explain fruit and vegetables by N. selection

[Wiccan_Child]

i understand about the way strains are bred and developed, that is not my question, but thanks for the article, my question is how the fruit came about in the first place ,as each system is seperate how did the plant know that nature needed it to produce fruit, if there is no intelligence involved in life, a plant does not need to produce fruit to survive on its own either there are thousands of non fruit bearing plants all over,

Indeed. Fruit are simply adaptations of previously existing systems. The primary selection pressure is anyone's guess. This paper, for instance, asks: "Did fleshy fruit pulp evolve as a defence against seed loss rather
than as a dispersal mechanism?"

the way i see it (and a few billion others) is that it is impossible for all this diversity to come from a common ancestor,and without god,

And billions more can see how it is not only possible, but highly probable. But this is not an argument from numbers.

where does the new information come from to turn a single cell into a human or an avocado tree,?

Mutations.

you say "it just did it because it needed it" but how?

Evolution by natural selection. The environment determines the selection pressures that steer the evolution of a population. But one major misconception is that evolution is predictive: there is no foresight involved. Every 'transition' is beneficial in some small way. That is why they persist. Those 'transitions' that aren't more useful than the previous model get weeded out by natural selection: they simply aren't as good at reproducing.

the theory of evolution and common descent is based mainly on a dogmatic idea ,it is what some people "think" must be true, but really is far from being proven and believed, do you really think that there would be so many people in the world who believe in an intelligent designer,if science really had proved it all came about naturally ?

This is just one big fallacy. First, the majority of people in the world believe in common descent, Second, nothing is ever proven; mathematics deals in proof, and evolutionary biology is not quite as rigourous as maths. Third, it is anything but dogmatic: it is a theory as fluid as any other, capable of disproof.

i tell you that if it had 95 percent of them would forget about god, but they havnt and wont as they see that the theory of common descent is just a theory with no real evidence to back it up

I have given you two large repositories of evidence. Review them at your pleasure, but please don't have the audacity to claim there is no evidence.

thank god that most people in this world still dont believe it

You should check your stats.

 

[Chalnoth]

i understand about the way strains are bred and developed, that is not my question, but thanks for the article, my question is how the fruit came about in the first place ,

Well, that's simple, really. You start with a plant that has a seed that has some digestible material around it, and sometimes survives the digestive tract of animals that eat it. It only has to be nutritious enough to sometimes be eaten, and only durable enough to sometimes pass through the digestive system. This initial bit of digestible material might initially be for the nutrition of the seed itself (which it won't need after passing through a digestive tract, as it's surrounded by fertilizer then). The hardness of the seed could initially be for durability against weather or other things that might harm the seed.

But however it began, once you have a seed that is somewhat durable, and a seed covering which is somewhat edible, then you have something for evolution to work on, as once animals do start eating those seeds, they act as a selective pressure to increase the spreading of those seeds by animals.

as each system is seperate how did the plant know that nature needed it to produce fruit,

It didn't. And nature didn't need it to produce fruit. Nothing did, in fact. Fruit evolved as a strategy for some plants to better spread themselves. The interdependency of certain animals and certain fruit-bearing plants only came about after fruits had initially evolved.

if there is no intelligence involved in life, a plant does not need to produce fruit to survive on its own either there are thousands of non fruit bearing plants all over,

Some plants now do need to produce fruit to survive, because they have relied upon animals to spread their seeds for so long. Others don't, because they have made use of different strategies to spread their seeds (or otherwise reproduce).

This is the way evolution works: it first stumbles upon, quite by accident, a new solution to an old problem. This new solution doesn't work very well, but it's still better than not doing it at all. Evolution then acts to optimize and amplify that solution: over progressive generations the descendants get better and better at it, eventually resulting in a massively complex system that the organism cannot survive without.

the way i see it (and a few billion others) is that it is impossible for all this diversity to come from a common ancestor,

Well, take a look at dogs. Nearly all of the divergence in dogs has come about since human civilization began about 10,000 years ago. And yet we have dog variants that are as different as chihuahuas and sheep dogs. This is only in 10,000 years, a mere blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Life has been on this planet for more than 350,000 times that long!

