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Originally Posted by mo42
Viruses are not replicating proteins. They use either DNA or RNA, like every single other thing on this planet that can replicate given appropriate conditions.
Both DNA and RNA require a ribose or deoxyribose backbone; it's what holds the base pairs together. Furthermore, it requires a high concentration of divalent cations (eg Mg2+) to prevent the negatively charged phosphorus groups from tearing the molecule apart.
Ribose is not something that just shows up, in order to produce it requires at least five separate large enzyme complexes, which normally exist closely together within a cell. The fact that there are more proteins 100 amino acids in length (which is smaller than any of the enzymes which are required for ribose production) than there are protons in the universe (20^100) I think at least gives *some* weight to the idea that maybe there might be some kind of designing force in the universe.
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maybe it's just me, but i'd call entering a cell and using it to reproduce itself reproduction. but now that i think about it a bit more, it isn't a good example because it does need the cell to reproduce. so if virii came before the cell, then they had to get the mechanism of reproduction from somewhere else and i'm really not sure where that could be. which would lead to the conclusion that cells came before the virus.