Is Vitalism Making a Comeback?

Vitalism is the age-old idea that living things possess a vital force – some fundamental element that generally does not exist in non-life. As a Darwinian paradigm took hold of the natural sciences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vitalism fell out of favor. But as writer and teacher Daniel Witt reports, a willingness to flirt with vitalism seems to be growing in certain scientific circles.
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