> From: Martin Hewlett <hewlett at brahms.biosci.arizona.edu>
> Subject: Re: viruse debate: Are they alive?
> Denni Schnapp <ds4 at st-andrews.ac.uk> wrote:
> I like Steven Levy's ("Artifi-
> > cial Life",
...
> This brought to mind a quote I saw once from A. E. Boycott, given
in his
> presidential address to the Royal Society of Medicine in 1928:
>> "Alive or dead is a stupid question, because it does not exhaust
the possibilities.
> Our general notion of the universe leads us to expect that we
shall meet with
> things that are not so alive as a sunflower, and not so dead as a
brick."
>> (A.E. Boycott, "Transition from Live to Dead: The Nature of
> Filterable Viruses," quoted in "Viral Infections of the Nervous
> System" by Richard T. Johnson.
Superb!!! How could anyone put it better? There are more things in
Heaven and Earth (and elsewhere)...
_____________________________________________________
| Ed Rybicki, PhD | (ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za) |
| Dept Microbiology | University of Cape Town |
| Private Bag, Rondebosch | 7700, South Africa |
| fax: xx27-21-650 4023 | tel: xx27-21-650 3265 |
| URL: http://www.uct.ac.za/microbiology |
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