Vitalism Vs Mechanism: How Can We Study Life?

Vitalism vs mechanism

Vitalism is a philosophy that explains life in terms of a life force. It is untestable. Mechanism is a testable philosophy that attributes life to natural laws.

		We all watch life, all wonder about it. But you may feel that scientists look at things differently. After all, it's one thing to sing Irish folk songs and another to be a folk song scholar. And you are right there is a difference. So, before we look at the way biologists talk about the characteristics of life, we need to discuss the philosophical framework that allows us to study life.

		At some time in your life you may have butchered an animal, cleaned a fish, or watched an organism die. And at that time you though"One moment this was alive and doing all the things that living things do, and the next moment it was a corpse. Life is gone forever. What happened in the moment life left the body"

		Throughout their history, humans have asked the question "What is life and death" and have developed various philosophies to explain the death of an organism. They say such things as "The soul left the body," "The forces of life are gone," or "The fire of life is out." This philosophy is referred to as vitalism. The vitalist states that things are alive because they possess a vital life force, and when it leaves the body, life ceases.

		But then what about other life forms? Do flowers or grasses have souls? How can you study a life force? How can you discern cause-effect relationships? The concept of a soul or life force is untestable it is a matter of faith, an article of belief, or a question that philosophers call metaphysical (meaning beyond or above physical reality). In contrast to vitalism is the philosophical position called mechanism. Mechanism states that since life is a natural phenomenon, life processes are subject to the natural laws of physics and chemistry.

		Mechanism is not a new idea one of the earliest major supporters of this philosophy was the French philosopher René Descartes (15961650). Even though mechanism received a lot of criticism at the time (as it still does today), mechanists began to develop experiments to test their philosophy. They reasoned that if a reaction thought to occur only in a living organism could be duplicated without an organism, a vital life force could no longer be said to be the cause of the reaction. Up until that  time, scientists defined organic chemicals as substances produced only by living things (as opposed to inorganic compounds, which were not produced by living things). Then, Friedrich Wöhler (18001882) was able to convert an inorganic substance called ammonium cyanate into urea, an organic compound that is the major component of mammalian urine. By producing an organic compound without the intervention of a living organism, Wöhler's experiment provided major support for mechanism. Several other successful experiments followed. In 1898, Eduard and Hans Buchner demonstrated that a substance extracted from yeast cells could ferment sugar outside a cell. This substance ultimately came to be called an enzyme. Enzymes enable reactions to occur in living things. During the past century, chemists have accumulated a wealth of evidence of the importance of enzymes in chemical reactions. The majority of biologists today follow mechanistic philosophy in their work, since mechanism can generate the testable questions that vitalism cannot. Today's biologists study life by trying to understand more about the natural laws of chemistry and physics, and how they apply to the phenomenon we call life. Understanding what happens to enable a butterfly to fly or a fish to respire does not deny the wondrousness of such events. The beauty of studying life is that no matter how much we learn, it remains almost a miracle.

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