| WELCOME
TO LIFE
Life is the most improbable thing on Earth. We usually know
it when we see it, but what is it? What is life? We know lots
of things about life. It is a temporary condition experienced
for various lengths of time by all living things. It is packaged
in carbon-based units of various sizes known as organisms.
It is characterized by a handful of mandatory processes that
require interaction with the environment. It is driven by
the electromagnetic force. It has the ability to assume millions
and millions of physical forms. Life has an irrepressible
enthusiasm for reproducing itself. And one of those forms—perhaps
only one—has consciousness. In the final analysis life
is just chemistry, albeit the most complex chemistry known,
or partially known, to humanity.
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This course introduces students to the big picture of life
on Earth. It’s important for young people on the brink
of independence to appreciate the fact that they live on a
small, crowded planet among millions of other kinds of organisms.
The diversity is awesome. It is good for them to know, too,
that life has a history on Earth, and that for virtually all
of that history humans were not players. It is our hope that,
in their efforts to answer the question What is life? and
in their introduction to diversity, students will develop
a personal interest in life in all its forms.
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