Melanie Milanich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> quoted:
> Published quarterly
> by the Positive Futures Network
> by David C. Korten=20
[...]
>> Take our own bodies as an example. Each of us is a composite of more
> than 30 trillion individual living cells. Yet even these cells
> constitute less than half of our dry weight. The remainder consists of
> microorganisms, such as the enteric bacteria and yeasts of our gut that
> manufacture vitamins and help metabolize our food.
[...]
> Throughout its life span, each organism constantly renews its physical
> structures through cell death and replacement. Ninety-eight percent of
> the atoms in our bodies are replaced each year.
These two statements are nonsense. I would defy Mr Korten to produce
evidence that in the first instance the weight of symbiotic microorganisms
exceeds 5% of body weight, and in the second that the replacement
fraction exceeds 40% . The weight of his argument is severely eroded
when the truth of his opening remarks is so suspect, despite their
use as simply metaphoric devices. (He seems to have made the assumption
that all matter not incorporated into living body cells must therefore
belong to extraneous organisms, thus adding the weigh of hair, nail,
and bone to the latter total. Furthermore, if the second statement
were true, accumulation of environmental poisons would not be such a
problem.)
-Pete Vincent