Think about that for a moment: the difference between a chihuahua and a sheep dog is only a few thousand years. How much more difference might there be with hundreds of thousands times that time? The answer turns out to be all the diversity that we see around us.

and without god, where does the new information come from to turn a single cell into a human or an avocado tree,?

Well, that is a really fascinating subject, that of developmental biology. You could read books on the subject and still only scratch the surface of what is currently known. But for now, the Wikipedia article is a fair enough place to start.

you say "it just did it because it needed it" but how? the theory of evolution and common descent is based mainly on a dogmatic idea ,it is what some people "think" must be true, but really is far from being proven and believed, do you really think that there would be so many people in the world who believe in an intelligent designer,if science really had proved it all came about naturally ?

You claim this only because you are unaware of the evidence. And the evidence is strong and incontrovertible. Talkorigins.org's excellent 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution can give you a tiny taste of a small subset of the evidence available.

 

[Adivi]

and without god, where does the new information come from to turn a single cell into a human or an avocado tree,?

I see this argument used a lot, but I've never seen somebody answer the questions:
a. How do you define information? If you mean 'entropy', then entropy can be reduced if energy is input into a system, via sunlight for example or food or something else.
b. Where is the 'law of non-increase of information'? Again, in the case of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply here, so what are you defining information as?

 

[Chalnoth]

I see this argument used a lot, but I've never seen somebody answer the questions:
a. How do you define information? If you mean 'entropy', then entropy can be reduced if energy is input into a system, via sunlight for example or food or something else.
b. Where is the 'law of non-increase of information'? Again, in the case of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply here, so what are you defining information as?

Actually, the trick here is that for most reasonable definitions of information, information increases as entropy increases. Thus, increase in information is natural. The primary problem is that not all increases in information are useful, and so they have to be winnowed by some process, so that only those increases in information which make organisms more likely to reproduce are successful. And that's exactly what natural selection does.

 

[keith99]

no i didnt ignore what was said,as i said i understand speciation, my question could have been worded better ,that was, how does nature know that it needs to produce fruit to survive if each system is seperate?
and where does the information come from to do that?

OK the short answer for me, but the long one for you is read 'The Word for World is Forest' By Le'Guin.

But you probably want a answer here.

Let's look at the tomato. Most plants have seeds. That is how they get new plants. In the Tomato those seeds are in a fruit. This fruit is not nearly as nice in the wild version of the plant. But let's look at that wild version. The seed is surrounded by a bunch of organic matter. If a tomato drops from the vine this organic matter gives some nutrients fot the young plant to feed on. In older versions of the plant there was probably less of this, but plants with more fared better. In time this continued and we got fruit that was somewhat useful.

Now perhaps the question you are asking is what good does it do the plant to have fruit we (or other animals) want to eat? The answer is that over time most plants evolved seeds that are pretty hearty. They can dry out or vern go through the digestive tract of an animal and many of them can still sprout. Seeds would have been selected for heartiness anyway, one that lasts 2 or 3 years of drought will be the seed to repopulate the area. But surviving the digestive tract would also be selected, even if we started with seeds where none would normally make it through. Have you ever had the runs? If you have you know in that case food goes through you much faster. So even when no seed could normally survive perhaps 1 in 1000 would survive the quick trip. A few million years and you have a seed hearty enough to make it through a normal digestive cycle. (I'm really talking worst cases here). But once you have a seed that can make it through the digestive process it becomes an advantage to the plant to have tasty fruit! Let's go back to our tomato plant. Some of the most expensive seeds out there are seeds with an outer coating of fertilizer. Expensive because the coating process costs, purchaced because having that fertilizer works.

Guess what that is exactly what you have with a seed that goes through a bird! And the bird may drop that seed miles away from the original plant.

As long as the seed has a reasonable change to survive it is an advantage to have fruit that is attractive to animals.

