Are viruses alive?

Answer 1

Most virologists will tell you that viruses are alive and meet all the important criteria of life:


There are 7 characteristics of life: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction.

Homeostasis - many bacteria don't maintain a stable internal environment, are they dead?

Organization - Viruses are organized, have you ever seen a crystal structure of a virion

Metabolism - no

Growth - yes virus particles grow and mature in the host cell

adaptation (evolution) - very much yes

response to stimuli - Viruses respond to stimuli, just not the stimuli you think of naturally. Viruses modulate their reproduction and life cycles based on the "stimuli" in the host cell

Reproduction - Of course yes. Of course they reproduce and pass on their genes. What the heck are you talking about, not reproducing??

So the only characteristic that viruses fail to qualifiy as alive for is metabolism, and it could easily be argued that metabolism is the least important and most arbitrar characteristic of living organisms since viruses do a fine job of gathering energy from their environment (host cell).

Answer 2

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Answer 3

In order to be alive an organism must have 7 characteristics. (Mantain homeostasis, reproduce, carry and pass on genes, respond to the enviornment, made up of cells, have internal organization, and use energy to keep up a metabolism) Viruses do not share all of these characterisitics, mainly in the area of reproduction, so by the book no they are not alive. But when a person thinks of being not alive, you think of a rock, or water, and viruses are certainly more "alive" than rocks or water. They are the perfect not alive alive organism.

Answer 4

Its generally considered that no, they are not alive because they can't reproduce on their own - you might argue that everything needs food and respiration to reproduce anyway but viruses are purely parasitical and only reproduce by subverting the workings of a cell to make more virus. In a way they're just small organic replicating machines - maybe one day biologists will have to accept that we're all just replicating machines.

Answer 5

the scientist describe the viruses as nonliving particles when they enter a living cell they became alive

Answer 6

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