Newsgroup sci.bio.paleontology 9332

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David L Evens wrote:
> The problem with these examples as arguments in favour of viri being
> considered alive is that they all are organisms which are, isiolated from
> other organisms, cable of carrying out life processes.  Viri don't do that.
Such as parasites?  :-)
Parasites can't _survive_, much less reproduce, without the host animal.  But
they're certainly alive.
Not to mention that sterile humans can't reproduce, in isolation or not.
Mules can't reproduce at _all_, period.  Both are certainly alive.
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In article <565qni$7og@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, devens@uoguelph.ca (David L 
Evens) says...
>
>Actually, the most common argument I've seen against considering viri to 
>be alive is that they MUST have living hosts to reproduce.  There exist 
>no possible set of natural environmental conditions that would allow 
>isolated viri to reproduce.
>
So - only phototrophs and autotrophs are alive.
-- 
-- BEGIN NVGP SIGNATURE Version 0.000001
Frank J Hollis, Mass Spectroscopy, SmithKline Beecham, Welwyn, UK
Frank_Hollis-1@sbphrd.com         or        fjh4@tutor.open.ac.uk
 These opinions have not been passed by seven committes, eleven
sub-committees, six STP working parties and a continuous improvement
 team. So there's no way they could be the opinions of my employer.

ev-michael@nrm.se (Mike Noreen) wrote:
>Unfortunately 'Wonderful Life' is full of errors. It is not one of
>Gould's finest - he 
> suggests
>non-mendelian genetics to explain the cambrian explosion.
I didn't think that that was what he meant - I took it to be a
(probably wrong but not non-Mendelian) point about genome overlaps,
exons, introns, and all the rest of the ons to have been less
intertwined than at present.  
Artificial Intelligence 
karl says the bible isn't true
and he doesn't seem to know why it matters