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It argues that biology is holistic, where events across different scales and times influence one another, making context essential. The chapter also begins defining life by discussing reproduction, metabolism, and viruses, then connects life to evolutionary processes through inheritance, variation, and selection.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/molecular-biology-for-computer-scientists-chapter-1-introduction/327022/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/molecular-biology-for-computer-scientists-chapter-1-introduction/327022.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Genevieve","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-02","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the chapter focus on background knowledge for computer scientists?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"To help computer scientists become conversant with the intricacies of biological knowledge and its technical vocabulary, providing sufficient context to understand the molecular biology presented elsewhere in the book.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What is presented as the central feature of life?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The central feature is the ability to reproduce itself, though reproduction alone is not enough to define life.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How does evolution help define what counts as life?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Evolution is described as the key to defining life and understanding how living systems function, with life characterized as the result of evolutionary processes occurring on Earth.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},327022,1790458746,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},1374391974585,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","C H A P T E R  \n1  \nMolecular Biology for Computer Scientists  \nLawrence Hunter  \n“Computers are to biology what mathematics is to physics.”  \n—Harold Morowitz  \nOne of the major challenges for computer scientists who wish to work in the domain of molecular biology is becoming conversant with the daunting intricacies of existing biological knowledge and its extensive technical vocabulary. Questions about the origin, function, and structure of living systems have been pursued by nearly all cultures throughout history, and the work of the last two generations has been particularly fruitful. The knowledge of living systems resulting from this research is far too detailed and complex for any one human to comprehend. An entire scientific career can be based in the study of a single biomolecule. Nevertheless, in the following pages, I attempt to provide enough background for a computer scientist to understand much of the biology discussed in this book. This chapter provides the briefest of overviews; I can only begin to convey the depth, variety, complexity and stunning beauty of the universe of living things.  \nMuch of what follows is not about molecular biology per se. In order to  \n2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY  \nexplain what the molecules are doing, it is often necessary to use concepts involving, for example, cells, embryological development, or evolution. Biology is frustratingly holistic. Events at one level can effect and be affected by events at very different levels of scale or time. Digesting a survey of the basic background material is a prerequisite for understanding the significance of the molecular biology that is described elsewhere in the book. In life, as in cognition, context is very important.  \nDo keep one rule in the back of your mind as you read this: for every generalization I make about biology, there may well be thousands of exceptions. There are a lot of living things in the world, and precious few generalizations hold true for all of them. I will try to cover the principles; try to keep the existence of exceptions in mind as you read. Another thing to remember is that an important part of understanding biology is learning its language. Biologists, like many scientists, use technical terms in order to be precise about reference. Getting a grasp on this terminology makes a great deal of the biological literature accessible to the non-specialist. The notes contain information about terminology and other basic matters. With that, let’s begin at the beginning.  \n1. What Is Life?  \nNo simple definition of what it is to be a living thing captures our intuitions about what is alive and what is not. The central feature of life is its ability to reproduce itself. Reproductive ability alone is not enough; computer programs can create endless copies of themselves—that does not make them alive. Crystals influence the matter around them to create structures similar to themselves but they’re not alive, either. Most living things take in materials from their environment and capture forms of energy they can use to transform those materials into components of themselves or their offspring. Viruses, however, do not do that; they are nearly pure genetic material, wrapped ina protective coating. The cell that a virus infects does all the synthetic work involved in creating new viruses. Are viruses a form of life? Many people would say so.  \nAnother approach to defining “life” is to recognize its fundamental interrelatedness. All living things are related to each other. Any pair of organisms, no matter how different, have a common ancestor sometime in the distant past. Organisms came to differ from each other, and to reach modern levels of complexity through evolution. Evolution has three components: inheritance, the passing of characteristics from parents to offspring; variation, the processes that make offspring other than exact copies of their parents; and selection, the process that differentially favors the rep","cbCaihOo4B6DOrQ4","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaihOo4B6DOrQ4","pdf",191987,46,"English","# Molecular Biology for Computer Scientists\n## 1. What Is Life?","[{\"question\":\"Why does the chapter focus on background knowledge for computer scientists?\",\"answer\":\"To help computer scientists become conversant with the intricacies of biological knowledge and its technical vocabulary, providing sufficient context to understand the molecular biology presented elsewhere in the book.\"},{\"question\":\"What is presented as the central feature of life?\",\"answer\":\"The central feature is the ability to reproduce itself, though reproduction alone is not enough to define life.\"},{\"question\":\"How does evolution help define what counts as life?\",\"answer\":\"Evolution is described as the key to defining life and understanding how living systems function, with life characterized as the result of evolutionary processes occurring on Earth.\"}]","Molecular Biology for Computer Scientists - Chapter 1 - Introduction | PDF",1789975979,116]