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Jolynn Smith
Southern Illinois University - Carbondale
In an old game called Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral, one person thought of an object, then told the other
players whether the object was an animal, a vegetable (that is, a plant), or a mineral
(just about everything else).
To identify the object, the players were allowed to ask 20 questions
which could be answered yes or no. If the object were an animal, the next question was usually an
attempt at a kind of classification - "Does it have four legs?" or "Does it have wings?" Often, the
players could identify the object before using up their 20 questions.
Interestingly, players never seemed to argue over the beginning classification of the object; there
was always general agreement over whether it was in fact animal, vegetable, or mineral.
How would we play the game today? Let's leave out mineral and consider only biological agents.
First of all, animal or vegetable would not work for us because we know of agents that don't fit
into either group. I will propose that instead the players should be told first whether the object
is cellular or noncellular.
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