(03-27-2020, 03:23 PM)Senior Tactician Wrote: A virus is very simple. The primary component of a virus is small proto-protein (technically a neucleic acid) resembling a strand of RNA. This is the "brain" of the virus, so to speak, the blueprint for creating more virus. This is covered in a membrane of fat and proteins which contain various "keys and locks" which interact with the cells of other living things.
If you know how your cells produce proteins, you can skip this paragraph. Imagine the DNA of your cells as a 10 foot long zipper. To create a protien, half of the DNA strand "breaks" at a specific point, and unzips an inch or two. The cell copies the "unzipped part" and then breaks off. The DNA then re-zips and unbreaks. The strand that breaks off is called RNA. The cell then takes the RNA then fills in the other "half" so it becomes a small zipper itself... this is a protein.
When a virus finally gets inside the cell it hijacks the cells mechanisms, which are normally used to turn RNA into protien, to recreate itself instead. It does this until virus completely fills the cell and the cell bursts, sprewing virus into the body to be either destroyed by the immune system or to successfully attack other cells.
As far as trying to comprehendnd a viral or bacterial "invasion" it helps to think of both virus and bacteria, not as living things, but rather as complicated magnets. There are four forces in the universe responsible for literally all behavior, from that of a virus to that of a black hole. These forces are magnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak atomic forces. The strong atomic force is that which binds the components of atoms together, and the weak is the force that binds atoms with other atoms to create molecules.
Think of a virus as a very complicated magnet, although not using magnetism but rather the weak atomic force. The cells of your body are magnets as well, repelling and attracting in very complicated ways.
Bacteria are somewhat different, but can be thought of the same way. Experiments have actually shown the ability of bacteria to use classical conditioning, in essence the ability to learn without benefit of a brain. See, there is hope for you yet Agent orange 
Well, I would think a virus, given it not even being a cell, has to be simple. Check. Yes, either RNA or DNA with some protoplasm. The question remains, what would inform a virus what it is supposed to be doing? How would a virus know it is supposed to get to and infect an actual cell, to eventually take over the organism, and eventually kill it, and so kill itself?
This seems like some independent intelligence was behind this, rather than a natural course of evolution.
I have the audacity to include another, somewhat related piece, here:
Science Never Settles
From the earliest moments of civilization, man has looked to the night sky in search for answers to universal questions of every sort. The earliest lasting monuments and great structures on every continent share at least one important commonality: they all had a purpose of studying the stars. Curious that these disparate people with no means of communicating with one another each had the same first societal curiosity, and more so that this curiosity concerned the movements of the heavens, over what would seem more pressing daily needs at the dawn of civilization.
So it was that the first science, wrought from wonder, mystery, curiosity and little else: Astronomy, was born. That is, if what we believe we know today of the very beginnings of civilization is true. But even here, there are important questions not yet settled. The Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt is of an unknown date of origin. Until recently, the best scientific evidence put its construction at around 2500 BC, and the earliest civilizations dating back no further than 3500 BC. But recently new techniques and further accumulated geological evidence suggest the Sphinx may well have been constructed much earlier, perhaps around 7000 BC: 3500 years before any other record of civilization.
That is, if the Sphinx is that old, civilization may have existed for about twice as long as we have believed up until now. Obviously if true, this little bit of discovery shatters everything we have been told about our earliest history and raises a thousand new questions. One such question might be related to the Sphinx, itself. Why would the earliest known monument, adding to the mystery that it remains unclear how such primitive people could have constructed it in the first place, have chosen to make a giant mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion? The ancient Egyptians revered it as dedication to a solar deity. In the surrounding area are the three Great Pyramids, meticulously positioned and sized proportionately exactly as the three stars of Orion’s Belt, as they appeared in the Egyptian sky at around 10,000 BC. For now, let us just say this new Riddle of the Sphinx casts a fresh light onto the still unknown mysteries of our ancient world, one illuminated by science which itself is always evolving, seeking new answers to old riddles.
Shall we quickly delve into especially fantastical possibilities born of the latest science, the offspring of that first science of astronomy? Let us peek then into what is rapidly becoming accepted scientific theory on the nature of the cosmos. It was only about five hundred years ago when mankind’s belief was that the Earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around it. What Copernicus did to smack the hubris out of Man was only a small setback compared to what we are now informed as Earth is an insignificant speck in the universe of one hundred billion galaxies each with one hundred billion stars that is fourteen billion years old. If that is not enough, according to multiverse theory, there may be a billion more universes in alternate realities. Next, according to string theory, there are not only the three dimensions we perceive, or a fourth if you accept time as a dimension, but there may be ten or more dimensions. Black holes, cosmic strings and wormholes are postulated as other fantastic anomalies in the vast unknown. Matter as we know it is only about one quarter of what comprises the universe, as “dark matter” (as yet undefined) is the prominent component. That at the moment before the unfathomable Big Bang, all the matter of those hundred billion galaxies was compressed into an area smaller than the point of a pin. The point being, even the oldest science is anything but settled.
