viruses evolved from primitive parasitic bacteria. specifically, intracellular, spore forming bacteria, similar conceptually (but wildly different physically) to those such as bacillus anthracis.

imagine a strain who's spores are engulfed by a host cell, and replicates within. a novel strain could take advantage of the host cell's reproductive materials, and would undergo extreme reductive evolution. things such as ribosomes and the cell structure itself would be unnecessary and lost over time, until you are left with the modern virus concept. even DNA itself could be lost, with RNA viruses having evolved later, via reductive evolution of DNA viruses.

refute this.