Talk:Outline of life forms

This is the original lede before it was changed to describing the article as an index:

A life form is an entity or being that is living or alive.^[1][2] While a life form may be considered to be physical, in general an entity or being may be physical or non-physical, mortal or immortal, debatable whether it is considered "alive" or not, and their classification, qualities, and attributes cover a broad scope. An entity or being may be biological, artificial, scientific, religious, fictional, mythological, legendary, or subject to scientific speculation or skepticism. The distinction between natural life and artificial life can be blurred, for example in science fiction and in the computer simulation of brains. The distinction between intelligent life, sentient life, and other forms of life can also be blurred. There are alleged life forms and encounters with them that cannot be strictly classified as fictional, but are subject to skepticism and are not accepted by mainstream science.

Humans are a life form of central importance on planet Earth, able to interact with non-living things and other life forms in the arena of the intellect and emotions, in the spiritual realm, and with the physical world. Since the human life form has a highly developed brain capable of reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving, and with the attributes of sapience, consciousness, self-awareness, rationality, and having conceptions of good and evil, humans are used as a point of reference for life forms in science, science fiction, and other speculative fiction. For example, medicine is the science and art of healing that focuses on the human life form, prehistory can be used to describe the time since human-like life forms appeared on Earth, and extraterrestrial and alien can be used to describe a non-Earth life form.^[3]

Obankston (talk) 16:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

This article is in Category:Indexes of articles. Should the article name be changed to List of life forms or List of life form related articles, or perhaps a redirect to this article from those names would be sufficient? Obankston (talk) 05:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved to List of life forms. The redirect from life form to this article should remain. Obankston (talk) 14:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed double redirects by looking for redirects in the "What links here" of life form and changing to List of life forms. Fixed category sort order of List of life forms. Obankston (talk) 15:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I have added a tag to the article indicating it is unbalanced. I specifically question whether an article which goes by a straightforward title including "life form" goes in its lead to take a view of one particular branch of thought, and arguably a less than immediately obvious relevant branch of thought, process philosophy, as being a basis for inclusion. I believe that gives entirely undue weight to that marginally relevant group, and, on that basis, have added the tag.

I also note that not a single item in this list is separately referenced, including virtually all the content contained in any of the sections after the "scientific and evolutionary categories" section. I tend to believe that there is very good reason to believe that all such sections might be challenged in such an article as this one, and, that being the case, WP:MINREF, which is required when material is challenged or likely to be challenged, should be adhered to. I see several other problems with this list too, in relation to its adherence to the relevant policies and guidelines. Frankly, I am seriously thinking of proposing the whole list for deletion, as per the lack of apparent references which specifically prove the notability of this specific topic. I also, frankly, think that the seemingly non-existent obvious selection criteria raises serious WP:LSC concerns, and, unless those concerns are directly addressed, think that there is a strong possibility that the list might be proposed for deletion as being unmanagable until and unless some more effort is expended regarding these matters. John Carter (talk) 19:30, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Various solutions to the obvious problems of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH are being discussed at Fringe Theories Noticeboard here. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Please, if anybody is reading, as of now (15 June 2019), many entries in this article are either truncated in the middle of a statement, or straight senseless; it looks somebody changed the contents with the intention of ruining it, as in a kind of prank, or tried to write and made a mess. To me looks as a kind of sad joke. Examples: under the entry: 'Chrenarcheota', the accompanying explanation is: 'a phylum of the Archaea kingdom. Initially' and nothing more. Some line below, same: under the entry 'sulfolobales', the following explanatory sentences read: 'grow in terrestrial volcanic hot springs with optimum growth occurring' - and stop, nothing more. Clearly to me it cannot be accepted as it is now. For the voice: 'methanobacteriales', the explanatory following sentences read: ' information including symptoms, causes, diseases, symptoms, treatments, and other medical and health issues.' - that seems to have been copied from some other voice, probably in some medical subject article. Certainly show how some sections of Wikipedia suffer at least from quite some neglect by the club of persons who is known for being almost the owners of all the materials. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.240.17 (talk) 15:21, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Are viruses and/or prions NOT "life forms"? It would be helpful to the naive reader, such as myself, to have a section explaining whther or not they are, and why. Acwilson9 (talk) 20:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Misty MH (talk) 21:10, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

If viruses are not life forms – as another editor asked 1-1/2 years ago – can the article explain why they are not (or at least something about it in the article, because a lot of people are going to wonder)? (Edit: See next.) If they are (see next), then can someone properly add them with sources? Thank you. (Again, See next a quotation from the "Virus" article.) Misty MH (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

"Scientific opinions differ on whether viruses are a form of life or organic structures that interact with living organisms." —SOURCE: Virus: "Life properties" section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Life_properties

FULL SECTION, for dated-reference of 12/1/2022:

"Life properties[edit]

Scientific opinions differ on whether viruses are a form of life or organic structures that interact with living organisms.[11] They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life",[10] since they resemble organisms in that they possess genes, evolve by natural selection,[43] and reproduce by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. Although they have genes, they do not have a cellular structure, which is often seen as the basic unit of life. Viruses do not have their own metabolism and require a host cell to make new products. They therefore cannot naturally reproduce outside a host cell[44]—although some bacteria such as rickettsia and chlamydia are considered living organisms despite the same limitation.[45][46] Accepted forms of life use cell division to reproduce, whereas viruses spontaneously assemble within cells. They differ from autonomous growth of crystals as they inherit genetic mutations while being subject to natural selection. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it lends further credence to the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.[2]"

Misty MH (talk) 21:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)