Speaking of old, what child has not been fascinated by the story of the dinosaurs? The great beasts captured our imagination. Their imagery and fearsome majesty somehow have clawed their way into our collective psyche and remain a source of much mystery and curiosity. We must be sympathetic to the paleontologist’s struggle to paint and populate the world of dinosaurs of 65 million years ago, given the problems encountered even accurately dating the Sphinx of a few thousand years. To tell the story of this prehistoric world, these brave scientists have been charged with constructing a jigsaw puzzle of thousands of pieces, with but a few fractured pieces on the table. All the other pieces not at hand would need to be constructed, but from what? Who could expect even a small part of it to be perfect?
Starting with a few fossils and some forensic dating techniques, layers of assumptions built upon one another, each gaining acceptance gradually and enhanced with the discovery of new treasures of fossils and petrified bones: the material ghosts of the long past. From these meager tools, the entire world of the Mesozoic Age was constructed, almost entirely in the minds of the eager willing.
In recent times with improved analysis from advances in science, and the discovery of more dinosaur remains in areas until then believed unsuited to their survival, much of our present understanding has caused the replacement of many pieces of the puzzle. Current science reveals the paleontologists’ constructed vision of the brontosaurus would be a physical impossibility, and that nothing in our understanding of reptilian biology allows for multi-ton reptiles to rampage at speed through the savanna. From that, there is a view that the dread T-Rex was actually a flightless bird, not a reptile after all. Add to that how and when they came to be and how they suddenly vanished perhaps in a great cataclysm that spared other reptiles, birds and mammals while cruelly vanquishing dinosaurs is another mystery.
Sir Isaac Newton is the father of physics, renowned as one of mankind’s greatest minds and for many contributions but most famously postulating the laws of the force of gravity and of motion and producing the mathematical proofs. Conspicuously, Newton did not propose or even hypothesize on
how there is gravity: what it is that gives gravity its power? In his words, he had “not assigned the cause of this power.” Even today, scientists don’t know how gravity works, postulating the existence of the graviton particle.
Much of Newton’s revered discoveries have been supplanted by Einstein’s theories. Those of Einstein likely not settled for long either. Speed of light squared? Seems poetic even if melodramatic and likely misunderstood to be construed literally, despite the reverence in which it is held. Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity in turn is being overthrown by the newer branch of the very much unsettled science of quantum mechanics, whose theories and recent experiments rival on the sub-atomic level those of the cosmologists in speculating on the vast unknowns of the universe.
Discovery of the utterly fantastic and beautiful DNA molecule as the key to all plant and animal life and beholding its awesome magnificence in self-replicating perpetual perfection through the eons we see (albeit only indirectly) the truth of a powerful majesty dwarfing our understanding of the grandest things unveiled in the smallest dimensions. With a single DNA molecule estimated to consist of 200 billion perfectly arranged atoms, and DNA exists even in amoebas, it would seem a stretch to believe this happened accidentally by lightning striking ponds with primordial goo all across the planet and formed living cells from basic building blocks like amino acids. An oft used analogy credited to Sir Fred Doyle, an astronomer, is that the likelihood of life forming that way is akin to believing a tornado strikes a junkyard and a fully formed 747 airliner is the end product. But the former is still the held principal theory on the origin of life. I suggest this is not settled science.
Subsequently the undertaking and rapid completion of the daunting task of decoding the human genome in the late 20th century has changed a lot of established assumptions, the axioms upon which beliefs about biology were held became obsolete when now focused on the molecular level, and the repercussions in turn alter the macro perspective – our understanding of life itself. While genetics has opened a whole new window into the examination of life and created a new science unto itself, at present it holds the doubtful premise that 96% of the DNA molecule is “junk code”. Science is not generally inclined to admit it does not know: doing so makes it problematic to put a theory to bed as settled science. We can be confident there is much still to be discovered about the genetic code and its influence on the miracle of life.
Science is exploration and discovery of matters related to the physical and natural world. Curiosity is the driving force behind science, although paradoxically, curiosity itself can be held to exist outside the domain of science, given the definition of science. In other words, while science depends on curiosity, science cannot explain why curiosity exists.
To understand the mind may be the next great adventure for mankind. What is a thought? How are there memories? What is consciousness? Certainly, what would seem a most important role of science that is core to understanding the nature of humanity is one of which there is not even enough basic understanding to even suggest anything is settled, or even a relatable theory on the miracles of the mind.
I hope to have demonstrated in a brief essay that most of science is anything but settled. Of all things that may be evolving, science might be the signature example.
Buddy/Ignore List
The Black Plague occurred when the world population began to explode, and there is 7.3 billion on earth now, the world has a way of correcting and to think that bodies of humanity can exist without disease and famine when they are stacked upon each other in small areas is pretty arrogant of humanity. 
