![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
The Wikiproject banners at the top are not tangential categorization. They direct editors to more general fora for content help and advice, and draw new people to the article from the project. Do either of these or any other reason apply for any or all of the philosophy, psychology, medicine, chemistry, or biology wikiprojects? Vitalism is obsolete, and of purely historical interest. - Eldereft ( cont.) 20:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The etymology for "animal magnetism", third bullet point in section "Mesmerism", is regretably incorrect.
Specifically, "animal" as an adjective isn't derived from "animus", but from "anima", which is the proper latin term for a soul. Aside from a simple issue of mistake of gender, a worse error is in the given translation itself, since the article, as it is, claims that "animus" means "breath", which is an obvious confusion with another, etymologically unrelated latin term, "spiritus". Anima simply means soul, without any pneumatic connotations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.207.1.157 ( talk) 00:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
The BBC programme In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg has an episode which may be about this subject (if not moving this note to the appropriate talk page earns cookies). You can add it to "External links" by pasting * {{In Our Time|Vitalism|b00dwhwt}}. Rich Farmbrough, 03:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC).
These names are immortalised in terms like Galvanised objects and Volts of electricity. Galvani had traced a link both ways between lightning and the animation of animals (frog legs). Volta showed that Galvani's "animal electricity" could be produced without the animal (any salty solution would suffice in its place). Shouldn't their debate be mentioned in this article? Cesiumfrog ( talk) 02:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
http://bio.sunyorange.edu/updated2/creationism/CREATIONISM/not%20a%20science%20book/20%20Vitalism.htm 24.45.42.125 ( talk) 02:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Does the detail of School of Athens, featuring Aristotle and Plato, have any business being here? Looks pretty tangential. -- Christofurio ( talk) 20:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
this section in the article, while I can see how it has some relation to vitalism, well... it just seems kind of thrown in there, and does not relate very well to the rest of the article. I guess something should be done to improve it, or put it elsewhere in the article, or get rid of it altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.69.187.114 ( talk) 03:08, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
The addition of the above category, which is contentious, was not discussed on this talk-page, so neither need its removal be. Vitalism is an obsolete scientific theory and it is categorised as such. Pasteur, Faraday, Driesch and many others were not pseudo-scientists. If any pseudo-scientific work is mentioned on this page it may be identified as such, but the theory as such may not be, because it was not. Redheylin ( talk) 10:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Categorization is not a zero-sum game. There are clearly aspects of this article which are relevant to a categorization of the topic as pseudoscience. There are also aspects of this article which are more properly categorized as other things. That's why there are multiple categories. Categorizing an article as "pseudoscience" doesn't mean that everything mentioned in the article is pseudoscience. jps ( talk) 15:59, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
"I WROTE the bloody article"← Not really. BullRangifer is one of many who has contributed more text it seems. In any event, a WP:OWNership mentality isn't good. Alexbrn talk| contribs| COI 16:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
User:Alexbrn in view of the tenor of the quoted text, I think you have quoted it misleadingly. Redheylin ( talk) 16:49, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
the idea has been "rehabilitated"when it in fact says "just when its significance was being rehabilitated, it lost its value as a coherent notion". This source is more than ample to justify the restored PS category staying put. Alexbrn talk| contribs| COI 16:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Stahl's animism should probably be glossed or linked here somewhere. — LlywelynII 12:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
This article is either extremely biased, or simply very out of date. Low light photography has shown that light streams off the finger tips of the thumb and first two fingers. There has been experiments conducted that do support vital force. The article is biased and appears to be written by people who are actively wanting to promote their own philosophy and try to venture that science has adequately answered this problem, rather than just offering a negative opinion. There has not been sufficient science undertaken to disprove this theory, rather there is just a distaste for it according to some people. This stance, that is adhering to an unproven negative, is very dangerous and is not at all scientific. Many people bandy around the term pseudoscience without really understanding what it is. The term was invented by Karl Popper to define psychoanalysis. The arguments for anything being a pseudoscience is very sketchy and not at all scientific in itself, but merely an opinion. Even though defining something as pseudoscience is unscientific it has proliferated by popular skeptics who make a living off of debunking. Unfortunately, skeptics are not scientists and are mostly simply looking for a way of making easy money by being skeptics and getting on TV and in Magazines for which they get paid. No science has really backed up anything that the skeptics say, but rather has ruined great segments of scientific investigation by "pseudoscientifically" labelling vast areas of human knowledge as pseudoscience.
