you could easily post proof of 2+2=4 but you cannot easily post proof that experts agree that life begins at conception. and you wont, because you cannot. you obfuscate instead. and pretend that the rest of us are science deniers. strut on mr pigeon, keep strutting.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

you cannot easily post proof that experts agree that life begins at conception

For the umpteenth time, I'm not arguing that expert agree that life begins at conception. That's your schtick. I don't particularly care, anymore than I especially care if 4 out of 5 mathematicians say that 2+2=5.

Here's what we know: The zygote meets the scientific definitions of "alive," "human," and "organism." It's precursor parts don't.

It requires some astounding leap of logic to jump from what we know about the zygote to "we don't know when life begins, that's for philosophy to figure out." Why is it for philosophy to determine? Biologists aren't leaving the issue of whether life exists to philosophy, are they? They have criteria to determine what is alive and what constitutes and organism, right? And since the zygote meets those criteria, where is the difficulty in saying that life begins with the zygote? Please explain. Help me understand.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

the precursors of zygotes arent human? does dog jizz come out of your duck dick? do ferret ovum come out of your wifes shrew ovaries?

you should take some biology courses. you have no idea how much you dont understand.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Remember back when you were hung up on adjectives versus nouns?

Apply that here.

The sperm cell and the ovum are human, and they're living. But they aren't organisms.

you have no idea how much you dont understand.

Since you do, help me understand.

Why is when human life begins a philosophical question, rather than a scientifically observable fact?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

because as far as we know, life began only once, roughly 3.7 billion years ago. everything else is just a continium.

when you pick a new point, its arbitrary. you can make cases for why youre planting your flag, but there will be and is widespread scientific and philosophical dissent.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Are you for real with that?

There are no individual human organisms, then?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

you would know this if you studied biology.

having individual human organisms in no way refutes what i said.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Look, man, I'm trying to engage with you here. I'm going to ask you again: If you're going to discuss this, have the courtesy to express your thoughts fully.

But the fact that life in general is continuous is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether or not each individual organism has it's own identifiable origin. If you assert otherwise, please explain how one impacts on the other.

Does a separate sperm cell and ovum constitute a single organism? Or two separate organisms?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

look man, ive made this really simple throughout this discussion. ive tried explaining it using variations of the sorities paradox because its fitting. everything that lives now came from something else living. since living things, even parts, create new living things, there is no easy way to point to new life because there is no point in the process at which it was non living. so go ahead and pick one, but its arbitrary.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

That, frankly, is sophomoric.

Yes, all life proceeds from life. That doesn't begin to touch on the fact that we can determine what is an organism and what isn't, and we can and have observed the moment at which cells which are living but not organisms themselves combine to form an organism. Otherwise known as the beginning of a human life.

There is nothing arbitrary about it. One moment there is no organism, but only separate living cells, the next moment there is a new organism present. You couldn't possibly ask for a less arbitrary point for the beginning of a new life.

On the contrary, if you rule that out as the moment at which a new life- a new organism- is brought into being, literally every other point in of development represents an arbitrary choice to say "life begins here." And every other point would, on that basis, be debatable, and not only that, not a matter of scientific inquiry. If you follow your reasoning to it's logical conclusion, the definition of life itself is not a matter for science to settle, but is a question that can only be addressed by philosophy.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

if its so sophmoric perhaps you need to expain it to all the experts who explicitly disagree with you. next time there needs to be an expert called in to Congress, im sure they will be calling you instead of the piles of phds who spend their careers studying this stuff and cannot reach the simple conclusion you did from apparently reading some pro life blogs.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

How is a sperm cell not an organism under your definition? It has metabolism, it reacts to stimuli, it's even motile, it's clearly an independent entity, and it has the capacity to reproduce (provided it finds a suitable mating partner in time).

Last time I checked biology a sperm will always be just a sperm and will never grow to be anything but a sperm. OTOH a zygote IS just a stage of human life and unless a natural death occurs will grow into an infant, toddler, adolescent, adult, etc. Why some of these people can't understand basic biology is a mystery. Are they being deliberately obtuse?

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Don

Tri-ing to have fun. Anything else is just a bonus!

Doesn't grow, and doesn't reproduce. It's the means of reproduction for the human organism, the result of which is another human being. Not more sperm cells.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Last time I checked biology a bacterium will always be just a bacterium and will never grow to be anything but a bacterium. Last time I checked biologya bacterium was definitely considered an organism.

"Doesn't grow" is not an argument, otherwise all single-celled organisms would be disqualified from being organisms. And sperm cells most definitely do reproduce. In 50 % of cases of successful reproduction, the result is more sperm cells. the fact that humans (like all other animals) exhibit a diploid-dominant life cycle doesn't change that. You can read up on haploid-diploid life cycles in any biology text book; the better ones will probably also cover evolution of haploid-dominant and diploid-dominant cycles. A quick google search for online resources turned up this for example:
https://www.boundless.com/...organisms-408-11635/

in addition to being irrelevant , its also incorrect. over the 3 months of spermiogenesis, the sperm grows its tail.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

If science has to this point not been able to answer the question what is a human life, then on what basis can the IPCC claim that 50% of climate warming was caused by human life?

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

First off no one said that science can't answer what is human life.

II just because you can't find a definitive answer in one area does not mean that you cannot definitively answer another question. I'm not sure why you think that should be the case.

If detectives can't prove who killed Jill then on what basis can they say that Sam robbed a jewelry store?

see how silly that is?

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

And sperm cells most definitely do reproduce. In 50 % of cases of successful reproduction, the result is more sperm cells.

You are a fully developed sperm cell, then?

Your wife, if you're married, is a fully developed sperm cell?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

The conclusion is that you have a cluster of cells which will eventually become something that is unanimously considered to be human, provided that certain factors come into play.

The word to describe that cluster of cells is what is being debated, and as I said, its irrelevant.


Now if scientists discovered that it has a "soul," you'd actually have something worthy of a debate.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I don't follow what you are saying. If science cannot distinguish between what is human life and what is not human life, then I cannot see how it can answer the question what is human life. (Detectives can't say "Sam robbed the store" and say, "I don't know who Sam is.") I am not talking about different areas. I am talking only of what is human life.

But, let's see if we can understand each other in the context of the current debate, i.e. human life. Do you contend that science can answer the question "what is human life"? If so, what scientific criteria or what characteristics would you point to establish that someone, say your child, is a human life?

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

i wonder if this will help clarify....

a carrot seed may eventually grow into a carrot, but no one would look at a carrot seed and call it a carrot. but if you asked them what kind of seed it is, they would answer carrot.

then vitus says, see, that seed is a carrot!

this is exactly what's happening in this debate.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

who said science cant make this determination?


the debate here isnt about what is or isnt a human life. the argument is about determining when the life started.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Vitus would be right.

It is a carrot -- in a early stage called a seed. You can eat it as is, or plant it and it will grow to be something even more nourishing to a vegan. A scientist could analyze the genus and species of the seed and say it is living example of daucus carota in seed form. You could cook the seed and it would no longer be living and then it would be a dead caucus carota seed.

Similarly, we call a one month old a human, as well as a ten year old, and a thirty year old, and a bed ridden 70 year old.

Similarly a monarch butterfly would be a living example of the genus and species whether in larvae, pupa, or adult form.

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________
It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev