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Good question Atlas

Viruses are strange things. In terms of are they living or not, it is an open question to some. Plus, you really have to specify the class of virus, roto, retro, ect. In general, viruses have many of the characteristics of a full-fleged organism, while having inorganic properties as well.

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Good question Atlas

Viruses are strange things. In terms of are they living or not, it is an open question to some. Plus, you really have to specify the class of virus, roto, retro, ect. In general, viruses have many of the characteristics of a full-fleged organism, while having inorganic properties as well.

Ever reliable (?) wikipedia says:

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[Many do not consider viruses to be a form of life because they do not respond to stimuli, they are ataxic, they lack the ability or the mechanics to grow or reproduce on their own, and they do not possess cells.

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Viruses have been described as "organisms at the edge of life"[52], but argument continues over whether viruses are truly alive. According to the United States Code, they are considered microorganisms in the sense of biological weaponry and malicious use. Scientists, however, are divided. Things become more complicated as they look at viroids and prions. Viruses resemble other organisms in that they possess genes, and can evolve in infected cells by natural selection.[53][54] They can reproduce by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly.

Viruses do not have a cell structure (regarded as the basic unit of life), although they do have genes. Additionally, although they reproduce, they do not self-metabolize and require a host cell to replicate and synthesise new products. However, bacterial species such as Rickettsia and Chlamydia, are considered living organisms, but are unable to reproduce outside a host cell.

An argument can be made that accepted forms of life use cell division to reproduce, whereas viruses spontaneously assemble within cells. The comparison is drawn between viral self-assembly and the autonomous growth of non-living crystals. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it lends credence to the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.[55]

If viruses are considered alive, then the criteria specifying life will have to exclude the cell. If viruses are said to be alive, the question could follow of whether even smaller infectious particles, such as viroids and prions, are alive.

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Well, it's called the LAW of BIOGENESIS...

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Biogenesis is the process of lifeforms producing other lifeforms, e.g. a spider lays eggs, which develop into spiders.

The term is also used for the assertion that life can only be passed on by living things
, in contrast to abiogenesis, which holds that life can arise from non-life under suitable circumstances, although these circumstances still remain unknown.

Until the 19th century, it was commonly believed that life frequently arose from non-life under certain circumstances, a process known as spontaneous generation. This belief was due to the common observation that maggots or mould appeared to arise spontaneously when organic matter was left exposed.
It was later discovered that under all these circumstances commonly observed, life only arises from life.

Haha, what? Just because someone calls it a law doesn't make it fact. The fact that it wasn't happening "in the circumstances commonly observed" on a daily basis like some people used to think, doesn't mean that it's never happened in other circumstances.

Just because you can guess up a possibility doesn't make that a fact either. That is all you have with evolutions answer to the origin of live.

Might be.

Could have been

Possibly.

Then the same people will turn around and say FACT?

but...

No evidence.

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First off, viruses were more than likely the original life-forms.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but viruses are not organisms, right?

And Diesel, if you dismiss evolution than you must be a creationist. Otherwise life could have never began according to your thoughts. If life CAN'T be created from non-life, than how did life begin? Obviously it had to have been created. I don't think a bunch of aliens 400 million light years away dropped in on earth and created some single celled bacteria knowing that it would develop into large multi-celled organisms.

It's not an either or for me.

I'm not claiming creationist because that just changes the conversation.

The conversation is a scientific proof for abiogenesis.

Frostgrim talks about abiogenesis as if it's fact, then he conjures up some more could haves and possiblies. I say, what is the mechanism that makes chemistry act in a manner that is not according to her own laws?

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Haha, what? Just because someone calls it a law doesn't make it fact. The fact that it wasn't happening "in the circumstances commonly observed" on a daily basis like some people used to think, doesn't mean that it's never happened in other circumstances.

By the way...

Is it a fact that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.?

Is it a fact that in order for the motion of an object to change, a force must act upon it?

Is it a fact that any time a force acts from one object to another, there is an equal force acting back on the original object?