Brian T. Johnston
128.29.43.2 ( talk) 15:47, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
My edit was neutral because of the reasons listed under my talk page. GetResearchFunction ( talk) 23:24, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
-- ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I do honestly find that it shouldn't be considered "pseudoscience," but instead "an alternative formulation." While some doctors do consider things like qi "nonsensical," the idea of an energy system still follows Hippocrates' foundations of Western Medicine, as in (paraphrased) "all disorders and diseases have a cause." Negative energy can be a symptom of an illness rather often, as your organs can be damaged by illnesses. I am not a supporter of stuff like the "Time Cube" nonsense, but I honestly do support naturopathy, and I would recommend taking their side of the debate into consideration. In addition, please do not describe groups as a cult, and think before you type. Vitalism is also a philosophy, so please do not list something as pseudoscience just because it is not well understood by many people. In addition, urea being produced from inorganic compounds is also NOT proper counter-evidence to the existence of life energy or the energy system. It is only counter-evidence to the belief that creatures operated under different principles physically, not metaphysically. -- SliverWind ( talk)
I think it is incorrect to stat that vitalism is a scientific hypothesis as the main definition of this topic (incorrect in the sense of not being supported by sources). It is more like a philosophical view (and is treated as such in most of the sources I am familiar with), often it is defined as "a doctrine". From this philosophical position testable hypotheses can be derived, but that is only relevant for those proponents of vitalism who consider their philosophical position open to empirical inquiry rather than a matter of belief - that is not the case for all proponents of vitalism (for example several religious systems can be understood as forms of vitalism). ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Although I acknowledge the value of presenting arguments about the status of emergentism, this article does not seem the appropriate place in which to do that.
First of all, there is by no means a consensus that emergentism is a form of vitalism, and in fact early 20th-century writers who popularized it (e.g. Alexander and Morgan) were explicit in rejecting vitalism. For example...
...if vitalism connote anything of the nature of Entelechy or Elan -- any insertion into the physico-chemical evolution of an alien influence which must be invoked to explain the phenomena of life -- then, so far from this being implied, it is explicitly rejected under the concept of emergent evolution. (Morgan, Emergent Evolution 1931)
If emergentism were clearly an example of vitalism, then it would be appropriate to include it in this article. Since this is not necessarily the case, I would advocate moving this section into the Emergence article. After all, the question "is emergentism a form of vitalism?" has far more to do with the former than the latter.
Any objections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pugettia ( talk • contribs) 19:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
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Nietzsche should be added as an important philosopher of Vitalism in the 19th century. In addition, Gilles Deleuze's works on both Spinoza and Bergson deserve recognition here. I will suggest some particular edits with concrete examples when I have time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverliebt ( talk • contribs) 21:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
[26] I don't know what's common practice but putting an incidental sidebar (with a bad reputation) at the very top can be a bad first impression overriding the body of articles. The Bertrand Russel quote, "... we must either succeed in producing living matter artificially, or we must find the reasons why this is impossible" establishes there is science/philosophy here even today, and that dismissing it looks like premature triumphalism, which is maybe the overriding tone of this article as it stands -- 184.21.192.44 ( talk) 04:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:
So yes, we are biased.
We are biased towards
science and biased against
pseudoscience.
We are biased towards
astronomy, and biased against
astrology.
[1]
We are biased towards
chemistry, and biased against
alchemy.
[2]
We are biased towards
mathematics, and biased against
numerology.
[3]
We are biased towards
medicine, and biased against
homeopathy.
[4]
We are biased towards
venipuncture, and biased against
acupuncture.
[5]
We are biased towards
solar energy, and biased against
esoteric energy.
[6]
We are biased towards
actual conspiracies and biased against
conspiracy theories.
[7]
We are biased towards
cargo planes, and biased against
cargo cults.
We are biased towards
vaccination, and biased against
vaccine hesitancy.
[8]
We are biased towards
magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against
magnetic therapy.
[9]
We are biased towards
crops, and biased against
crop circles.
[10]
We are biased towards
laundry detergent, and biased against
laundry balls.
[11]
We are biased towards
augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against
facilitated communication.
We are biased towards
water treatment, and biased against
magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards
mercury in
saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against
mercury in
quack medicines.
[12]
We are biased towards
blood transfusions, and biased against
blood letting.
We are biased towards
electromagnetic fields, and biased against
microlepton fields.
[13]
We are biased towards
evolution, and biased against
young earth creationism.
[14]
We are biased towards
holocaust studies, and biased against
holocaust denial.
[15]
We are biased towards the
sociology of race, and biased against
scientific racism.
[16]
We are biased towards the
scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against
global warming conspiracy theories.
[17]
We are biased towards
geology, and biased against
flood geology.
