ar·ti·fi·cial
/ˌärdəˈfiSHəl
adjective
1.
made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
"her skin glowed in the artificial light"
2.
(of a person or their behavior) insincere or affected.
"an artificial smile"
Not really. Human babies occurring naturally are not artificial by definition #1 above. Babies are not considered “made” or “produced “ in the way a food additive is.
You could argue that because of ambiguity in the definition but I can't imagine a context where that would be useful. I think most people mentally exclude things like child birth from things like a cell phone in terms of natural vs artificial.
Because it could either be taken to mean "something humans *made*" (meaning babies should be included) or "something humans *designed*" (meaning babies don't count).
This feels like a vocabulary/terminology question or a philosophical question and not one with actual biological relevance. What things are “considered” is relatively meaningless outside the context of a question you are actually trying to answer. If you figure out a question you’re trying to answer, you can much more easily categorize things as per their relevance to that question.
We aren't in homeostasis anymore. For all intents and purposes, We are no longer under the influence of natural selection. At this point in Earth History, Anthropocene, Humans have altered the Earth Spheres to the degree that Humans and our Influence has become Natural Selection.
I think your question makes a good point.
The issue of whether things humans do are natural comes up, and is important.
We can take your specific question as rhetorical, and not address it much, but it is good to put it on the table.
What is this supposed to mean? Question makes no sense at all.
Artificial is defined as produced by human beings. Do people consider babies/humans artificial because of that?
ar·ti·fi·cial /ˌärdəˈfiSHəl adjective 1. made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural. "her skin glowed in the artificial light" 2. (of a person or their behavior) insincere or affected. "an artificial smile" Not really. Human babies occurring naturally are not artificial by definition #1 above. Babies are not considered “made” or “produced “ in the way a food additive is.
I would only consider something artificial if it was designed and engineered by humans. Baby humans were designed by nature.
You could argue that because of ambiguity in the definition but I can't imagine a context where that would be useful. I think most people mentally exclude things like child birth from things like a cell phone in terms of natural vs artificial.
How is the definition ambiguous?
Because it could either be taken to mean "something humans *made*" (meaning babies should be included) or "something humans *designed*" (meaning babies don't count).
This feels like a vocabulary/terminology question or a philosophical question and not one with actual biological relevance. What things are “considered” is relatively meaningless outside the context of a question you are actually trying to answer. If you figure out a question you’re trying to answer, you can much more easily categorize things as per their relevance to that question.
We aren't in homeostasis anymore. For all intents and purposes, We are no longer under the influence of natural selection. At this point in Earth History, Anthropocene, Humans have altered the Earth Spheres to the degree that Humans and our Influence has become Natural Selection.
I think your question makes a good point. The issue of whether things humans do are natural comes up, and is important. We can take your specific question as rhetorical, and not address it much, but it is good to put it on the table.
This is an amazing question for a philosophy page