Posted on 08/06/2008 7:29:38 PM PDT by GraniteStateConservative
The debate about what counts as a living thing is fuelled today by the discovery of the first virus that is able to fall "ill" by being infected with another virus.
Viruses are glorified scraps of genetic code that are exquisitely designed to pirate a host to reproduce: the common cold virus needs cells in the nose and respiratory tract to reproduce, before being spread with a sneeze.
But the discovery of a giant virus that itself falls ill through infection by another virus seems to suggest they too are alive, highlighting how there is no watertight definition of what exactly scientists mean when they refer to something as "living".
"There's no doubt, this is a living organism," the journal Nature is told by Prof Jean-Michel Claverie, director of the Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology in Marseilles, part of France's basic-research agency CNRS. "The fact that it can get sick makes it more alive."
When the giant virus infects a host cell, an amoeba, they create a huge structure within the host, like a transient cell, that makes more viruses.
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The extraordinary discovery that the giant virus suffers infections of its own is reported in Nature by Prof Bernard La Scola at the Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, and colleagues.
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Prof La Scola and his colleagues were surprised to spot a smaller type of virus attached to the virus-making factory inside infected cells. The new virus - Sputnik - was unable to infect cells by itself but seemed to hijack the larger to achieve its infectious aims.
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(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“and smaller fleas dined upon them”
I thought at first this was about computer viruses and got my hopes up.
WHAT?!? "Designed"? By who? If they were designed, then a Designer exists, right?
Right?
Right!
> WHAT?!? "Designed"? By who? If they were designed, then a Designer exists, right? Right?
*sigh* Let's start with an easier example.
The 6-sided "design" of a snowflake is a result of the "design" of the ice crystals that form its structure. That's simple stuff, just plain old Physics. But snowflakes are nevertheless exquisitely beautiful.
That is, exquisite physical "design" does not need an anthropomorphic "intelligent designer" in the sense you're hoping to posit.
Granted, one can easily imagine that God who wrote the Laws of Physics is ultimately responsible for the hexagonal crystalline structure underlying the design of the snowflake.
God does not require your help in demonstrating His existence. The fact that the Universe follows what we call the Laws of Physics is more than adequate, IMO.
Ad infinitum.
No, no. It just happens. The earth's rotation and revolutions, the seasons, plants growing from seed, migration, human reproduction, love laughter, memory, art, music, literature, mans longing for freedom, justice and God. It's all just friction and chemistry./sarc(need I add this?)
And apparently he spends his time designing viruses? Now I know who to blame if I get sick.
Mind creates a thought. Does the thought exist separately from mind?
Everything He designed was good. It was our pride that twisted the Universe and everything in it out of shape.
First define “mind”.
So you’re saying that viruses were once good, but because humans were too proud they became bad? There’s a logical disconnect there.
That is a very good start. In fact it is "the" starting point for finding an answer to the question. Though it may not seem like it it is a very important thing to do.
Children often don’t mind. Why should we expect viruses to?
LOL Now that’s definitely hard to argue with. I guess viruses just bug me.
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