawn and the dusk of life: abortion and infanticide, genetic engineering, human reproductive cloning, the fear of death, rational suicide, and the right to die. The book's highest aspiration, though, is to both provide the reader with an opportunity to see the world from different perspectives and to showcase the irresistible charms of bioethical debates. (shrink)

For decades most scientists assumed that life emerged billions of years ago in a “primordial soup” somewhere on the Earth’s surface. Evidence is mounting, however, that life may have begun deep beneath the surface, perhaps near a volcanic ocean vent or even inside the hot crust itself. Since there are hints that life’s history on Earth extends back through the phase of massive cosmic bombardment, it may be that life started on Mars and came here later, (...) perhaps inside rocks ejected from the Red Planet by large impacts. The traffic of intact rocks between Mars and Earth is now an established fact, and experiments confirm that microbes could survive the rigours of the journey through space if cocooned within such material. Unfortunately, this planetary cross- contamination compromises astrobiologists’ hope of finding a second genesis in the solar system. (shrink)

The problem of how a mixture of chemicals can spontaneously transform themselves into even a simple living organism remains one of the great outstanding challenges to science. Various primordial soup theories have been proposed in which chemical self- organization brings about the required level of complexity. Major conceptual obstacles remain, however, such as the emergence of the genetic code, and the “chicken-and-egg” problem concerning which came first: nucleic acids or proteins. Currently fashionable is the so-called RNA world theory, which casts (...) RNA in the role of both chicken and egg. Other theories assume that protein chemistry and even clay crystal life came before nucleic acids. To be fully successful, a theory of biogenesis has to explain not merely the emergence of molecular replication and chemical complexity, but the crucial information content and information processing capabilities of the living cell. (shrink)

This is a book of guidance rooted in the wisdom of ancient China. Bestselling author Deng Ming-Dao provides key poetic lines that distill the essence of Taoism, organizing them in the form of a journey. The material here is drawn from a variety of sources, including, the Yijing, 300 Tang Poems, and the full text of the Daodejing. As Deng Ming-Dao notes, "We walk the Way each day. We don't know what's ahead, and so it's helpful to have the wisdom (...) of others to guide us. They have left us a message to encourage us. They have spoken of the joys, griefs, and purity that we should embrace. Like good pathfinders, they give us direction and prepare us for what we might encounter. They let us walk for ourselves. We have a wonderful companion for the journey." This profound collection of ancient wisdom is the resource for those looking for daily sustenance and guidance on the path of life. -- inside front cover. (shrink)

The autobiography of one of the most versatile of American scientists of his generation, the first to be trained largely in his own country. A scientific generalist, Morse has made significant contributions to atomic physics, quantum mechanics, plasma physics, astrophysics, acoustics, machine computation, and operations research. Philip Morse has surely been one of the most versatile of American scientists of his generation, the first to be trained largely in his own country. A scientific generalist, he has made significant contributions to (...) atomic physics, quantum mechanics, plasma physics, astrophysics, acoustics, machine computation, and operations research. His life-long commitment to teaching, through his authorship of a series if standard-setting textbooks and through his personal guidance of unnumbered individual students, has extended this scope to include thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and the methods of theoretical physics as well. Moreover, as this autobiography relates at a fast-moving pace, Morse has also been involved in the high-pressure concerns of war research, scientific administration and consultation, policy formation, the education of key groups and wider publics beyond the classroom, and the real-world utilization of scientific techniques and discoveries. For all these accomplishments, Morse writes that his experience as a scientist and as a participant in the affairs of his time "has been at the second, rather than at the top, level." It may be that this circumstance of being neat, rather than at, the top makes this autobiography more, rather than less, relevant to other and younger scientists, to those considering a life in science, and to general readers curious as to what such a life is really like. Only a miniscule few reach, say. Einsteinian levels, and their lives and work tend to be unique unto themselves; what Morse reports is truer to the experience of the great majority of the members of the scientific community. While his actual accomplishments, his range, and his eminence certainly far exceed those of a "typical" scientist, they do so more in degree than in kind. Morse's style is straightforward and nontechnical, direct, and personal. Some of the lighter moments and revealingly human incidents of his experience are recorded along with the problems and breakthroughs in the near-private world of pure science and the public worlds of policy, high-level consultation, and practical applications. (shrink)