Is it a fact that the acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body?

Is it a fact that the change in a system's internal energy is equal to the difference between heat added to the system from its surroundings and work done by the system on its surroundings?

You see Lascar, you denying the Law of biogenesis is about as folly ladened as you denying the Laws of Physics, thermodynamics, and gravity. Sure there have been other theories put out there, but there's something that makes this a Law. What makes it a Law is overwhelming proof!

Your presence among us is a biogenesis act.

Yet, you want to deny it and say that there's something else?

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Good question Atlas

Viruses are strange things. In terms of are they living or not, it is an open question to some. Plus, you really have to specify the class of virus, roto, retro, ect. In general, viruses have many of the characteristics of a full-fleged organism, while having inorganic properties as well.

As I said before:

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Moreover, your discussion of viruses have one problem... Larger viruses are parasitic. That means that they have to have a host to leech from. IF there is no host, the virus cannot live. We know this to be true for viruses that exist now. They have very short lifetimes outside of a host. So how is it that a virus could be sustained without a host??

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None of you are going to change the others mind so why debate it and ask questions? This might be the longest thread ever where it's nothing but close minded arguing happening.

I like it. I haven't seen any arguing. The funny part is that no one ever talks about the real question.

Forget life.

How do you explain existence? It simply doesn't make sense given what we understand of time and space. Even with greater understanding of these things, it still would never equate to me. Is there a brick wall at the edge of existence? You can explore the whole of the earth. Beyond that... infinity. That, to me, is impossible. But, it is what it is. It's a ride, man. Just a ride.

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None of you are going to change the others mind so why debate it and ask questions? This might be the longest thread ever where it's nothing but close minded arguing happening.

I like it. I haven't seen any arguing. The funny part is that no one ever talks about the real question.

Forget life.

How do you explain existence? It simply doesn't make sense given what we understand of time and space. Even with greater understanding of these things, it still would never equate to me. Is there a brick wall at the edge of existence? You can explore the whole of the earth. Beyond that... infinity. That, to me, is impossible. But, it is what it is. It's a ride, man. Just a ride.

In many ways you've hit on the quentasential philosophical question- how did it ALL begin? There is a lot of speculation, but we certainly don't have the answer today. That doesn't mean tomorrow someone will come up with a great idea, but now we don't have one.

One of the problems, I think, is simply the way the mind works. Our minds are very good at figuring out somethings and horrible at others. We are also bounded by time. We don't live forever, so thinking in geological or galactic terms is really, really difficult. I know I have a hard time wraping my mind around the vastness of the universe nor the time involved .

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First off, viruses were more than likely the original life-forms.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but viruses are not organisms, right?

And Diesel, if you dismiss evolution than you must be a creationist. Otherwise life could have never began according to your thoughts. If life CAN'T be created from non-life, than how did life begin? Obviously it had to have been created. I don't think a bunch of aliens 400 million light years away dropped in on earth and created some single celled bacteria knowing that it would develop into large multi-celled organisms.

It's not an either or for me.

I'm not claiming creationist because that just changes the conversation.

The conversation is a scientific proof for abiogenesis.

Frostgrim talks about abiogenesis as if it's fact, then he conjures up some more could haves and possiblies. I say, what is the mechanism that makes chemistry act in a manner that is not according to her own laws?

D, understand science is about probabilities. Nothing in science is ever "proven" in the lay-term. What is done is that other explanations are eliminated through hypothesis testing. When all other possible hypotheses are shown to be highly imporobile, then the remaining hypothesis is accepted.

In regards to natural selection, no other mechanism that has been proposed has stood up to evidence. Natural selection has withstood 150 years of scrutiny and testing. Thus, until you provide us with an alternative, there is nothing else to go by. Furthermore, there are scientist working very hard on the problem of how life began. The "definative" answer is in process. I just read an article suggesting that RNA may have had a precursor system and that would be the bridge between the synthesis of amenio acids and self-replication. That there would be an intervening step should not come as a surprise.