 

[Sinful2B]

Hi and welcome

Humans have been cultivating the bio-diversity for thousands of years, so the variety within species is easily accountable.
Before this, the natural fauna selected by taste and ease of management, thereby weeding out less taseful species and varieties.
However, we have to remember that nothing operates in isolation, so it can easily be seen that one species, whilst becoming extinct in one environment, survives in another for a multitude of reasons.
The interelationships between flora and fauna is also together, an evolutionary process, in that whilst the flora is evolving, so also are the fauna. This is why any one species of whatever, at any particular time, in any particular location, interacting with any particular pollinator, feeder or diversifier, can result in a vast array of successful critieria for further evolution.
We have to also remember that this diversity that we are presently able to witness, is but a fraction of the unsuccessful menagerie of species that didn't proceed through the evolutionary process.

Basically, and both have been mentioned in previous posts, the two guiding proofs are diversification and time.
Both exist today and are readily witnessable.
There has been no evidence ever produced in any field of science to prove that these two guiding criteria were no available at any time in the past, indeed, they are inherant within the very origins of creation.

That being said, the proof of the past is in the present. You cannot have one without the other.

 

[GoSeminoles!]

the way i see it (and a few billion others) is that it is impossible for all this diversity to come from a common ancestor,and without god, where does the new information come from to turn a single cell into a human or an avocado tree,?

So, because you can't imagine how it would work, you assume it can't possibly work? Wow, that's pretty arrogant.

I can't figure out how Penn & Teller do their catch-a-bullet-in-the-teeth trick, so does it necessarily follow that they really are using magic instead of sleight-of-hand? Of course not. P&T spend thousands of hours perfecting that trick. The trick wouldn't be very impressive if just any schmoe could figure it out in 10 minutes.

Likewise, scientists who have spent millions of hours in their field -- digging up fossils, studying coprolites, sequencing genes, analyzing nested hierarchies -- understand their science far better than you. Yet, you spend a dozen hours looking at a creationist website and you see fit to dismiss it all? THAT is arrogance.

i tell you that if it had 95 percent of them would forget about god, but they havnt and wont as they see that the theory of common descent is just a theory with no real evidence to back it up

thank god that most people in this world still dont believe it

But thank goodness nearly all scientists do accept it. Otherwise, the medical science those 95% rely on would not be nearly as advanced.

 

[FishFace]

The way it works is that you start with something, like grass, which is edible, but not very nutritious or tasty - it gets this way in order to get animals to transport its seeds, by providing them with a snack as a motive. (So, yes, some fruits get that way purely by N.S.)
Then humans selectively breed thatt edible plant until it produces far more flavoursome and nutritious fruit for our benefit.

Explained.

 

[RealityCheck]

I think huggybear abandoned this thread once he realized he'd been thoroughly pwned.

 

[sbvera13]

Since you claim no new information can ever be added to a genome, allow me to demonstrate how information can be created by removing information.

I have a word. It looks like this.

Z I K A M J A Q F R R L U K I T O

You may think that's total nonsense, but that's only because you are judging by the standards of modern English. In truth however, it contains everything necessary to form a prefectly useful word. I will now selectively remove the letters that produce no survival advantage to the word. This is artificial selection. If this were occuring in the words native environment (such as a gradeschool English paper) then the selection would be done by natural agents (such as a gradeschool English teacher) instead of by myself.

Z I K A M J A Q F R R L U K I T O ---->
I A M A F R U I T ----->
I AM A FRUIT

And that's only applying one kind of mutation, a loss of information. Imagine what I could spell if other kinds of mutations happened, such as, I don't know, substitutions, or additions, or frame shifts. Oh the possibilities!

 

[sbvera13]

I think huggybear abandoned this thread once he realized he'd been thoroughly pwned.

I think he's incapable of realizing that. He probably just got mad because we won't cede his points no matter how many times he repeats them

 

[huggybear]

Why do you people come here and argue against something you have no understanding of? Clearly you do not understand the very basic definition of evolution by natural selection, yet you argue against it here.

from wikipedia:
"Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes. The phenotype's genetic basis, genotype associated with the favorable phenotype, will increase in frequency over the following generations. Over time, this process can result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species. In other words, natural selection is the mechanism by which evolution may take place in a population of a specific organism."


