SCIENCE Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

SCIENCE - Essay Example ers to understand the process and existence of life and a discussion of these two ideas is important for any student of history, biology or the life sciences in general. As reported by Johnstone (1930), in matters of historical positioning, vitalism and materialism are not very different from each other. He says that, â€Å"During the last three centuries, biology has exhibited alternating phases of materialism and vitalism. Materialism when, under the stimuli of progress in physical science, it made great advances, and vitalism when, those stimuli being exhausted, it marked time (Johnstone, 1930, pp. 631)†. However, despite the drifting nature of how life was seen by biologist, the particular understanding of the two viewpoints changed very little. For example, vitalism is defined as a doctrine that suggest that all functions of a living being are due to a vital principle that is different and separate from the physiochemical forces that are present in the organism. Life itself is seen as a vital spark which creates energy with the body. Of course the religious leaning within this doctrine is easy to deduce since the vital spark of the body can be easily considered the soul of the person or animal that departs the body once the organism is dead. The idea of vitalism was played down in historical terms when things such as germ theory and the idea of different bodily systems and organs performing different and independent functions were understood by scientists. Life could now be taken to be connected to chemical and biological processes that once understood in chemical terms reduced the need to be dependant on the mystical idea of a vital spark in the human body. However, the deeper questions of how life itself can be maintained still needed help in certain areas from a vitalism perspective because the full explanation of what life is and how living things can be said to be living was still lacking. On the other hand, materialism considers life to be a product