Talk:Life

Template:Vital article

changes to lead section

start here:

Life is the root and ability with which an organism responds to stimulus.

or:

Life, as seen throughout our world, can most simply be understood as the root ability any organism has to respond to stimulus.

Lispenard (talk) 11:28, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

References

'No consensus'?

There is currently no consensus regarding the definition of life. One popular definition is that organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve. Other definitions sometimes include non-cellular life forms such as viruses and viroids.

That's nonsense. Science has held the same consensus for well over a century now and it's not the 'popular definition' here which would reject any life we may find outside of this earth;

Life is defined as any system capable of performing functions such as eating, metabolizing, excreting, breathing, growing, reproducing, and responding to external stimuli.

This is what I was taught when I did my bachelor of biology in 1998. This is what I have taught every day of my life since. This is what every lecturer I know teaches. I have NEVER heard it must be composed of cells, adapt to the environment, or evolve. There are numerous primitive creatures even here that do not evolve nor are adapted to their environment but seek said environment out exclusively. This eliminates a lot of the life we already know of let alone potential future life. 124.190.192.47 (talk) 06:25, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There is certainly a problem with this statement, namely that the lead section is supposed to summarize the text which appears below and which must be fully referenced. It's clearly very difficult to summarize Life#Definitions, but it's not clear to me that the challenged two sentences do. There's no reference given for the idea that they represent a "popular" definition.

(However, I question the assertion above that there are examples of life that does not evolve and hence show adaption.)

Peter coxhead (talk) 06:02, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

See my posts below (2015 Biology degree). I agree adaptation/evolution is not a "requirement" for life and therefore not part of the main definition, rather it's a meta property that describes how life changes over many generations.

• I replaced the lede sentence with a more encyclopedic definition (that doesn't mention adaptation)
• I updated the definition of adaptation in the body. Adaptation should probably be removed from that list too and discussed separately.
• I changed the paragraph that mentions cells so the subject is "organisms" instead of life, because "cells" is more a property of organisms.
• Condensed the lead section to be more focused and WP:DUE
• Reordered the lead section to be more cohesive The void century (talk) 00:56, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Death

The article Death is linked in the lead in the sentence that says "because such functions have ceased (they have died)". It may be a better idea to remove that link, and link it instead in the last paragraph of the lead, that describes death in detail rather than in passing. Cambalachero (talk) 14:10, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I updated the lede

I know this article is semi-protected, but the previous lede was uncited and seemed a bit like WP:Original Research. Unless someone can back up the previous lede with reliable sources, I think we should keep my edit pending further discussion of the consensus definition of life The void century (talk) 04:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Update: I found some support for the previous lede in dictionary definitions, so I updated again to incorporate some of the previous lede and be less WP:CV The void century (talk) 02:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Adaptation as a requirement?

Life#Biology lists adaptation as a core characteristic of life.

Adaptation: the ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.

1. Can someone provide reliable sourcing on this? I'm not denying that adaptation is important to life, but I'm also not sure it is part of the definition. It seems like more of an emergent property than a requirement. For example, Genetic drift also changes life, but not adaptively. What makes adaptation any more important than genetic drift or even maladaptation in the discussion of life? All of these things involve changes to life, but one is not necessarily more important than the other.
2. This definition of adaptation does not line up with the sources or adaptation article. I'm going to change this to line up with adaptation until someone provides a reliable source supporting the above definition. Adaptation is not necessarily in response to the environment.

I will change it to this definition for now, as that's the only one properly cited in adaptation article:

the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats. The void century (talk) 05:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Condensed the lead to be more cohesive and WP:DUE

My most recent edit removed some WP:UNDUE material from the lead and made it more cohesive and focused. Feel free to discuss or revert some parts of my edit. Most of what I removed is still discussed in the body, but not important enough to be in the lead section. The void century (talk) 06:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Life stinks

blah 49.255.232.26 (talk) 04:26, 1 August 2022 (UTC)