A more simple definition is descent with modification based on differential reproduction.

To learn the basics of evolution, I recommend this website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

you have ignored what i said , i admitted the question should have been worded better, and that i understand speciation and natural selection, and microevolution
but i think you know that, my question is i will say it again , is how does the fruit come about about in the first place ? and the same goes for everything else, where does the information come from? i am not expecting an answer from you, as you just claim i dont understand speciation and natural selection

christians dont deny these things as we believe that god created the original taxons or kinds and then down through time speciation accounts for the diversity, but you know that, and yes i have read multitudes of data on evolution, so my original question remains unanswered

 

[huggybear]

huggy, dispense with the notion that nature "knows" anything. Dispense with the idea that animals or plants "know" to evolve something. Because NONE of that is anywhere found in the theory of evolution.

well according to the theory fish had to know to evolve legs before they left the water, as how could they survive without it, and the same goes for everything

 

[huggybear]

Again, dispense with the "know" idea. You're basing this argument on the idea that "nature needs to know new information in order to make changes."

That's not how it works.



The descendants of any one ancestor are not identical - each has different traits. If none of those traits affect survival, all are equally likely to pass on their genes. If some traits help survival, those are more likely to continue being passed on, and if some hurt survival, those are less likely to be passed on. Any organism that carries genes that promote survival will be more likely to live longer and procreate more often, and those that carry genes that inhibit survival will be less likely to live longer and will procreate less. Over time, the trait that inhibits survival will generally disappear or, at the least, become an infrequently inherited trait.

THAT is how "natural selection" works. Nature doesn't consciously select anything. It happens naturally in the course of birth, life, survival, and death.

With fruit trees. Let's not even consider the artificial manipulation that humans have subjected fruit trees to in order to produce better fruit. Let's simply consider the wild banana that was pictured earlier. The fruit itself carries the seeds for future generations of banana trees. By itself, the fruit and seeds will simply, eventually, fall off the tree, rot in the ground, and potentially become a new tree. Problem is, if this happens with all the fruit, there will be a lot of closely clustered new growths near the original tree, and not all of those will survive. The competition for resources will be fierce (water, soil nutrients, sunlight, etc.) and it may be that none will survive because the original tree, being mature already, will overshadow the saplings and prevent them from growing (those banana trees have large leaves - and that's another survival trait, incidentally). If the tree continues to produce that kind of fruit, it won't pass on its genetics to any viable trees. So long as the fruit continues to fall just around the tree, future saplings will continue to deplete the soil of its nutrients, continue to compete with each other and the mature tree, etc. etc. That banana tree won't produce a huge population of future banana trees.

But say the fruit happens to be edible. Now, the tree doesn't know that the fruit is edible, nor does it consciously make the fruit edible, nor does any other entity consciously decide "let's make this fruit edible." But it is edible. Rodents and birds thrive on edible fruit. When one of them eats one of these wild bananas, it tends to eat both the fruit and the seeds. (It is important to note again the fruit is not designed to be edible by others. The fruit contains the nutrients needed for the seeds to start growing when they are deposited in the soil, in the absence of any other nutrients being available at the outset.) The bird or rodent doesn't stay put - they move. They keep eating more fruits and keep moving. Eventually they eliminate their waste somewhere, generally not right around the original tree. The fruit is digestible, the seeds are not. They generally pass through undigested, and the waste plus seeds generally are deposited in soil somewhere. Now the seeds can grow in a new area. They've been spread out. This tends to be more beneficial in terms of the new trees' survival into maturity, to the point where they can produce similar fruits, and so it goes, on and on.