[18]
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in
double-blind
clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon
preying on the gullible.
[19]
We are biased towards
astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against
ancient astronauts.
[20]
We are biased towards
psychology, and biased against
phrenology.
We are biased towards
Mendelism, and biased against
Lysenkoism.
And we are not going to change.
References
- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:33, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
In what world does a non-living Entity exist? Ivandlcperez ( talk) 05:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Couldn't find "vis vitalis" on en.wikipedia, so added vis vitalis redir. This is the term that was used for "vital force" in many european countries. (confirmed by a quick check under "other languages") -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 10:26, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Imagine somebody who don't know Malpighi and Bergoson and learn about them for the first time on this page. I think that the problem is selfevident... no? Maybe the best label could be Superseded? Eugenio.orsi ( talk) 09:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Call me naive, but I felt the criticisms of the topic of vital energy far outweighed the subjective experiences of most people. Despite the fact that current science cannot experimentally prove what it is that gives life, every one of us experiences on an inherent level what most would call some type of energy flowing within us. I promote being critical, but the article felt more like it was proving a point vs giving an explanation on what we observe as what gives us life as conscious beings. 2601:204:C001:3750:4D16:90EE:876D:4E24 ( talk) 07:42, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
After the first sentence the lede of this article equates vitalism with the view that life is irreducible to mechanism. But that's too general: many (I would venture most) philosophers of science and biology today think that biological explanations are not reducible to mechanical ones because function-concepts are categorically different than mechanism-concepts. But there are plenty of ways to be pro-science and a materialist without buying the most extreme reduction position (the literature here on reduction and emergence is obviously immense and very complicated).
I would propose clarifying the lede by putting vitalism in terms of positing "non-natural" rather than "non-mechanistic" entities. The opening sentence differentiates claims about a "non-physical element" from claims that organisms "are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." But then the rest of the lede conflates these two different claims. The former is what is discredited, the latter is at the very least an active topic of scientific and philosophical debate. AtavisticPillow ( talk) 16:01, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
Are there any good sources for non-European vitalism? This page is written primarily from an eurocentric perspective. Might be a good idea to expand. Euglenos sandara ( talk) 00:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
The Wikiproject banners at the top are not tangential categorization. They direct editors to more general fora for content help and advice, and draw new people to the article from the project. Do either of these or any other reason apply for any or all of the philosophy, psychology, medicine, chemistry, or biology wikiprojects? Vitalism is obsolete, and of purely historical interest. - Eldereft ( cont.) 20:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
The etymology for "animal magnetism", third bullet point in section "Mesmerism", is regretably incorrect.
Specifically, "animal" as an adjective isn't derived from "animus", but from "anima", which is the proper latin term for a soul. Aside from a simple issue of mistake of gender, a worse error is in the given translation itself, since the article, as it is, claims that "animus" means "breath", which is an obvious confusion with another, etymologically unrelated latin term, "spiritus". Anima simply means soul, without any pneumatic connotations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.207.1.157 ( talk) 00:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
The BBC programme In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg has an episode which may be about this subject (if not moving this note to the appropriate talk page earns cookies). You can add it to "External links" by pasting * {{In Our Time|Vitalism|b00dwhwt}}. Rich Farmbrough, 03:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC).