The facts are that the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, in 1 billion years the planet was covered in a blue-green alge-like organism. That organism diversified through the process of natural selection as local conditions changed. Over time those alge gave rise to multi-celled organims. These organisms from the geologic past were the ancestors to today's single and multi-celled entities.

Again D, provide us with an alternative.

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None of you are going to change the others mind so why debate it and ask questions? This might be the longest thread ever where it's nothing but close minded arguing happening.

I like it. I haven't seen any arguing. The funny part is that no one ever talks about the real question.

Forget life.

How do you explain existence? It simply doesn't make sense given what we understand of time and space. Even with greater understanding of these things, it still would never equate to me. Is there a brick wall at the edge of existence? You can explore the whole of the earth. Beyond that... infinity. That, to me, is impossible. But, it is what it is. It's a ride, man. Just a ride.

We can't really have any kind of intelligent discussion on that given our inherent limitations and the total infancy of that kind of science. It would be like something inside a cell in your heart that could see a few inches around itself trying to opine about the characteristics of the entire body.

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Stop making stuff up. This has devolved into one of your typical "diesel doesn't know, but he'll keep the arguement alive until everyone else is tired of talking about it so that the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about will never really be exposed" posts. I've read every post in this thread several times and the one consistency is that Frosgrim tempers his statements with things such as "it's generally accepted in the scientific community" or "scientific evidence supports". Very little of what he has said has been prefaced with "this is a fact". He's also admitted many times that science doesn't have all the answers yet. We has humans, don't have all the answers to a great many things, but that doesn't invalidate the information that points to an eventual answer.

It's obvious to anyone who reads the beginnings of this thread and compares them to the posts at the end that you've been reading other sites and running with other peoples ideas as if they were ones you had already previously formed. Just end it already, say "that's interesting, I'll have to read more" and be happy that you actually gained knowledge in an area where you previously had none.

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In the interest of ending this thread I will make one more post and leave it. The following site gives an exceptional description of the problems D has posted about and gives the answers. The author does a great job of showing how probability and random trials work and how even what seem to be infantesimal odds can be obtained with enough simultaneous trails (which is what was going on in the primordial soup).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

I appreciate everyone who has read the thread. I tried to craft my posts to be educational, while not stepping on anyone's beliefs, as that is not my place. I do have to say that I am pasionate about evolutionary science and science in general. When I see things that are scientifically incorrect I try to make the correction.

Thus in the words of E.R. Murrow

"Good night, and good luck"

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None of you are going to change the others mind so why debate it and ask questions? This might be the longest thread ever where it's nothing but close minded arguing happening.

I like it. I haven't seen any arguing. The funny part is that no one ever talks about the real question.

Forget life.

How do you explain existence? It simply doesn't make sense given what we understand of time and space. Even with greater understanding of these things, it still would never equate to me. Is there a brick wall at the edge of existence? You can explore the whole of the earth. Beyond that... infinity. That, to me, is impossible. But, it is what it is. It's a ride, man. Just a ride.

Last night, I was watching the History channel and they were talking about black holes and white holes. I think at the edge of existence is a black hole that sends you back into the middle of existence!

(Tongue in cheek).

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Stop making stuff up. This has devolved into one of your typical "diesel doesn't know, but he'll keep the arguement alive until everyone else is tired of talking about it so that the fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about will never really be exposed" posts. I've read every post in this thread several times and the one consistency is that Frosgrim tempers his statements with things such as "it's generally accepted in the scientific community" or "scientific evidence supports". Very little of what he has said has been prefaced with "this is a fact". He's also admitted many times that science doesn't have all the answers yet. We has humans, don't have all the answers to a great many things, but that doesn't invalidate the information that points to an eventual answer.

It's obvious to anyone who reads the beginnings of this thread and compares them to the posts at the end that you've been reading other sites and running with other peoples ideas as if they were ones you had already previously formed. Just end it already, say "that's interesting, I'll have to read more" and be happy that you actually gained knowledge in an area where you previously had none.

