| Should bacteria and viruses be grouped in the same taxonomic category |
| Yes |
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10% |
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| No |
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| Total Votes : 28 |
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| SmartLeet |
 Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject: Should Bacteria and Viruses be grouped? |
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I'm doing some research in viruses, and this question has always hit me. Should bacteria and viruses be grouped in the same taxonomic category? What do you guys think, and why?
EDIT: I've added a poll.
Last edited by SmartLeet on Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:03 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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| free radical |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Why would they be grouped in the same category? |
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| SmartLeet |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Well I'm asking you if they should. I honestly think they should because they both have advantages and dis-advantages. A bacteria causes disease while a virus causes a viral infection (disadvantages). But a virus can also be used to cure stuff, such as cancer. Most bacteria are completely harmless and some of them are very useful. But some bacteria can cause diseases, either because they end up in the wrong place in the body, or simply because they are 'designed' to invade us. |
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| free radical |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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The same line of thought applies to certain types of eucaryotic cells.
Consider various fungal infections and protozoal infections. Helminthic parasites, for that matter..... |
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| paralith |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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| SmartLeet wrote: |
| Well I'm asking you if they should. I honestly think they should because they both have advantages and dis-advantages. A bacteria causes disease while a virus causes a viral infection (disadvantages). But a virus can also be used to cure stuff, such as cancer. Most bacteria are completely harmless and some of them are very useful. But some bacteria can cause diseases, either because they end up in the wrong place in the body, or simply because they are 'designed' to invade us. |
Taxonomic organization is not supposed to reflect how useful or harmful different organisms are to humans. They're supposed to represent the phylogenetic - aka, evolutionary - relationship between different organisms. Viruses are substantially different from bacteria and the two lineages probably split relatively soon after life began. It is not appropriate to group the existing species together in the same taxonomic clade.
Would you put fish and seals in the same group because they both swim in the sea and people use them as food?
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| SmartLeet |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Taxonomic organization is not supposed to reflect how useful or harmful different organisms are to humans. They're supposed to represent the phylogenetic - aka, evolutionary - relationship between different organisms. Viruses are substantially different from bacteria and the two lineages probably split relatively soon after life began. It is not appropriate to group the existing species together in the same taxonomic clade.
Would you put fish and seals in the same group because they both swim in the sea and people use them as food? |
Dang, thats a great theory and example. Thanks! But I would like to also hear what other people say. |
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| paralith |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| SmartLeet wrote: |
| Quote: |
Taxonomic organization is not supposed to reflect how useful or harmful different organisms are to humans. They're supposed to represent the phylogenetic - aka, evolutionary - relationship between different organisms. Viruses are substantially different from bacteria and the two lineages probably split relatively soon after life began. It is not appropriate to group the existing species together in the same taxonomic clade.
Would you put fish and seals in the same group because they both swim in the sea and people use them as food? |
Dang, thats a great theory and example. Thanks! But I would like to also hear what other people say. |
Sure, if you want. It's not a theory, though. That's the method used to organize species. It's not exactly up for debate.
You could always start a new system, though, just for the purposes of relating other life to humans. *shrugs*
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Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
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| scientstphilosophertheist |
| Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:40 pm Post subject: |
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What paralith said.
To add, here's a nice little summary of some general differences:
http://www.drgreene.com/21_527.html
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Viruses are tiny geometric structures that can only reproduce inside a living cell. They range in size from 20 to 250 nanometers (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter). Outside of a living cell, a virus is dormant, but once inside, it takes over the resources of the host cell and begins the production of more virus particles. Viruses are more similar to mechanized bits of information, or robots, than to animal life.
Bacteria are one-celled living organisms. The average bacterium is 1,000 nanometers long. (If a bacterium were my size, a typical virus particle would look like a tiny mouse-robot. If an average virus were my size, a bacterium would be the size of a dinosaur over ten stories tall. Bacteria and viruses are not peers!) All bacteria are surrounded by a cell wall. They can reproduce independently, and inhabit virtually every environment on earth, including soil, water, hot springs, ice packs, and the bodies of plants and animals. |
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| marnixR |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:23 am Post subject: |
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| paralith wrote: |
| You could always start a new system, though, just for the purposes of relating other life to humans. *shrugs* |
other systems have been tried in the past, but they have all been abandoned as being less useful than the current taxonomy based on kinship : after all, the latter is based on objective reality, Smartleet's proposal (and other, similar ones) on personal preference
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| spuriousmonkey |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:39 am Post subject: |
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The phylogenetic origin of viruses is a tricky subject. They seem to have evolved multiple times independently.
What is clear though is that they cannot be shoved into a meaningful taxonomic group with bacteria unless it is 'organism' or 'Gaeabionta'.
Meaning all life on earth.
which would include you and me also.
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| Ophiolite |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Absolutely no way can viruses be grouped with bacteria. We are much more closely related to bacteria than they are to viruses. If you want to group the viruses with anything, group them with prions.
As Spurious observed the only way you can group them with bacteria is if you are going for an all inclusive life forms grouping - and not everyone agrees viruses are even alive.
And as paralith said, this simply isn't up for debate.
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| Draculogenes |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:18 am Post subject: |
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| Not to mention the way they go about those things... how they effect humans are drastically different. The only similarity, which is very general, is that they infect other organisms and proliferate, usually resulting in harm to the organism. |
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| adamd164 |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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Absolutely not! The two groups are not phylogenetically related in anywhere near a close enough manner to be grouped together. Your question presupposes that there is some sort of arbitrary choice of assignment; which, at least in the most commonly utilized forms of taxonomy, is patently inaccurate.
Now, the question of whether a virus should be considered "alive" is a different one, the answer to which, in my opinion, is yes.
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| SuperNatendo |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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The only correllation you can make between viruses and bacteria is that they both contain dna, other than that they are totally different. Some bacteria cause sickness, others help us digest our food in our intestines, others float around in the air, live in the ground, or swim in water without ever causing harm to anybody.
Not all viruses will make their host sick, some viruses can infect bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are neither "good" or "bad" they are just opportunistic organisms, or intities (in the case of viruses, for sometime it has been argued wether to even classify a virus as living.)
Classifying Bacteria and viruses into the same category just because a few of each can cause illness is not a good way to classify things. |
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| paralith |
| Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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| SuperNatendo wrote: |
| The only correllation you can make between viruses and bacteria is that they both contain dna, |
As a matter of fact, some viruses do not contain DNA at all, and only have RNA.
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Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
~Jean-Paul Sartre
Monkeys in Clothes - hosted by SFN blogs |
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