How does something grow, if it isn't alive?

Question

Isn't that impossible?

Does Science agree that if it grows, it lives?

Cells live, right?

Can anyone use a reasonable explanation then, to explain to me, and others why scraping "cells" from a womb is not killing what lives, and grows?

It would be great to get some scientists to answer! Thanks!

Answer 1

> How does something grow, if it isn't alive?

Crystals and fires grow but are not alive.

> Does Science agree that if it grows, it lives?

Nope.  Like I said, crystals and fire.

> why scraping "cells" from a womb is not killing what lives, and grows?

That is indeed killing something.

Doesn't bother me much.  I had a tuna sandwich yesterday.  That tuna was alive at one time, had an organized nervous system, lived with friends...

Answer 2

For anything to be a living thing it have the following:

1)organization

2)energy

3)growth and development

4)reproduction

  )response and adaptation

Answer 3

They are alive and are being killed, allright.

I cant see a problem with that. If you want to protect life i suggest you try a more productive line of work. Go to Somalia and teach the nigers how to grow vegetables or sumething- Do something that matters for a change instead of wasting your life on idiotic debates wheter or not s***n is alive and sacred.

Answer 4

>"Crystals an fire do not grow, they spread, and are created through living cells on Earth.  ... I was asking a serious question, not play on words."

You missed the point.  The fact that crystals and fire grow is NOT just a play on words.  

E.g., crystals (e.g. snowflakes) grow in every living sense of the word "grow".   A snowflake grows by the accumulation of water molecules that are freezing rapidly as the snowflake falls through the water vapor in a cloud.    The crystal is small and simple (a simple hexagon) when it starts ... and by the time it emerges from the cloud it is large and complex.  That is "growth" in every sense of the word.

If it is not growth, then you need to say *why*.   It is not enough to say "That is gained, not growth" without explaining why "gain" in size is different from "growth" in size.

Perhaps you have an unstated requirement that it be *cellular growth* ... i.e. growth due to replication of cells.   If so, then the critical feature you are after is *cellularity*, not *growth*.  And by the second half of your question, it seems that is indeed what you are trying to say.

But  we scrape living human cells all the time.  Every time I shave in the morning I am scraping living cells.  Every time I skin my knee playing soccer, I am scraping living cells.  Every time a woman menstruates she is shedding living cells (including what may be a fertilized egg that failed to implant).  Every time I donate blood this is giving up living cells.  Every time we take a biopsy of a tumor, or take a blood test, or a pap smear, or a cheek swab, these are all living human cells.

Now perhaps you are saying that a newly fertilized egg cell is a very different class of cells than a skin cell or blood cell or cheek cell ... that a fertilized egg cell is entirely different from either the unfertilized egg cell or the sperm cell that existed seconds before fertilization.   In which case you should make that argument.   But just because something is a "cell", and therefore "lives" is not *BY ITSELF* an argument that said cell needs to be protected.

Answer 5

If you're talking about using embryos for stem cell research, then you aren't killing the cells.  The cells continue to grow and live in culture, they just aren't allowed to differentiate.

If you think that human cells shouldn't be intentionally destroyed ever, then you should be opposed to biopsies from tumors as well.  Those are human cells that are killed.

And, most importantly, if you oppose embryonic stem cell research (and you absolutely have a right to do so), to be consistent, you also need to oppose in vitro fertilization clinics.  IVF results in the creation of hundreds of thousands of unused embryos that are destroyed.  There are currently about half a million of these extra embryos waiting to be "killed".