These names are immortalised in terms like Galvanised objects and Volts of electricity. Galvani had traced a link both ways between lightning and the animation of animals (frog legs). Volta showed that Galvani's "animal electricity" could be produced without the animal (any salty solution would suffice in its place). Shouldn't their debate be mentioned in this article? Cesiumfrog ( talk) 02:16, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
http://bio.sunyorange.edu/updated2/creationism/CREATIONISM/not%20a%20science%20book/20%20Vitalism.htm 24.45.42.125 ( talk) 02:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Does the detail of School of Athens, featuring Aristotle and Plato, have any business being here? Looks pretty tangential. -- Christofurio ( talk) 20:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
this section in the article, while I can see how it has some relation to vitalism, well... it just seems kind of thrown in there, and does not relate very well to the rest of the article. I guess something should be done to improve it, or put it elsewhere in the article, or get rid of it altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.69.187.114 ( talk) 03:08, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
The addition of the above category, which is contentious, was not discussed on this talk-page, so neither need its removal be. Vitalism is an obsolete scientific theory and it is categorised as such. Pasteur, Faraday, Driesch and many others were not pseudo-scientists. If any pseudo-scientific work is mentioned on this page it may be identified as such, but the theory as such may not be, because it was not. Redheylin ( talk) 10:32, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Categorization is not a zero-sum game. There are clearly aspects of this article which are relevant to a categorization of the topic as pseudoscience. There are also aspects of this article which are more properly categorized as other things. That's why there are multiple categories. Categorizing an article as "pseudoscience" doesn't mean that everything mentioned in the article is pseudoscience. jps ( talk) 15:59, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
"I WROTE the bloody article"← Not really. BullRangifer is one of many who has contributed more text it seems. In any event, a WP:OWNership mentality isn't good. Alexbrn talk| contribs| COI 16:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
User:Alexbrn in view of the tenor of the quoted text, I think you have quoted it misleadingly. Redheylin ( talk) 16:49, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
the idea has been "rehabilitated"when it in fact says "just when its significance was being rehabilitated, it lost its value as a coherent notion". This source is more than ample to justify the restored PS category staying put. Alexbrn talk| contribs| COI 16:53, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
Stahl's animism should probably be glossed or linked here somewhere. — LlywelynII 12:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
This article is either extremely biased, or simply very out of date. Low light photography has shown that light streams off the finger tips of the thumb and first two fingers. There has been experiments conducted that do support vital force. The article is biased and appears to be written by people who are actively wanting to promote their own philosophy and try to venture that science has adequately answered this problem, rather than just offering a negative opinion. There has not been sufficient science undertaken to disprove this theory, rather there is just a distaste for it according to some people. This stance, that is adhering to an unproven negative, is very dangerous and is not at all scientific. Many people bandy around the term pseudoscience without really understanding what it is. The term was invented by Karl Popper to define psychoanalysis. The arguments for anything being a pseudoscience is very sketchy and not at all scientific in itself, but merely an opinion. Even though defining something as pseudoscience is unscientific it has proliferated by popular skeptics who make a living off of debunking. Unfortunately, skeptics are not scientists and are mostly simply looking for a way of making easy money by being skeptics and getting on TV and in Magazines for which they get paid. No science has really backed up anything that the skeptics say, but rather has ruined great segments of scientific investigation by "pseudoscientifically" labelling vast areas of human knowledge as pseudoscience.
Brian T. Johnston
128.29.43.2 ( talk) 15:47, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
My edit was neutral because of the reasons listed under my talk page. GetResearchFunction ( talk) 23:24, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
-- ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I do honestly find that it shouldn't be considered "pseudoscience," but instead "an alternative formulation." While some doctors do consider things like qi "nonsensical," the idea of an energy system still follows Hippocrates' foundations of Western Medicine, as in (paraphrased) "all disorders and diseases have a cause." Negative energy can be a symptom of an illness rather often, as your organs can be damaged by illnesses. I am not a supporter of stuff like the "Time Cube" nonsense, but I honestly do support naturopathy, and I would recommend taking their side of the debate into consideration. In addition, please do not describe groups as a cult, and think before you type. Vitalism is also a philosophy, so please do not list something as pseudoscience just because it is not well understood by many people. In addition, urea being produced from inorganic compounds is also NOT proper counter-evidence to the existence of life energy or the energy system. It is only counter-evidence to the belief that creatures operated under different principles physically, not metaphysically. -- SliverWind ( talk)
I think it is incorrect to stat that vitalism is a scientific hypothesis as the main definition of this topic (incorrect in the sense of not being supported by sources). It is more like a philosophical view (and is treated as such in most of the sources I am familiar with), often it is defined as "a doctrine". From this philosophical position testable hypotheses can be derived, but that is only relevant for those proponents of vitalism who consider their philosophical position open to empirical inquiry rather than a matter of belief - that is not the case for all proponents of vitalism (for example several religious systems can be understood as forms of vitalism). ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:14, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
Although I acknowledge the value of presenting arguments about the status of emergentism, this article does not seem the appropriate place in which to do that.
First of all, there is by no means a consensus that emergentism is a form of vitalism, and in fact early 20th-century writers who popularized it (e.g. Alexander and Morgan) were explicit in rejecting vitalism. For example...
...if vitalism connote anything of the nature of Entelechy or Elan -- any insertion into the physico-chemical evolution of an alien influence which must be invoked to explain the phenomena of life -- then, so far from this being implied, it is explicitly rejected under the concept of emergent evolution. (Morgan, Emergent Evolution 1931)
If emergentism were clearly an example of vitalism, then it would be appropriate to include it in this article. Since this is not necessarily the case, I would advocate moving this section into the Emergence article. After all, the question "is emergentism a form of vitalism?" has far more to do with the former than the latter.
