What you asserted is there in black and white: “The usual term used is “Genetic Replication””. That’s wrong, and it’s unhelpful since the phrase has no clear meaning and is different from terms used millions of times in the scientific (and lay) literature. In other words: the phrase is not the “usual term” for anything at all, and moreover it is confusing. If you are keen to help people understand science, then you should avoid concocting new and unclear phrases and labeling them “usual terms.” Actually reading science is a good antidote to this, in my experience.
Agreed! Let’s look at a virus. A protein shell surrounding a string of DNA. No mitochondria. No cell membrane. No respiration.
This thing is about as non-alive as anything the YECs would say is not alive. And I don’t see how anyone could argue differently.
Dead dead dead … but armed with genetic weaponry that would send chills down the spine of any human target zone… as if they were a screaming phalanx of sword bearing hoplites!!!
In case a YEC asks… the DNA that goes into the realm of viruses are almost certainly “captive” DNA strands that fell off of living DNA carriers …
Nobody should think that Viruses came first … then cellular life. Without cellular life coming first, there wouldn’t be any way for viruses to replicate their “captive” weaponry.
I have already amended my original posting. I agree that the phrase “the usual term” is incorrect. It’s quite cllear that it is not the “usual term”.
I have revised it to say: “the preferred term”.
But I probably should make that “a phrase preferred by some”. That will be done within 60 or 90 seconds.
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IMO, that’s an uninteresting semantic “debate.” And regardless, it’s unrelated to evolution.
That last one is the right one. Since I’ve heard it exactly once in my life, “some” is probably an exaggeration, but hey, there are 7 billionish people on the planet, and millions of them are underinformed Americans, so there must be a few who use that “term.”
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But try to imagine the situation from the YEC viewpoint…
They already get all twisted around on the transition from “dead matter” to “living cells”.
I can just imagine the lecture now … a YEC telling his audience that Viruses must have come first … or insisting the evolutionists think a virus is a living organism, or just about any idea at all…
Are you insinuating that you can’t prove me wrong with scripture and sound reasoning?
This comes back to my original challenge. If you can show me from scripture where I am wrong in thinking of Genesis 1-11 literally, then, and only then, can we begin talking about these other things. For, if you cannot prove me wrong with the scriptures, then, from a theological standpoint, I am right.[quote=“Jay313, post:218, topic:36407”]
Your interpretation is fallible, just like mine and everyone else’s.
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I completely agree with you. That is why I do not interpret the text; I believe it as it says.[quote=“Jay313, post:16, topic:36573”]
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. Is. 40:8
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Indeed. This is why I put my faith in the scriptures instead of your fallible interpretation of them.
(@BradKramer, you can split this post to the other topic if you desire. Thanks!)
There aren’t viruses with membranous shells? There aren’t viruses with RNA, not DNA genomes?
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But the very existence of such arguments tells us that a lot of bright, white lines people draw (such as “abiogenesis”) are very wide and gray.
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No, I’m not insinuating anything of that nature. I’m insinuating something else, and stating flat out that I cannot help you. Good luck on your journey.
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And yet lots of people do think this. More accurately, they propose that precellular life could have involved large viruses:
Could Giant Viruses Be the Origin of Life on Earth?
Except that there are giant viruses, visible under a standard light microscope, with genomes bigger than those of some bacteria or other “living” things:
Thirty-thousand-year-old distant relative of giant icosahedral DNA viruses with a pandoravirus morphology
Biology. It’s just not that simple, George.
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Why must it come from scripture? Why can’t it come from the creation itself?
You’re reading a translation, remember? Not the very words God gave to us…
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I certainly don’t think the first entity that most of us would agree is alive was necessarily cellular. Do you?
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So why can’t you use the creation as well?
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If someone as knowledgeable as you bring up those two topics, then obviously there must be. If I had known that they came in these additional flavors, I would definitely have chosen different words.
For the purpose of my posting, I think I’m in the clear. A membranous shell, or an RNA payload instead of a DNA payload, doesn’t really alter the question of whether a Virus is alive or not.
And your heads up shows how even the basic aspects of viral diversity can escape the attention of someone who has no qualms about evolutionary processes at all.
Thanks for the nudge.
George
Are they? Then why don’t the texts in Chronicles match the texts in Kings?
Why doesn’t Judah have more than 2 tribes and the 10 tribes of Israel have less than 10 tribes? How does the tribe of Simeon belong to the Northern Tribe when Simeon’s territory is south of Judah?
Why does Jesus say the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds?
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Currently, I am so inclined, Ben. When I see an amoeba under a scope, I can believe it is alive.
What kind of structure would you nominate as the first kind of thing alive?
I am not surprised that there are giant viruses. But I guess I’m surprised that they are That Big! But big isn’t really a crucial issue to me. Rocks are big too. But they aren’t very alive in my book.
Do you agree with those who think Viruses came first … then cellular life?
I am certainly not attempting to say that biology is simple. In fact, I think the gist of my recent postings is that biology is frequently misunderstood by YECs… and apparently by men named George too.
Mark me down as the living proof of how complex it can all be.