Viruses May be the Precursors of All Life

steveha writes "The cover story for this month's Discover magazine tells of a recently discovered gigantic virus, Mimivirus, that has blurred the lines between viruses and bacteria, and spurred speculation that viruses could be the reason life evolved past single-celled organisms." From the article: "This is striking news, especially at a moment when the basic facts of origins and evolution seem to have fallen under a shroud. In the discussions of intelligent design, one hears a yearning for an old-fashioned creation story, in which some singular, inchoate entity stepped in to give rise to complex life-forms--humans in particular. "

Comments

Re:Well

[steveha]

Nice of the poster to inject a controvertial personal view in the end of his submission for all of us to flame about.

Hi, I'm steveha. The poster.

For the record, here is the story submission exactly as I submitted it:

The cover story for this month's Discover magazine tells of a recently discovered gigantic virus, Mimivirus, that has blurred the lines between viruses and bacteria, and spurred speculation that viruses could be the reason life evolved past single-celled organisms.

Please note that I didn't put any personal views there.

Please also note that Zonk did not put words in my mouth. He put my summary in double-quotes, and then after the double-quotes he put some additional stuff from the article. He edited my link references but did not edit my words at all.

steveha