The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has piqued public interest in the properties, evolution, and emergence of viruses. Here, we discuss how these basic questions have surprisingly remained disputed despite being increasingly within the reach of scientific analysis. We review recent data-driven efforts that shed light into the origin and evolution of viruses and explain factors that resist the widespread acceptance of new views and insights. We propose a new definition of viruses that is not restricted to the presence or absence of any genetic or physical feature, detail a scenario for how viruses likely originated from ancient cells, and explain technical and conceptual biases that limit our understanding of virus evolution. We note that the philosophical aspects of virus evolution also impact the way we might prepare for future outbreaks.

正在进行的COVID-19大流行引起了人们对病毒的特性，进化和出现的兴趣。在这里，我们讨论尽管这些基本问题越来越多地出现在科学分析的范围之内，但它们却令人惊讶地仍然存在争议。我们回顾了最近的数据驱动的工作，这些工作揭示了病毒的起源和进化，并解释了抵制新观点和新见识的广泛接受的因素。我们提出了一种新的病毒定义，它不仅限于存在或不存在任何遗传或物理特征，详细介绍了病毒可能源自古代细胞的情况，并解释了限制我们对病毒进化理解的技术和概念偏见。我们注意到，病毒进化的哲学方面也影响了我们为未来爆发做好准备的方式。