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Article 3143 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: prm@aber.ac.uk (Pedro J Mendes)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Viruses: alive?
Message-ID: <1992Jan25.132848.23250@aber.ac.uk>
Date: 25 Jan 92 13:28:48 GMT
References: <TODD.92Jan22225612@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp> <63302@netnews.upenn.edu> <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
Organization: University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
Lines: 24

In article <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp> todd@juno.elcom.nitech.ac.jp writes:
>
>
>My Collins English Dictionary gives the definition of 'organism' as
>follows:
>
>  organism 1. any living animal or plant, including any bacterium
>  ~~~~~~~~ or VIRUS.  2. anything resembling a living creature in
>           structure, behaviour, etc.
>
>
>So it seems accepted that viruses are alive.  And anything that
>can be killed would have to be considered to be alive.
>

The fact that any dictionary considers that VIRUS are living organism doen't
make them alive. In biology one considers that living systems have the
ability to _self_reproduce_ , which obviously virus don't have (they use the
host's genetic machinery to do this). Does this mean that they are not alive?
I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that they are alive
is certainly NOT accepted, at least by a large proportion of life scientists.

Pedro Mendes
prm@aber.ac.uk


