Instigator / Pro
1
1438
rating
6
debates
0.0%
won
Topic
#554

Viruses don't exist

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
0
4
Better legibility
1
2
Better conduct
0
2

After 2 votes and with 13 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
One day
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
14
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description

To prove that viruses don't exist. Answer these logic questions -
1. How did the first person to see a virus know that it was a virus without any references as to what a virus looks like?
2. How do viruses find their host if they have no legs, arms, eyes, ears, brains, sense of touch or means of locomotion?
3. How can something that is dead, suddenly come to life?
4. How can viruses survive in the atmosphere and sunlight without any walls for protection? (very fragile)
5. How does a entity (virus) that kills its host pass on its genes and what does it gain by killing the host?
6. If viruses are proteins, then why don't small insects like ants find them and eat them all?

Round 1
Pro
#1
To prove that viruses don't exist. Answer these logic questions -
1. How did the first person to see a virus know that it was a virus without any references as to what a virus looks like?
2. How do viruses find their host if they have no legs, arms, eyes, ears, brains, sense of touch or means of locomotion?
3. How can something that is dead, suddenly come to life?
4. How can viruses survive in the atmosphere and sunlight without any walls for protection? (very fragile)
5. How does a entity (virus) that kills its host pass on its genes and what does it gain by killing the host?
6. If viruses are proteins, then why don't small insects like ants find them and eat them all?

Con
#2
How did the first person to see a virus know that it was a virus without any references as to what a virus looks like?
The Discovery of the Virus was done by Process of Elimination, not Direct Observation.

Two scientists D. Ivanovski and M. Beijerinck, used process of elimination to discover the first virus(es). Bacterium are a type of living organism (amongst the single celled organisms and such) known as 'contagium fixium' (in their native tongue) and in English this translates to 'infectious being fixed in place'  but they discovered a new kind of infectious being; 'contagium vivum fluidum' which, in English, is an infectious soluble agent.[1] This agent, be it for instance Agar Gel, renders the bacteria still and thus immovable as they can't migrate through it as the density is too high. The density, however, was not too high for the pathogens that Ivanovski and Beijerinck tested, this led to them naming this new type a Tobacco mosaic virus (the 'virus' being the key part of it).[1]

How do viruses find their host if they have no legs, arms, eyes, ears, brains, sense of touch or means of locomotion?
Pro is conceding that they can exist, and is merely asking me to clarify some specifics here.

Question 1: What makes viruses end up infecting one type of host-cell per type of virus?
Question 2: How do they do that and even move if they have no limbs or nerve-based senses?

Before I answer both, it is important to know the steps involved in the virus-infecting process in order to 'map-out' the events in your brain.

The Lyctic cycle is the way to answer the Question 1.[2]
During the lytic cycle of virulent phage, the bacteriophage takes over the cell, reproduces new phages, and destroys the cell. T-even phage is a good example of a well-characterized class of virulent phages. There are five stages in the bacteriophage lytic cycle (see Figure 1). Attachment is the first stage in the infection process in which the phage interacts with specific bacterial surface receptors (e.g., lipopolysaccharides and OmpC protein on host surfaces). Most phages have a narrow host range and may infect one species of bacteria or one strain within a species. This unique recognition can be exploited for targeted treatment of bacterial infection by phage therapy or for phage typing to identify unique bacterial subspecies or strains. The second stage of infection is entry or penetration. This occurs through contraction of the tail sheath, which acts like a hypodermic needle to inject the viral genome through the cell wall and membrane. The phage head and remaining components remain outside the bacteria.

Step 1 is attachment when the phage attaches to the surface of the host. The bacteriophage is shown sitting on the surface of the bacterial host cell.
Step 2 is penetration when the viral DNA enters the host cell. The image shows DNA from within the virus being injected into the host DNA.
Step 3 is biosynthesis when the phage DNA replicates and the phage proteins are made.
Step 4 is maturation when the new phage particles are assembled. This shows the viral components being put together in the cell.
Step 5 is lysis when the cell lyses and the newly made phages are released. This shows the cell bursting and built viruses being released. A virulent phage shows only the lytic cycle pictured here. In the lytic cycle, the phage replicates and lyses the host cell.

The third stage of infection is biosynthesis of new viral components. After entering the host cell, the virus synthesizes virus-encoded endonucleases to degrade the bacterial chromosome. It then hijacks the host cell to replicate, transcribe, and translate the necessary viral components (capsomeres, sheath, base plates, tail fibers, and viral enzymes) for the assembly of new viruses. Polymerase genes are usually expressed early in the cycle, while capsid and tail proteins are expressed later. During the maturation phase, new virions are created. To liberate free phages, the bacterial cell wall is disrupted by phage proteins such as holin or lysozyme. The final stage is release. Mature viruses burst out of the host cell in a process called lysis and the progeny viruses are liberated into the environment to infect new cells.
[2]

To further expand on this, let's look into the Lysogenic Cycle.

