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I'm curious from a purely scholarly standpoint. I've looked on the web, but not found anything.
How do creationists explain viruses? Did God make fragments of RNA and DNA for the sole purpose of infecting animals, plants and bacteria? Are they a by-product of His creation that just came into being? Were they the building blocks of His creation and now left over?
I'd like to see some creation based discussion on viruses, I think it would be interesting to hear those views. Hopefully more than "God created them and we cannot understand His ways".
It would probably be something along the lines of "They came to be because of the sins of Adam and Eve" or "Satan created them", or even "It's the consequence of sinning."
I used to be a Christian, and I never thought about that question when I was one. If I did, I probably would've questioned it a lot earlier.
It would probably be something along the lines of "They came to be because of the sins of Adam and Eve" or "Satan created them", or even "It's the consequence of sinning."
I used to be a Christian, and I never thought about that question when I was one. If I did, I probably would've questioned it a lot earlier.
I'm fascinated by viruses and prions (does anyone here know what a prion is? LOL). Thought this angle could be interesting.
I'm fascinated by viruses and prions (does anyone here know what a prion is? LOL). Thought this angle could be interesting.
Yes, I know what a prion is.
The corollary question is why, if god is all beneficent, omniscient, and perfect, and created all that is or ever was, did 99+% of the earth's species die off?
And yes, the tired old excuse of it is beyond our ken is no answer at all.
Well wiki gives us the conventional definition of living as:
Quote:
Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.
Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.
Having just done a course that covered microbiology, i can tell you that viruses seem to be on the line.
Here's my opinion:
Homeostasis: Nope, a virus is generally just a strand of polynucleotides covered by a protein. It has no means as to which it can regulate its enviroment
Organization: Again nope, viruses are acellular, they lack the defining characteristics of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes
Metabolism: This one is a bit hard to pinpoint, viruses themselves don't even move. They are like little sticky balls light enough to float in the air or to be carried by the blood. By sheer technicality all anabolic processes are not done by it
Growth: Again this isn't really done by the virus, they are made by hijacked cells but do no growing on their own
Adaptation: this one is quite true and seen really often, ever get the flu more than once? media got you scared by drug resistant superviruses? well thats evolution through adaptation baby
Response to stimuli: again, little sticky inanimate balls(or spirals or "complex") the answer is simply no under the general view but this can be debated
Reproduction: Yes but technically no. The method by which a virus reproduces is simple, once it finds itself attached to the phospholipid bilayer wall of a cell it will:
-open its protein case releasing the nougaty DNA/RNA center
-this will then combine with the cells own and then when it undergoes transcription and translation, more little buggers will be made. Does this really count as the virus reproducing?
My analogy would be me and my brother being asked to do different pieces of work. Now while my brother isn't looking i sneak in my work into his and wait for him to do both. Or better yet, i am a piece of paper with written words that happens to land on a printer in a busy library. Several thousand copies of me are made but have i done anything?
I wonder if viruses had some type of role in abiogenesis. If we already had production of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, it would not be too much of a stretch to add the fourth one, nucleic acids via ERV and "spoof," the first, most primitive bacteria. It's something that might be worth looking into.
Cheers,
Nick
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