"Conclusion Based on the above lines of reason , I assert that reproduction is not an absolute requirement of life : that something could be considered to be alive without it necessarily needing to be able to reproduce ."
"The problem with this reasoning is that the criteria you 're refering to are n't a definition for life , they 're a set of guidelines , rules of thumb . They are n't meant to be applied to obviously living marcoscopic things like mules . Their purpose is to give biologists a common ground when discussing things on the microscopic scale . On that scale , where `` living `` is n't obvious , reproduction is one of the things biologists look for to decide if something should be called `` alive `` ."
"I assert that reproduction is not an absolute requirement of life"
"Their purpose is to give biologists a common ground when discussing things on the microscopic scale"