I think he's quoting a scientific philosophical conundrum which is that life is a PROCESS not a actual substance.

Like fire.

Fire is a reaction and when it stops, it's still made of the same materials.

Doctor Manhatten mentions this on national TV in Watchmen in what I THINK was supposed to be a joke but everyone assumed he was being serious about.

"Well, a dead body is made up of as many atoms as a living one so nuclear war doesn't really matter if you think about it."

That's impossible. Because the super-mutants require a source of FEV. If the only FEV source is at the Institute, a sealed enviroment, the super-mutants have to come from somewhere else. They can't "dip" people in The Institute, and from what the logs show, the Institute only experimented on a relatively small number of people. Killing some, and keeping others in stasis. Which can in no-way explain the vast numbers of mutants we see in the Commonwealth.

The super-mutants are almost assuredly the FEV-87 strain. Which means they're probably drifters from the Capital Wastes.

And The Institute actually:

woops. completely missed that

nevertheless, i think it's an interesting discussion, but i still stand by my belief that if you slash someone in half and get blood all over you and you can grab their insides, they're humans alright. if electrical wires and metal components fall out, they're not.

They are both fuel, and what organic life is composed of. What you're describing is metabolism, which synths arguably have as well.

Which raises an interesting question about Kellog and that poor Brotherhood of Steel woman who had her upper-torso, essentially, glued to a Power Suit.

For me, though, I decided Nick Valentine may not be human but he acts a lot more human than the vast majority of humans the Sole Survivor meets.

And he'll take that over a world where Shaun would toss him in a dumpster (which he is implied to have done).

Edit:

One cool fact is they actually do give a bit of non-visual storytelling with the Sunshine CO-OP. The Sunshine Co-Op is the Railroad but because they reprogrammed a Mister Handy, it makes them look RIDICULOUS.

That's a good argument for the Institute's view.

The Institute is a very "can't make an omlette" organization.

Unless they "accidentally" relayed the super-mutants out of their completely sealed in facility, I don't see how they could.

The synths escape only because of the every couple or so that decides it wants to leave whilst on a scav mission. Or the occasional rouge Virgil. Otherwise the Institute runs a fairly tight ship.

Revolt?

Or the Institute's facilities on the surface before they moved underground completely.

they may not the good guy but that doesn't really brand them the bad guy. now i ask you a question. if by chance Institute one day can cure all radiation off the planet, and their experiment can cure all supermutant or other creature so human can no longer live under the terror of those monsters, and human can once again live in on the planet that grass, tree can grow properly, start drinking water from river freely but in exchange they require to performance lot of experiment on human, and some other things on the world as sacrifies.

are they really evil? their ultimate motive is to save earth and human race so they are doing lot of good, but in exchange there will be some necessary evil and collateral damage as the result. what Insitute is fall under the gray area. they are both good and bad people

If there was a massive revolt of mutants, we would have known about it. Virgil destroyed the lab on his way out but that was the only instance of a "revolt".

Doubtful, there's nothing that indicates they ever had FEV experimentation anywhere but the Bioscience Lab. And again, it doesn't explain the absolutely massive numbers.

The thing is, there's a good rebuttal for that.

They've had 200 years to do this.

And they have done, truly, jack and [censored].

Lex Luthor basically said, "I could save this entire world if you weren't stopping me."

Superman's rebuttal?

"Who's stopping you? You could save the world if you want but you don't. You just try and kill me."

Maybe.

Then again, the massive numbers of Super Mutants aren't explained by one Vault in the Capital Wasteland either.

Until we find evidence of an exterior Institute FEV facility the point is moot anyway.

Yeah, we don't know where they came from and can only speculate.

According to a lot of internal conversation they only recently reach phrase 3 which is allow them to expand their operation. In the early phrase they were to survive by sending synth to gather materials for expansion and to survive.

In addition the game screen transition slides do mention that the Institute used to work closely with the people of the Commonwealth to try and give them some of the benefits of their advanced technology, but mistrust grew between the two of them and they cut off all contact: isolating themselves underground.

Its only now that they are attempting a reemergence.

To quote Shepherd Book, "A government is an institution of people."

For me, the problem isn't the Institute but Shaun and the other Directors.

They would have done better if they'd just remained isolationist.

No they can't because their next phrase is to fix earth that require operate on the surface

And their current phase involved destroying the Commonwealth of Allied Settlements.

Basically, they've got some severe control issues.

Not to mention their more twisted and evil experiments.

If they don't see anything wrong with murdering a father, replacing him, and then ordering his family liquidated after observing them--they're not to be trusted.

You done [censored] up, the hostage was the synth. You would know if you had high charisma

If you have played Fallout since 1st release, and read the story.

You will find out that Brotherhood of Steel is a group that self declare themselves as keeper of technology, only they themselves are allowed to use technology to their benefit, any other groups that get involves in science, they will assume the group to be evil and will misuse the technology and bring world destruction again. Of course, unless you join them, then you are permitted by them to play with advance tech.