No, that's not it at all.

I know what I believe and it's the same as you say frosgrim believes.. Science doesn't have all the answers. Moreover, I also say that science is the one that has made up a lot of things. I have a common way to explain what I believe however according to frosgrim, there aren't enough p's and q's mentioned from my college biology understanding.

But it's like this.

There are things that we know and things that we don't know.

How life began. We have no clue.

All we know is that there is life.

What I'm saying is that science has looked at life and it's building blocks (amino acids, proteins, etc) and have tried to suggest that there were ways that these building blocks could spontaneously come together in a perfect fashion and begin life. However, what science fails to do over and over again is to show a mechanism for this happening.

Frosgrim can show a place (deep sea vents)

Frosgrim can suggest virus.

However, when you use those as part of your equation, then you have to abide by the rules of science and the laws of science (how chemicals react).

1. Everybody knows that it was shown I believe by miller that if you pass many volts of electricity into a mix of Ammonia and Carbon Dioxide (sometimes nitriles) that you can get amino acids. BUT what was is not emphasized enough is that Ammonia would not have been available in high quantities on earth at the time. AND this other interesting fact...

Alll earthly proteins are made with left handed amino acids. You see you can have the d or the L form of amino acids (since they are chiral and bend light)... and on earth, the proteins that are made are L formed. However, when Miller did his experiments he got either racemic mixture (L and D 50:50) or he got mostly D amino acids.

Click here for original paper.

Moreover about viruses...

Larger viruses do need a host in order to survive.

My god chillz, you should know this from common talk about HIV. It can't exist outside the body for long periods of time.

That's most viruses... we're talking about. I think even Frosgrim acknowledges that as fact, if not, I can find you a reference.

Now, if you want to talk obvious... obvious is you picking side.

show me where I have made up stuff.

Just show me and I will go out and justify it.

However, don't stereotype me as a means to belittle what I have said. Because I'm sure, if you get Frosgrim to an honest place and you take agendas and throw them out of the window, he will fess up and say that what I have said about the science is true!

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How life began. We have no clue.

All we know is that there is life.

This is why I don't understand why you keep saying it is a fact that life only comes from life. We have no idea what originated life on this planet. There is no evidence to suggest that it came from an alien life form or from a supernatural origin. There are no theories about that other than religious beliefs or meteor crash ideas. There are more developed but equally unsupported ideas about abiogenesis.

Hence there is no fact. There is only the statement that we don't know how life originated and that there is no supported explantion for it yet.

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How life began. We have no clue.

All we know is that there is life.

This is why I don't understand why you keep saying it is a fact that life only comes from life. We have no idea what originated life on this planet. There is no evidence to suggest that it came from an alien life form or from a supernatural origin. There are no theories about that other than religious beliefs or meteor crash ideas. There are more developed but equally unsupported ideas about abiogenesis.

Hence there is no fact. There is only the statement that we don't know how life originated and that there is no supported explantion for it yet.

Like I said before.

we have only seen life come from life. That's the one fact we have. We see it over and over daily.

Why I believe that life comes from life is simply this...

if you were to try to organize simply building blocks chemically to make life.... the process is far too complicated... We have been made so perfectly that chemical elements on their own that must follow chemical laws can not do it. That's regardless of what kind of environment you put them in... however, when you talk about having no Ozone layer...or in water with No light.... You're asking the impossible...

I think it would be easier to lay out all of the parts of a car in your driveway and hope that the laws of inertia would be disrupted AND your car would make itself.

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Here is an interesting thing about life (IMHO)....lets take the 13 year cicadas as an example. They don't do spit for 13 years (except sucking off the roots of trees)...then they "un-earth" themselves and go have sex for a month and then die. What a useless species - but - they are effective. I think they are a science experiment( gone awry) from a really strong alien family.

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Last night, I was watching the History channel and they were talking about black holes and white holes. I think at the edge of existence is a black hole

Glenn Robinson is at the end of existence?

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