Sooo -- are viruses alive?

[YoursTrue]

I prefer to not blow it off. My reason is the same as yours: simplicity. I find it helpful to have as clear and as simple a definition as possible in mind with any word, one that makes it easy to decide whether any given entity fulfills the definition or not. Too much simplicity at the definitional level leads to too much ambiguity and confusion later. Consider words like atheist and religion. An inability of people to come up with clear, simple definitions of such ideas underlies thousands of posts of people talking past one another making zero progress. This could well become another such topic, as people with no clear idea about what they mean by "alive" disagree about what is alive or even dead without knowing what one another mean.

This list is a set of characteristics that together are being called life. Things that fail to meet this definition are considered nonlife. If they formerly met this definition, they can be called dead or killed. All other things are not alive and never were. By this reckoning, that includes viruses.

Living things are dissipative structures that organize themselves around and channel energy. As such, they exist in a far-from-equilibrium state that they require that energy to maintain (homeostasis), and which ends with death, as the organism begin to decompose and return to equilibrium, as when the then become room temperature.

A virus begins in equilibrium with its surroundings, like a crystal, which is a lot of what it means to not be alive.

Unlike what is being called life here, viruses don't need an energy source and nutrients to survive and reproduce. They don't repair themselves, they don't grow but rather are assembled full size, they have no moving parts, they don't use sex (merging gametes) or division (meiosis/mitosis) to reproduce because they are not cellular but instead turn to organisms made of a cell or cells to do that for them. They can be lysed, for example, but they can't be poisoned or starved or asphyxiated, since they don't metabolize. They can't be attracted or repulsed. Their organization is simple: nucleic acids encased in a protein cover, like a Tootsie Roll Pop.

You are free to use your own definition if you like, but it would be helpful if you could say what it is so that others will know what kinds of things you mean to include or exclude when you use the word.



As I wrote, we don't normally call things that were never living dead.

Also, the thread is about whether viruses are alive, not anti-viral vaccines. The two are not synonymous. Neither is alive by the definition for life I suggested.



The word we use for a virion that can cause infection is virulent, meaning the ability to overcome host defenses and cause disease. Sometimes, these are weakened first, then injected intact - so-called attenuated vaccines. in virology and immunology, a "live" viral vaccine is a metaphor an attenuated viral vaccine, and a "killed" vaccine is just a metaphor for an injected inactivated virus. Infection is possible if the virus isn't sufficiently inactivated.

Are you aware that some of the new vaccines are not viruses, but just strands of messenger RNA (mRNA) excised from viral RNA that direct us to produce pieces of the outer shell of the virus such as the spikes that allow them to attach to human cells, but by themselves rather than as part an intact virus (virion) to stimulate an immune response? Unlike vaccines made from whole viruses, these pieces of a virion can't cause infection.

Soooo interesting. Too bad I didn't become an infectious disease specialist. Very, very interesting.
P.S. still no impact as far as I'm concerned on the theory of...you guessed it...evolution. Nevertheless I may have enjoyed working in a lab. I'm not against science, just don't believe that humans came about as a result of evolution.

 

[YoursTrue]

Look into genetic algorithms. They work by having the programs mutate and be selected to perform some task better. the end result is often much more complicated than a human programmer could write and will do the job better.

But a change in computer code will not change the hardware on which it runs. A change in the genetic code does. And that means there is an extra layer for natural selection to work on that a computer code typically does not have.

I'm not saying that genetics by procreation and interbreeding do not have a part in forming lifeforms.

 

[Thief]

All right, so despite differences of scientific opinion as to whether it's dead or alive, here's another interesting little tidbit about the virus: (from the New York Times 4/8).
"This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines on the dangers of coronavirus infection from touching a doorknob, a subway pole, or other surface. The risk is extremely low." So I guess it "dies" in time without a living susceptible host. Or maybe it just collapses, dehydrates, or whatever else it does to render itself not alive, sickening, dangerous, etc. However it's described. Language is a problem sometimes, isn't it?

especially here at the forum

 

[YoursTrue]

especially here at the forum

So it seems with doctors (scientists), too.

 

[tas8831]

Some say yes, some say no. This is a precursor to other questions. But what do you think, based on your "scientific" knowledge? Are viruses alive?

What does your "religious" knowledge tell you? Where are viruses mentioned in the bible?

 

[tas8831]

It seems the scientific jury is out, but anyway -- living, non-living --.maybe yes, maybe no. But now -- let's say viruses are "alive," ok? And they morph, such as the variants of the covid-19 virus. Do they ever, according to scientific knowledge, become anything other than viruses??

Please define "morph"...

 

[tas8831]

Here's the thing with me. I hope you have not given me information you cannot personally explain.

Why? You do it all the time.

And now I'm beginning to understand more about the questioning in the book, "Darwin's Black Box." If I remember the title.

That book is silly. Is all you read creationist pap? Seems so.

 

[tas8831]

Does the article say or explain if or how viruses move to become (evolve) other forms of life? In other words, not viruses? Less or more complicated?

Does it say that viruses evolved wings?

 

[tas8831]

It seems you have a poor understanding about what evolution is about and what the theory of evolution actually says.

As is the case with nearly all such folk - especially disconcerting when one considers the length of time such folk have or claim to have been 'involved' in this 'debate.'

One guy I ran into claimed to have been studying and debating evolution for 40 years, yet thought there was a thing called an "Eve gene" that only humans had...

