this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Oh, they can spend long periods of time being inert, and then resume activity when conditions change to be more favorable?
... Like a tardigrade? Or a seed?
Oh, they cannot reproduce themselves on their own or within their own species?
... Like a obligate parasite wasp? Or a plant species that relies on a pollinator?
Oh, they do not reach a stable equilibrium within their ecosystem?
... Like humans?
I'll give you that viruses never metabolize and are not capable of homeostasis... but they do not lack 'any' of the characteristics of life, they have some big ones.
They reproduce, evolve, and respond to stimuli.
This virus on it's own is absolutely useless and can't adjust to it's environment at all. A parasitic wasp is still a seperate entity that has it's own cells and genetic material that covers all basic function of a living thing. A virus is literally just a protein coat protecting a bit of genetic material. A parasitic organism is still doing cellular metabolism even if it isn't in a host organism, but a virus isn't.
Of course it adjusts to its environment -- it even uses it to replicate. Viruses are that branch of the genome which is being minimalist about its seed pods, other branches need all kinds of superfluous stuff like eyes and limbs and brains and whatnot. Complete waste of resources, having pods which can maintain independent homeostasis, what good does that for the homeostasis of the genome? Eh?
Viruses make the simplest prokaryotes look complicated. A bacteria has ribosomes to read nucleic acids to make proteins and enzymes. That's the cellular metabolism that a virus actually lacks. It's not a matter of calling a person a living thing while their cheek cells aren't. You can take human tissue sampes and culture them indefinitely if you wanted to, because those cells are still undergoing cellular metabolism, taking in resources and excreting waste products. A virus doesn't even have the ability to read it's own genetic material. It's a hostile instruction manual.
It's a hostile instruction manual which learns, adapting itself to its surroundings, constantly re-writing and re-inventing how it interacts with the world. Which is more than can be said about most politicians. Forget about physical anatomy, for a second, and consider the species as an organism.
It's not, and i am not going to keep arguing in circles with people who want to contradict basic and agreed upon biology.
I'm not contradicting anything, I didn't even use the word "life". I'm simply taking the perspective of the genome, and fighting against the notion that viruses would act as mechanistically as prions.