This is the same way that natural selection works with animals. One can look at cheetahs and antelopes, for example. The key trait here is speed. Antelopes that are faster than others will outrun the cheetahs, leaving the slower ones behind, and the faster antelopes survive longer to pass on their "faster" genes. Cheetahs that are faster will more likley catch the faster antelopes, and be more likely to eat enough to survive longer and pass on their "faster" genes. Cheetahs weed out the slower antelopes, which has the effect of promoting faster generations of antelopes later. Faster antelopes weed out the slower cheetahs, who are less able to eat enough to survive. No one is directing this consciously, any more than you need to consciously regulate your heart or digestion. It simply happens.

again as i have said all you are explaining to me is natural selection, not explaining or giving examples of how a single cell can over time turn into something like a human, if you think saying it happenned by natural selection is a good enough answer which you probably do, you are wrong

 

[Baggins]

well according to the theory fish had to know to evolve legs before they left the water, as how could they survive without it, and the same goes for everything

In the post above you claim to understand the theory of evolution and yet this post shows that you obviously don't have a clue.

Way to go, you pwned yourself, as they say on the internet

Evolution is a mindless process; fish didn't know they had to develop legs so they could get onto land, natural selection selected for fins that became legs because it gave the fish with those mutations a competative advantage.

All animals die with the genes they were born with, they can't influence the genes of the next generation because mutation is not a controlled process.

Did you understand that?

If you did you will realise that animals don't need to know what they need to evolve.

 

[RealityCheck]

well according to the theory fish had to know to evolve legs before they left the water, as how could they survive without it, and the same goes for everything

And the Bible says "God helps those who help themselves."


...........





But wait, no it doesn't! That phrase is a modern saying that is nowhere found in the Bible. Except that, according to some surveys, a majority of people asked, including Christians, thought that this very lesson is taught in the Bible. It's clearly not.

Your statement about what evolution is just as valid - that is, it is not. Evolutionary theory DOES NOT state that anything needed to "know" to evolve something. It is a popular misconception that, like the phrase above", gets passed around long enough to where people believe it is true, when it clearly is not.

 

[Baggins]

again as i have said all you are explaining to me is natural selection, not explaining or giving examples of how a single cell can over time turn into something like a human, if you think saying it happenned by natural selection is a good enough answer which you probably do, you are wrong

And you have been unable to articulate why we are wrong.

 

[RealityCheck]

again as i have said all you are explaining to me is natural selection, not explaining or giving examples of how a single cell can over time turn into something like a human, if you think saying it happenned by natural selection is a good enough answer which you probably do, you are wrong

Again, you clearly show that you understand very little. A single cell does not turn into a human being any more than a human being turns into a winged giraffe with alligator teeth.

 

[huggybear]

Indeed. Fruit are simply adaptations of previously existing systems. The primary selection pressure is anyone's guess. This paper, for instance, asks: "Did fleshy fruit pulp evolve as a defence against seed loss rather
than as a dispersal mechanism?"


And billions more can see how it is not only possible, but highly probable. But this is not an argument from numbers.


Mutations.


Evolution by natural selection. The environment determines the selection pressures that steer the evolution of a population. But one major misconception is that evolution is predictive: there is no foresight involved. Every 'transition' is beneficial in some small way. That is why they persist. Those 'transitions' that aren't more useful than the previous model get weeded out by natural selection: they simply aren't as good at reproducing.


This is just one big fallacy. First, the majority of people in the world believe in common descent, Second, nothing is ever proven; mathematics deals in proof, and evolutionary biology is not quite as rigourous as maths. Third, it is anything but dogmatic: it is a theory as fluid as any other, capable of disproof.


I have given you two large repositories of evidence. Review them at your pleasure, but please don't have the audacity to claim there is no evidence.


You should check your stats.

The primary selection pressure is anyone's guess. This paper, for instance, asks: "Did fleshy fruit pulp evolve as a defence against seed loss rather
than as a dispersal mechanism?"

thankyou ,you are the only one to understand or is honest enough to answer my question, hats off to you , so my answer to that is that the fruit was there because it was gods intention for it to be there,that it didnt evolve as defense or anything else

Mutations.

indeed the whole of the TOE is based on the premise that mutations can create entirely new instructions and information ,but this is yet to be proven, here is a little take from answersingenesis.com:

When they begin to talk about mutations, evolutionists tacitly acknowledge that natural selection, by itself, cannot explain the rise of new genetic information. Somehow they have to explain the introduction of completely new genetic instructions for feathers and other wonders that never existed in ‘simpler’ life forms. So they place their faith in mutations.
In the process of defending mutations as a mechanism for creating new genetic code, they attack a straw-man version of the creationist model, and they have no answer for the creationists’ real scientific objections. Scientific American states this common straw-man position and their answer to it.

10. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.

On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism’s DNA)—bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.
​

This is a serious misstatement of the creationist argument. The issue is not new traits, but new genetic information. In no known case is antibiotic resistance the result of new information. There are several ways that an information loss can confer resistance, as already discussed. We have also pointed out in various ways how new traits, even helpful, adaptive traits, can arise through loss of genetic information (which is to be expected from mutations).

Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae, and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. [SA 82]
​

Once again, there is no new information! Rather, a mutation in the hox gene (see next section) results in already-existing information being switched on in the wrong place.1 The hox gene merely moved legs to the wrong place; it did not produce any of the information that actually constructs the legs, which in ants and bees include a wondrously complex mechanical and hydraulic mechanism that enables these insects to stick to surfaces.2

These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses. [SA 82]
​

Amazing—natural selection can ‘test for possible uses’ of ‘non-functional’ (i.e., useless!) limbs in the wrong place. Such deformities would be active hindrances to survival.

This is just one big fallacy. First, the majority of people in the world believe in common descent You should check your stats

sorry you should check your stats, the world is comprised of 19percent muslim who believe in creation,and 33 percent christian who believe in creation, and just to save you the trouble yes christians and muslims believe in natural selection and speciation,they dont however believe in common descent,

so that makes 52% then you have all the other minor religions to go along with that ,and oh what about the recent poll that showed that 67% of americans dont believe in common descent ? i think i have my stats right thankyou

 

[huggybear]

Well, that's simple, really. You start with a plant that has a seed that has some digestible material around it, and sometimes survives the digestive tract of animals that eat it. It only has to be nutritious enough to sometimes be eaten, and only durable enough to sometimes pass through the digestive system. This initial bit of digestible material might initially be for the nutrition of the seed itself (which it won't need after passing through a digestive tract, as it's surrounded by fertilizer then). The hardness of the seed could initially be for durability against weather or other things that might harm the seed.

But however it began, once you have a seed that is somewhat durable, and a seed covering which is somewhat edible, then you have something for evolution to work on, as once animals do start eating those seeds, they act as a selective pressure to increase the spreading of those seeds by animals.


It didn't. And nature didn't need it to produce fruit. Nothing did, in fact. Fruit evolved as a strategy for some plants to better spread themselves. The interdependency of certain animals and certain fruit-bearing plants only came about after fruits had initially evolved.


Some plants now do need to produce fruit to survive, because they have relied upon animals to spread their seeds for so long. Others don't, because they have made use of different strategies to spread their seeds (or otherwise reproduce).

This is the way evolution works: it first stumbles upon, quite by accident, a new solution to an old problem. This new solution doesn't work very well, but it's still better than not doing it at all. Evolution then acts to optimize and amplify that solution: over progressive generations the descendants get better and better at it, eventually resulting in a massively complex system that the organism cannot survive without.


Well, take a look at dogs. Nearly all of the divergence in dogs has come about since human civilization began about 10,000 years ago. And yet we have dog variants that are as different as chihuahuas and sheep dogs. This is only in 10,000 years, a mere blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. Life has been on this planet for more than 350,000 times that long!

Think about that for a moment: the difference between a chihuahua and a sheep dog is only a few thousand years. How much more difference might there be with hundreds of thousands times that time? The answer turns out to be all the diversity that we see around us.


Well, that is a really fascinating subject, that of developmental biology. You could read books on the subject and still only scratch the surface of what is currently known. But for now, the Wikipedia article is a fair enough place to start.


You claim this only because you are unaware of the evidence. And the evidence is strong and incontrovertible. Talkorigins.org's excellent 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution can give you a tiny taste of a small subset of the evidence available.

Fruit evolved as a strategy for some plants to better spread themselves

but that is your dogma isnt it ? you cannot prove that
that is just what you think happenned

i think i have proved my point