Any objections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pugettia ( talk • contribs) 19:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
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I have just modified 2 external links on Vitalism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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Nietzsche should be added as an important philosopher of Vitalism in the 19th century. In addition, Gilles Deleuze's works on both Spinoza and Bergson deserve recognition here. I will suggest some particular edits with concrete examples when I have time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Silverliebt ( talk • contribs) 21:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
[26] I don't know what's common practice but putting an incidental sidebar (with a bad reputation) at the very top can be a bad first impression overriding the body of articles. The Bertrand Russel quote, "... we must either succeed in producing living matter artificially, or we must find the reasons why this is impossible" establishes there is science/philosophy here even today, and that dismissing it looks like premature triumphalism, which is maybe the overriding tone of this article as it stands -- 184.21.192.44 ( talk) 04:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, once wrote:
So yes, we are biased.
We are biased towards
science and biased against
pseudoscience.
We are biased towards
astronomy, and biased against
astrology.
[1]
We are biased towards
chemistry, and biased against
alchemy.
[2]
We are biased towards
mathematics, and biased against
numerology.
[3]
We are biased towards
medicine, and biased against
homeopathy.
[4]
We are biased towards
venipuncture, and biased against
acupuncture.
[5]
We are biased towards
solar energy, and biased against
esoteric energy.
[6]
We are biased towards
actual conspiracies and biased against
conspiracy theories.
[7]
We are biased towards
cargo planes, and biased against
cargo cults.
We are biased towards
vaccination, and biased against
vaccine hesitancy.
[8]
We are biased towards
magnetic resonance imaging, and biased against
magnetic therapy.
[9]
We are biased towards
crops, and biased against
crop circles.
[10]
We are biased towards
laundry detergent, and biased against
laundry balls.
[11]
We are biased towards
augmentative and alternative communication, and biased against
facilitated communication.
We are biased towards
water treatment, and biased against
magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards
mercury in
saturated calomel electrodes, and biased against
mercury in
quack medicines.
[12]
We are biased towards
blood transfusions, and biased against
blood letting.
We are biased towards
electromagnetic fields, and biased against
microlepton fields.
[13]
We are biased towards
evolution, and biased against
young earth creationism.
[14]
We are biased towards
holocaust studies, and biased against
holocaust denial.
[15]
We are biased towards the
sociology of race, and biased against
scientific racism.
[16]
We are biased towards the
scientific consensus on climate change, and biased against
global warming conspiracy theories.
[17]
We are biased towards
geology, and biased against
flood geology.
[18]
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in
double-blind
clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon
preying on the gullible.
[19]
We are biased towards
astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against
ancient astronauts.
[20]
We are biased towards
psychology, and biased against
phrenology.
We are biased towards
Mendelism, and biased against
Lysenkoism.
And we are not going to change.
References
- Guy Macon ( talk) 00:33, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
In what world does a non-living Entity exist? Ivandlcperez ( talk) 05:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Couldn't find "vis vitalis" on en.wikipedia, so added vis vitalis redir. This is the term that was used for "vital force" in many european countries. (confirmed by a quick check under "other languages") -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 10:26, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Imagine somebody who don't know Malpighi and Bergoson and learn about them for the first time on this page. I think that the problem is selfevident... no? Maybe the best label could be Superseded? Eugenio.orsi ( talk) 09:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Call me naive, but I felt the criticisms of the topic of vital energy far outweighed the subjective experiences of most people. Despite the fact that current science cannot experimentally prove what it is that gives life, every one of us experiences on an inherent level what most would call some type of energy flowing within us. I promote being critical, but the article felt more like it was proving a point vs giving an explanation on what we observe as what gives us life as conscious beings. 2601:204:C001:3750:4D16:90EE:876D:4E24 ( talk) 07:42, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
After the first sentence the lede of this article equates vitalism with the view that life is irreducible to mechanism. But that's too general: many (I would venture most) philosophers of science and biology today think that biological explanations are not reducible to mechanical ones because function-concepts are categorically different than mechanism-concepts. But there are plenty of ways to be pro-science and a materialist without buying the most extreme reduction position (the literature here on reduction and emergence is obviously immense and very complicated).
I would propose clarifying the lede by putting vitalism in terms of positing "non-natural" rather than "non-mechanistic" entities. The opening sentence differentiates claims about a "non-physical element" from claims that organisms "are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." But then the rest of the lede conflates these two different claims. The former is what is discredited, the latter is at the very least an active topic of scientific and philosophical debate. AtavisticPillow ( talk) 16:01, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
Are there any good sources for non-European vitalism? This page is written primarily from an eurocentric perspective. Might be a good idea to expand. Euglenos sandara ( talk) 00:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)