 

[tas8831]

And...would you say they stay viruses, or do they morph (evolve, perhaps?) into a rather different form, thus no longer a virus.

The blind asking the blind for directions...

 

[YoursTrue]

Does it say that viruses evolved wings?

Scientists don't agree as to whether viruses are alive. So if scientists can't agree, why should I believe you about that? But, like a cliff, they can wreak havoc and destruction on living matter.

 

[YoursTrue]

The blind asking the blind for directions...

That's what proves from the ToE and its advocates. Thanks all for the discussion. It's been interesting and informative as to opinions.

 

[YoursTrue]

Why? You do it all the time.

That book is silly. Is all you read creationist pap? Seems so.

What about evolution? Is it proven? (No.) Are viruses alive? Some scientists say yes, some say no. Opinion. Morph: change, move into another form. The virus jury is out. Coffee -- is it alive? Maybe the jury is out for a coffee break.

 

[Polymath257]

Scientists don't agree as to whether viruses are alive. So if scientists can't agree, why should I believe you about that? But, like a cliff, they can wreak havoc and destruction on living matter.

Whether viruses are alive or not is a matter of *our* conventions. It's more about the criteria we select for 'alive' than anything else. To the extent that there is a debate, it is a debate about how we want to define 'life', not about the properties of viruses.

It's sort of like the decision to no longer call Pluto a planet. The word 'planet' suggests a host of properties, some of which Pluto has and others it does not. Pluto is still out there orbiting the sun just as it has for billions of years. We have just decided not to call it is planet.

 

[Polymath257]

What about evolution? Is it proven? (No.)

Yes. Species change over geological time. That is proven. The *mechanisms* of that change are still being debated. But we know such changes have happened.

Are viruses alive? Some scientists say yes, some say no.

it is a difference of terminology, not a disagreement about what properties viruses have.

Opinion. Morph: change, move into another form.

What, precisely, is a 'form'? is it a change of form when a baby grows up to be an adult? Why or why not?

The virus jury is out. Coffee -- is it alive? Maybe the jury is out for a coffee break.

The drink, coffee, is not alive. The coffee plant is.

 

[Thief]

did someone say?.....coffee

 

[YoursTrue]

Whether viruses are alive or not is a matter of *our* conventions. It's more about the criteria we select for 'alive' than anything else. To the extent that there is a debate, it is a debate about how we want to define 'life', not about the properties of viruses.

It's sort of like the decision to no longer call Pluto a planet. The word 'planet' suggests a host of properties, some of which Pluto has and others it does not. Pluto is still out there orbiting the sun just as it has for billions of years. We have just decided not to call it is planet.

All very interesting discussion, I'm sure. Here's a really interesting article about scientists and God:
Why Science Does Not Disprove God | Time
(From the article -- a really good one, at that):
"The great British mathematician Roger Penrose has calculated—based on only one of the hundreds of parameters of the physical universe—that the probability of the emergence of a life-giving cosmos was 1 divided by 10, raised to the power 10, and again raised to the power of 123. This is a number as close to zero as anyone has ever imagined. (The probability is much, much smaller than that of winning the Mega Millions jackpot for more days than the universe has been in existence.)"
Also -- "Why did everything we need in order to exist come into being? How was all of this possible without some latent outside power to orchestrate the precise dance of elementary particles required for the creation of all the essentials of life?"

 

[YoursTrue]

As is the case with nearly all such folk - especially disconcerting when one considers the length of time such folk have or claim to have been 'involved' in this 'debate.'

One guy I ran into claimed to have been studying and debating evolution for 40 years, yet thought there was a thing called an "Eve gen"

Well now, you incited me to look that up. And this of course, begs some questions. So -- wikipedia says about the "Eve gene," in part -- "The male analog to the "Mitochondrial Eve" is the "Y-chromosomal Adam" (or Y-MRCA), the individual from whom all living humans are patrilineally descended. As the identity of both matrilineal and patrilineal MRCAs is dependent on genealogical history (pedigree collapse), they need not have lived at the same time. As of 2013, estimates for the age Y-MRCA are subject to substantial uncertainty, with a wide range of times from 180,000 to 580,000 years ago[6][7][8] (with an estimated age of between 120,000 and 156,000 years ago, roughly consistent with the estimate for mt-MRCA.).[2][9]"
Well, of course, there are some questions I have. So it says that the identity of matrilineal and patrilineal MRCAs is dependent on genealogical history and may not have needed to live at the same time.
Mitochondrial Eve - Wikipedia

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Scientists don't agree as to whether viruses are alive. So if scientists can't agree, why should I believe you about that? But, like a cliff, they can wreak havoc and destruction on living matter.

Do you think viruses have wings? Can you show me?

I have never heard of a cliff wreaking havoc on a population. Can you show me?

 

[ecco]

Are viruses alive? Some scientists say yes, some say no

Religious people in general and Biblical literalists, in particular, see things in black and white. Good and Evil. Yes and No.

You state scientists can't decide if viruses are "alive" but you have ducked the many times people have asked you to define "alive" vs "not living".

The world is not 1's and 0's. Light is not red, or green, or blue. There are countless variations of light. There are countless gradations between red and blue.

Likewise, there are many gradations between an atom and an elephant.

Failure to recognize that and failure to accept that leads to a very wrong understanding of nature.