Guy writes, following Tim,
 
>> Leslie Orgel's term for:
>> 
>> ``Complex Information-Transforming Reproducing Objects that Evolve
>> by Natural Selection''
>
>This definition would seem to have a problem in that the first organisms
>would not be considered to be living things because they had not evolved by
>natural selection.
>
>I rather like the definition of living things as anything that has a
>metabolism and homeostatic mechanisms.

Unfortunately, the problem with that definition is that a diesel locomotive
with cruise control would qualify as a living thing. 

Personally, I'm not offended by that inclusion. Nor is Dawkins for that matter.
He's willing to count locomotives, computers and even perhaps desks as
"honorary living things."

Nonetheless, although I had never heard of Orgel's definition before, I'm taken
by it and will almost certainly use it in the future myself.

Wirt Atmar
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