In a lysogenic cycle, the phage genome also enters the cell through attachment and penetration. A prime example of a phage with this type of life cycle is the lambda phage. During the lysogenic cycle, instead of killing the host, the phage genome integrates into the bacterial chromosome and becomes part of the host. The integrated phage genome is called a prophage. A bacterial host with a prophage is called a lysogen. The process in which a bacterium is infected by a temperate phage is called lysogeny. It is typical of temperate phages to be latent or inactive within the cell. As the bacterium replicates its chromosome, it also replicates the phage’s DNA and passes it on to new daughter cells during reproduction. The presence of the phage may alter the phenotype of the bacterium, since it can bring in extra genes (e.g., toxin genes that can increase bacterial virulence). This change in the host phenotype is called lysogenic conversion or phage conversion. Some bacteria, such as Vibrio cholerae and Clostridium botulinum, are less virulent in the absence of the prophage. The phages infecting these bacteria carry the toxin genes in their genome and enhance the virulence of the host when the toxin genes are expressed. In the case of V. cholera, phage encoded toxin can cause severe diarrhea; in C. botulinum, the toxin can cause paralysis. During lysogeny, the prophage will persist in the host chromosome until induction, which results in the excision of the viral genome from the host chromosome. After induction has occurred the temperate phage can proceed through a lytic cycle and then undergo lysogeny in a newly infected cell.
- [2]

To answer question 2, we need to understand something; viruses can stay still for a while before dying but they don't 'move' all that much without some kind of fluid. They do not, however, totally lack limbs. This is an assumption Pro erroneously made. They are a bit robot-like in how their limbs look:

Bacteriophage Virus appearance

See the 'legs'? 

Overall, viruses are NOT land 'animals' so to speak. They are much more fish-like in their operations. They move via fluid carrying them around and explore the cells, hoping to find one matching their Capsid-protein configuration.

The sequence of events that occurs when you come down with the flu or a cold is a good demonstration of how a virus works:

  1. An infected person sneezes near you.
  2. You inhale the virus particle, and it attaches to cells lining the sinuses in your nose.
  3. The virus attacks the cells lining the sinuses and rapidly reproduces new viruses.
  4. The host cells break, and new viruses spread into your bloodstream and also into your lungs. Because you have lost cells lining your sinuses, fluid can flow into your nasal passages and give you a runny nose.
  5. Viruses in the fluid that drips down your throat attack the cells lining your throat and give you a sore throat.
  6. Viruses in your bloodstream can attack muscle cells and cause you to have muscle aches.
- [3]

3. How can something that is dead, suddenly come to life?
4. How can viruses survive in the atmosphere and sunlight without any walls for protection? (very fragile)
5. How does a entity (virus) that kills its host pass on its genes and what does it gain by killing the host?
6. If viruses are proteins, then why don't small insects like ants find them and eat them all?
'They just do/don't' is literally the overall answer-mechanism to these. Please expand on why we should have speculation here and why that would lead us to conclude they don't exist (rather than that they exist and that we have yet to work these out). I will counter these either by explaining the answer or explaining why we don't know yet.


Sources [credit to http://www.citethisforme.com/ for help with formatting of sources 1 and 2]:
[1] H, L. (2001). [Discovery of the first virus, the tobacco mosaic virus: 1892 or 1898?]. - PubMed - NCBI. [online] Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11570281 [Accessed 23 Feb. 2019].
[2] Courses.lumenlearning.com. (2018). The Viral Life Cycle | Microbiology. [online] Available at: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/microbiology/chapter/the-viral-life-cycle/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2019].
[3] Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D. "How Viruses Work" 19 October 2000.


Round 2
Pro
#3

We can see from this article which comes from government records, that the Spanish flu was mainly caused by World War I and the consequences of neglect on food manufacturing and farming during the war years. This resulted in food shortages in most parts of the world. In America, profiteers used the fear of disease which was at the time, ravaging in Europe, as a means of introducing untested and dangerous vaccines which killed many people as a consequence. The hospital records are still available via the Vaccination Liberation website. Thus, we can plainly see that the assumed existence of viruses is just a money making scam which unscrupulous businesses and people use to scare people into buying over-priced vaccines which are highly dangerous and can result in sudden death.


