Although viruses are not generally accepted in the scientific community as being part of any kingdom (since they are not considered living organisms), scientists do use systems to classifty them, usually according to the type of cell they infect.
--What would be the implications in medicine or sicence in general if there was a sixth kingdom started for the purposes of classifying viruses?
2007-04-30 07:33:18 · 4 answers · asked by Patootiee 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
Classification would be very difficult; viruses are constantly changing. The focus would be on forecasting the tendency of change. The Holy Grail would be to find the "helpful" virus; theoretically it is possible, but we don't classify and track changes so the good virus continues to elude us.
Some viruses may not be good, but may invade certain cancerous cells and stop (or be stoppable) after the destruction of the cancer. Actually, that seems more likely.
2007-04-30 07:49:01 · answer #1 · answered by Lightbringer 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I can't see that there would be any implications, but why would we want to classify them? Classification is for living organisms. Viruses are just DNA and RNA replicating machines! I don't think we should spend the time or money it would take to classify them.
2007-04-30 14:40:46 · answer #2 · answered by ? 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Classification is not just for living organisms, and
viruses, as you point out, are being classified.
Calling them a sixth kingdom would not change
anything except the label we put on them. It would
have no other scientific or medical implications.
2007-04-30 15:00:21 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Viruses are not part of any kingdom because they are not alive.
2007-04-30 19:56:44 · answer #4 · answered by dianna t 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