Survival Of Living Things: Fill & Download for Free

I think a virus is not alive, but I could see why others might disagree. Viruses can't survive except by invading a separate life-form known as a cell. That doesn't exclude them from some definitions of life; after all, we can't survive without the Earth.A trickier question is whether a prion is a form of life.And then you can ask, is "fire" a form of life? It spreads. Given the right medium, it reproduces. Most people would not include it because it doesn't pass on information or organization.You are getting to a very fundamental question: what is life? There are many opinions, and there is some consensus (I think biologists generally consider an object not to be life unless it is a cell), but I don't think we have really formulated a compelling answer.

It’s bad in the sense that the thing you hate is probably inaccurate.If you hate the idea of “survival of the fittest,” you may be imagining a dog-eat-dog world where the strong crush the weak. That’s a popular misconception, but it isn’t what “survival of the fittest” means.Fittest doesn’t mean strongest or toughest. It doesn’t mean most physically fit. It doesn’t mean most ruthless.Fittest means best matched to the environment.Human beings live in a social environment. Our social environment—our ability to work together, our ability to share knowledge, our ability to communicate—are all more important to our survival than the physical environment.And the fittest humans are the ones who are most compassionate, the most empathic, and most able to work together.For that reason, survival of the fittest is actually making us more compassionate as time goes by.There’s a book I think you should read. It’s called The Better Angels of our Nature, and it describes how evolutionary pressure is adapting us to be kinder and more social.That’s survival of the fittest, and it’s wonderful.

You miss the point, I suspect deliberately so.The “plants are alive” argument isn't an argument for not eating plants at all. It's an argument for acknowledging that survival necessitates a food chain, and a food chain requires that living things are consumed by other living things for survival.From one point of view it's OK to eat anything, it's all fair game.From another it's OK to eat plants and dairy and fish. Fish aren't cute and don't have personality, unlike lambs and chickens and cows.Others think that it's OK to eat plants and dairy, but saying it's OK to eat fish, but not other things with a face, is a bit hypocritical.Others think that it's OK to eat plants, but even dairy exploits animals and is hypocritical.Others think that even eating just plants involves the death of living things. Displacement and possible death of animals for the land and plowing. Use of pesticides and the harvesting cycle. How many small animals get killed harvesting a hundred acres of crops? Then the death of the plants as living things, that have been studied communicating and showing awareness of things around them.If your objection is to modern industrial animal husbandry, argue that. Argue that vegitarianism is the only way to avoid putting money into unethical farming. Pick your standpoint, but don't pretend that your diet doesn't require the death of living things. Don't claim the moral high ground because nothing died for your dinner, because it did.