The Discovery of the Virus was done by Process of Elimination, not Direct Observation.
That's right con! Nobody has ever seen a virus in other words. Its just a matter of guess work and assuming that you have found something. I have worked in a laboratory and know the procedures. You get a blood sample and put it through a fine blender, then you put it into a centrifuge and separate (filter) the parts according to size. Particles of a certain size are said to be viruses. Wow! Now that's what I would call a giant leap of faith. But, unfortunately, science is not about faith and belief. Its about concrete evidence of what you can see and not just assume and guess that you have something. 

Thus, we can see that the detection of viruses is just a huge fraud and a money making scam to get people to buy expensive drugs to kill said "viruses". 

How do viruses find their host if they have no legs, arms, eyes, ears, brains, sense of touch or means of locomotion?
Pro is conceding that they can exist, and is merely asking me to clarify some specifics here.
Con is playing word games here. Just because I have used the word "viruses" in a sentence doesn't automatically mean that I agree with their existence. What word am I supposed to use con? Those "thing - a - ma - bobs"? Con is just being a clever smarty pants and thinks he can win by using slight of hand trickery. But, that's OK con. That's the same sort of game that the medical system plays too. The difference is that their decisions and trickery can kill you.

Question 1: What makes viruses end up infecting one type of host-cell per type of virus?
Question 2: How do they do that and even move if they have no limbs or nerve-based senses?
Oh my goodness! Con doesn't even know what the questions are now, as he has completely changed my questions to suit himself. What next?

Con uses the example of the bacteriophage or Lysogenic Cycle as his explanation of the viral infection or attack process. Note - The bacteriophage is just some non-existent nonsense virus which somebody made up. It looks like a cross between an oil rig and a mosquito. lol Its really just the crazy imagination of some desperate scientist looking for their next government grant. This creature from the black lagoon is totally nonsensical. For a start, it has many legs. Now, we all know that viruses are just simple entities with no nervous system or brain. Therefore,  how can you have legs with out a nervous system and muscles to tell the legs what to do? Its just a logical impossibility.

So where did this idea come from? Maybe they were looking at photos of some fungus which form around dead plants and animal matter in a manner which may give the impression of a virus attack. Note - Fungus send out small fine shoots into dead plants and animals. Thus, the very small and blurry images of fungi can be used by unscrupulous individuals as evidence of a virus attack.


Overall, viruses are NOT land 'animals' so to speak. They are much more fish-like in their operations. They move via fluid carrying them around and explore the cells, hoping to find one matching their Capsid-protein configuration.
Oh my goodness! Viruses are fish like now. Wow! That's news to me. I had better inform all the biologists around the world of this new concept. I wonder where they hide their gills and fins? lol.

They move via fluid carrying them around and explore the cells, hoping to find one matching their Capsid-protein configuration.
"They move around"                       - With no legs or fins? This may be very difficult!   lol
They "explore"' "find"  and   "hope"         - With no brain or nervous system this may be very difficult also!   lol

Thus, we can plainly see that con has attributed many human capabilities onto these tiny viruses which have no legs, arms, brains, nervous systems, muscles, skin, eyes, ears, sense of touch and taste. Thus, my opponent is just using wishful thinking and guess work and really has no logical evidence to support his case. 


List of questions not answered by con.

3. How can something that is dead, suddenly come to life?
4. How can viruses survive in the atmosphere and sunlight without any walls for protection? (very fragile)
5. How does a entity (virus) that kills its host pass on its genes and what does it gain by killing the host?
6. If viruses are proteins, then why don't small insects like ants find them and eat them all?
Con spits the dummy here. I am not sure that I can decipher what he is trying to say here, but I think he is cleverly trying to turn the questions back on to me so that I have to explain something, but what that something is........let's just say that it is beyond comprehension. lol

'They just do/don't' is literally the overall answer-mechanism to these. Please expand on why we should have speculation here and why that would lead us to conclude they don't exist (rather than that they exist and that we have yet to work these out). I will counter these either by explaining the answer or explaining why we don't know yet.



Con
#4
I think the entire case of Pro relies, erroneously on the notion that viruses haven't been actually seen, studied and observed in and of themselves. It's true that the discovery involved no sighting of a virus but it's a complete mistruth to say they haven't since been indisputably observed.

