: Point being - there is a quantifiable difference between biological/organic
: life and non-biological matter. The difference cannot be explained in
: absolute detail, but we have scientific studies that recognize this
: difference. Do we agree on that?

: Let me quote wikipedia (as wavering as it can be): Biology is a natural
: science concerned with the study of life and living organisms , including
: their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
: Modern biology is a vast and eclectic field, composed of many branches
: and subdisciplines . However, despite the broad scope of biology, there
: are certain general and unifying concepts within it which govern all study
: and research, consolidating it into single, coherent field. Biology
: generally recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the
: basic unit of heredity, and evolution as the engine that propels the
: synthesis and creation of new species. It is also understood today that
: all organisms survive by consuming and transforming energy and by
: regulating their internal environment to maintain a stable and vital
: condition.

: Subdisciplines of biology are defined by the scale at which organisms are
: studied , the kinds of organisms studied, and the methods used to study
: them: biochemistry examines the rudimentary chemistry of life;
: molecular biology studies the complex interactions among biological
: molecules; botany studies the biology of plants; cellular biology
: examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology
: examines the physical and chemical functions of tissues, organs, and organ
: systems of an organism; evolutionary biology examines the processes that
: produced the diversity of life; and ecology examines how organisms
: interact in their environment.

: Biology isn't a subset of chemistry. Chemistry is a field of study that some
: biologists focus on.

: That is one area of study within biology as a whole.

: Chemistry itself isn't defined by study of living or non-living organisms or
: matter. It is [Oxford] "the branch of science concerned with the
: substances of which matter is composed, the investigation of their
: properties and reactions, and the use of such reactions to form new
: substances."
: Study of chemistry can be applied within a biological or non-biological
: context, it doesn't make that distinction. That's why there's
: "biochemistry", not simply "chemistry", to describe
: more specifically what it is being studied (ie, biological organisms, and
: not rocks; eg geochemistry). Heck there's even "Biogeochemistry"
: - the field of study focusing on the effect of life on the chemistry of
: the earth.

: Life is distinguished from non-life all over place. There is a difference .
: Will we as human be able to replicate the process that is required to make
: that jump from non-biological matter to a biological organism? *shrug* who
: knows. Only time will tell.

The difference is still matter that has genes or cells and those that don't...rocks don't have them, metals don't have them, but some arrangements of matter do have them. They chemically react to produce copies of themselves. But the constituents of DNA are still all known chemicals.

I do hope we can one day find out how the chemistry of life can arise from the chemistry of non-life. Even if it's extraordinarily hard and the conditions on a planet at the right distance form its star, the fact that we're here would at a glance tell me it occurred at least once in this universe and I'm optimistic that we'll find out it's happened all over the universe. It would be unfortunate if we're it.

I guess that despite all the subsets that one can create (geochemistry, biochemistry, etc) in the end if you distill what's being done enough, all biology can still be studied as a form of chemistry. When you talk about behavior in animals or the composition of snake venom, it's still chemistry to the core. And the properties that those chemicals exhibit can be traced back still to physics.