Is there a vital force that makes life exist or is it all mechanical and chemical. The vitalists which once were king hang on but their realm has become the land of mystery. If we don't know, than there must be a God. The mechanists and most of my students hold that if you can't prove there is a vital force than there is none. In science, I don't preach vital forces. If I can't prove it, it is not the realm of science.
The Jet stream is where I want to be, riding the stream... one the edge of science and the other edge of the spiritual. I do believe that makes for some fine partnerships.
Sometimes the jet stream gets broken. Earlier this week, I hand out four weather maps, cutting across northern PA is a stationary front, in the same area on another map, the jet stream is a mess. Unfocussed one could say. Things get stagnant at times when I like the weather, stop flowing.
Then there are the nematodes and rotifers that live in ponds and survive when things dry up. The resurrectionists cried out that they come back to life. The anti-resurrectionists said they still have a metabolism. Truth turns out that they change some things around at the cellular level, but do stop their metabolism. If one's metabolism stops, is one dead? Do they come back to life? Does it matter? Does anyone ever win this arguement.
If I can prove how a nematode functions, will that destroy my faith?
Sometimes I feel it takes two minds to keep aloft in the stream.
