5 ms·
> "The toxicity to humans, though, that’s a mystery. “There really isn’t an evolutionary answer to its being toxic, other than to just say it’s a biological mis
by SeanDav 10y ago
> "The toxicity to humans, though, that’s a mystery. “There really isn’t an evolutionary answer to its being toxic, other than to just say it’s a biological mistake because it certainly doesn’t gain anything by being toxic to humans"
I am quite puzzled by this quote, in evolutionary terms, humans are very recent. I highly doubt that humans have been around for long enough for plants to evolve to suite humans specifically, rather than mammals in general.
- jfoutz 10y agoCorn has.
- afarrell 10y agoAlso, mistake implies that there is some agency and or design intent involved.
- pvaldes 10y agoHumans mean probably "a member of primates" in this context. A lot of fruit plants coevolved with primates but following the other direction. We are big diseminators of seeds and an interesting target to atract and spoil. Fruits designed for dinosaurs-birds and fruits designed for mammals are often very different in its chemical composition.