"...Because the deep-sea microbes must have patched and repaired themselves countless times, it is perhaps down to philosophers to decide whether any individual cell really is 100 million years old. D’Hondt believes they qualify.

“I sometimes use the metaphor of my grandfather’s hammer,” he says. “My grandfather gave a hammer to my father and my father gave it to me. We’ve replaced the head twice and the handle three times, but it’s still the same hammer.”



Read more: [www.newscientist.com]

'The Grandfather's hammer' is actually the latest incarnation of the 'ship of Theseus paradox' which goes back to Plato. It's good to note that science keeps trying to escape philosophy only to be drawn back into it."
[en.wikipedia.org]