In the Dermatovenereology department, skin infections by bacteria, viruses, and fungi are very common in routine clinical practice. Discrimination and identification of these pathogens is a huge challenge and very important for patient’s disease diagnosis and treatment. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a very strong tool for detection and observation of the pathogen from the clinical samples that help us obtain the direct proof of presence of the pathogen inside the skin samples of the lesion. Based on the detailed morphologic image, we can recognize the ultrastructures of the pathogen and understand the pathogenesis of the infectious skin diseases. During recent years, we collected several pathogenic microorganisms’ photographs which were taken by TEM; these pathogens included viruses (Herpes simplex virus, Varicella-zoster virus, Molluscum contagiosum virus), bacteria (Mycobacterium leprae), and fungi (Trichophyton violaceum, T. tonsurans, T. mentagrophytes, Trichosporon inkin, Penicillium marneffei). The diagnosis and clinical manifestation, the source of sample, and the image of the pathogen are summarized in Table 1.
- [4]

All samples for TEM were taken from clinical patients. These samples include blister wall, papule, infected hair, scales, and biopsy tissue. The samples were double-fixed in 2% glutaraldehyde and 2% osmium tetroxide for 3h at the room temperature, dehydrated in series of grade ethanol solutions and propylene oxide, then embedded in resin. Ultrathin longitudinal sections of infected hair were cut with an ultramicrotome and a diamond knife. Observation was carried out by TEM (Hitachi H-7650 microscope), which was operated at 120 kV and equipped with a LaB6 source.
- [4]

Go to the link if you don't believe what they found. The results show non-stop observation of viruses and this is an extremely reliable investigation that supports all other investigations into viruses and their results but does so in a visual 'yep, we see what's happening now' way.

I will show a couple of visual findings just so you can't say I didn't show one or two.

Molluscum Contagiosum

Herpes Simplex

Now, since it's clarified that viruses have actually been observed, what's the real case that Pro is making? They have been observed, they have been explained via cycles of infection, replication and/or mutation. They run on RNA, are you saying that RNA is a conspiracy-invented thing that has no real existence?

What's the point Pro is making?

Sources Continued:
[4] WARNING, ONE PART SHOWS AN INFECTED FEMALE'S GENITALIA BUT IT'S NECESSARY FOR THE SCIENCE Yuping Ran, Wengying Hu, Kaiwen Zhuang, Mao Lu, Jinghong Huang, Fengni Xu, Xiaoxi Xu, Xia Hua, Jebina Lama, Xin Ran, Yalin Dai and Song Lei (September 2nd 2015). Observation of Viruses, Bacteria, and Fungi in Clinical Skin Samples under Transmission Electron Microscopy, The Transmission Electron Microscope - Theory and Applications, Khan Maaz, IntechOpen, DOI: 10.5772/60957. Available from: https://www.intechopen.com/books/the-transmission-electron-microscope-theory-and-applications/observation-of-viruses-bacteria-and-fungi-in-clinical-skin-samples-under-transmission-electron-micro


Round 3
Pro
#5
Con has provided a reference for pictures on 2 different viruses. Note -  I have sourced a much better reference source.

1. molluscum contagrosum



2. Herpes simplex




Well, as we can plainly see. These pictures could be of just about anything. Just little black and white photos of blurry looking blobs. Note - One photo with colour added because electron microscopes don't have any colour. Thus, this doesn't prove anything con.

New questions for con -

1. If all viruses look the same, then how do they know which one they are looking at?

2. Did they test the virus using a living medium like a chicken egg?

Con has failed to answer many questions and has provided no logical explanation of how viruses can exist and how they can find their host.
Thus, we can conclude that con has no answers because he knows that there aren't any.





Con
#6
Pro has proudly presented you better sources to support me on both those viruses having been physically observed, despite earlier saying that viruses have never been observed and relying on that as his entire basis to further question the mechanics of viruses.

Since the entire line of questioning relies upon doubt being cast on the observation-aspect and this being what Pro has just provided what he, himself, says is a more reliable source on the matter, Pro has conceded that viruses exist and is trying to 'control the floor' here but no Pro, I grab you by the shirt throw you to the wall and spit in your metaphorical face.

That's right, you want to control the floor here? Fuck no. I control the floor. I am King. I answer what I want and you will not blackmail me into responding to a single damn thing you ask if I don't want to.

What now? You gonna ask me to unprove what you just linked 'better sources' in favour of?

They exist, they have been observed and you're clearly confused how they work or why they are concluded to exist despite providing concrete evidence of their existence in this Round.
Round 4
Pro
#7
Con has shown his belligerent nature and thinks that he can bully and threaten people into submission. His new boxer avatar is even more appropriate than his previous arrogant man avatar. lol

Thus, we can plainly see that con is out of his depth and is desperate to turn this debate into a violent bashing and threat event which is typical of the boxer or thug mentality. 
Round 5
Pro
#9
You was knocked out in round 1 so I don't know why you are still hanging around? lol