So you would just leave the whole issue of the fossil records just hanging out there without explanation?
Actually, evolution doesn't say much about the "first cell" and that's one reason it seems so compatible with all kinds of religious belief. It just accounts for how organisms change over time, not how life came to be. I will never really understand the "controversy" at a fundamental level, beyond some people wanting to take the Bible absolutely literally (6,000 years or what have you).
Viruses aren't living things. There is whole science of pathology and immunology that studies how they transmit. But they don't consume or reproduce by themselves.
Even if they are not considered living organisms, they still evolve. Obviously how viruses evolve is an important field of study.
