Abstract

The definition of life has been one of the greatest philosophical questions of mankind. In recent years, this debate had intensified due to the discovery of naturally occurring biological entities, such as viruses and prions, which lie at the boundary of what we consider as living. “Are viruses alive?” has turned out to be the largest vote swinging debate in an introductory course to microbiology [1], with 79% of the students changing their opinions before and after the debate compared to genetic engineering (56% opinion swing) and childhood immunization (25% opinion swing). Using boundary cases as classification criteria, also known as the decision boundary or decision surface, had been well established [2]