Lets see. A car can move (animals can move), a car can release fumes (animals excrete), a car needs gasoline and water to keep going (animals need food and water) and a car needs to be taken care of so it won't get damaged (animals need to take care of themselves so it won't die). So how does this stop us from saying that a car is not alive?
In the book, 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins, it is suggested that, "We are survival machines"(pg21). Its true, all the different species are made differently and are genetically different. Just like a Car is different from a motorcycle, and a motorcycle to a boat. We have animals that go by sea and animals that go by land. That's exactly what Mr. Dawkin shows us, at least that's what I understood, "Different sorts of machines appear very different on the outside and internal organs", just like a car and an airplane.
Later on in the book, on page 24, Mr. Dawkins states, "A survival machine is a vehicle containing not just one gene but many thousands." Than on the last page of the chapter he says,"It is to survival machines themselves, and the sense in which genes may be said to control their behaviour, that we turn the next chapter."
But wait, yes I realise that this is just a comparison, machines can't think, and machines don't have genes. What separates living things from non living things? To try and answer questions like these, biologists use a list of things that living organisms show: Respire, Movement, Nourishment (by themselves), Grow and develop (cars can't grow), Excretion, and Reproduction.
TA DA.
In the book, 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins, it is suggested that, "We are survival machines"(pg21). Its true, all the different species are made differently and are genetically different. Just like a Car is different from a motorcycle, and a motorcycle to a boat. We have animals that go by sea and animals that go by land. That's exactly what Mr. Dawkin shows us, at least that's what I understood, "Different sorts of machines appear very different on the outside and internal organs", just like a car and an airplane.
Later on in the book, on page 24, Mr. Dawkins states, "A survival machine is a vehicle containing not just one gene but many thousands." Than on the last page of the chapter he says,"It is to survival machines themselves, and the sense in which genes may be said to control their behaviour, that we turn the next chapter."
But wait, yes I realise that this is just a comparison, machines can't think, and machines don't have genes. What separates living things from non living things? To try and answer questions like these, biologists use a list of things that living organisms show: Respire, Movement, Nourishment (by themselves), Grow and develop (cars can't grow), Excretion, and Reproduction.
TA DA.
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