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Are viruses alive?

 
Question:  Are viruses living?
Kim Michalek

Answer:  There is a tremendous debate about this question - scientists do not agree 
on the answer.  Some people consider them to be just a bunch of chemicals.  Other 
people consider them to be living parasites, because they require the metabolic 
machinery of host cells to survive.  But they do reproduce, and they do have genetic 
material,  so many people consider them to be the simplest living organisms.  Probably 
the safest answer is that viruses have both living and nonliving characteristics.
Source:  BIOLOGY,  by Neil Campbell,  third edition
Ellen Mayo

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