Puppies eventually do grow up into something that usually can. But wait, stars do too . . . . This is something that will be talked about more in the next course in this series when you look more closely at anatomy and physiology. Amoebae and bacteria will move toward food. Cock roaches move away from light.
Children take their hands off hot ovens.
But things like iron bars can also be conditioned to respond in predictable ways to stimuli. Ability to repair damage Living things are also generally capable of repairing damage. If the damage is not too great, living things can repair it and be much as they were before the insult. Iron bars and rocks cannot, but again, stars can. At the very least, we might expect to learn a great deal about living things from the study of non-living materials.