Winning Position: Yes, viruses are living.
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Yes, viruses are living.
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No, viruses are non-living.
I am taking biology in one of my classes, and we are on the topic of what's living and what's non-living. Viruses came up, and I supposed scientists still can't agree on one or the other; not to mention my peers. Which leads me to ask: What do you think?
There are five points that depict whether something is living.
1. Self-Reproduction
2. Self-Organization (heart cells make heart cells, skin cells make skin cells, layers of the body, organs, organelles, ect.)
3. Self-Preservation
4. Self-Regulation
5. Self-Maturation (developing)
Viruses reproduce, but in a different way than multicellular organisms and cells. They need a host, and use the host's cells to infect that eventually turn into the virus. It's not cetain that viruses are organized. However, they do have a layer of protiens and a core (as I was told in school). That either I'm not sure is true because if you happen to search google, the Humman Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is clearly organized. Yet, I'm still not sure about that point, I'm not a scientist. Next point, self-preservation. Viruses do not need nutrition to survive. They're made out of nutrtion from the host cell. Technically making them a parasite, right? Parasitism, maybe? Maybe not. Self-Regulation! More thumbs down rather than up. Because viruses don't have organelles and obviously no hair to grow I'll just skip to reaction of the environment. Viruses don't move, in that way, they can't react to the environment. In spite of that, they react to the environment whenever they attach to a host cell and reproducecit into it's own. Fifth piont, also not the viruses strong suit. Viruses don't necessarily mature. They don't grow from egg to chick, chick to chicken. Rather, they form host cells into the virus, and this not immediatley. Perhaps this would be the "developing" of the virus. Any conclusions yet?
First, viruses are made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of life. And if evolution is correct, that's what you and I are made of. Secondly, you can kill a virus. You can kill it with various cleaning products. You can't kill something if it isn't alive, right? Thirdly, we instinctively (maybe un-educatedly) assume that viruses are alive. Should we go on instinct?
I know somewhere it says that viruses technically aren't alive. I think that they should be in their own class. Not alive or non-living, but virus. Anyone oppose my idea?