> A similar plot could made us conclude (wrongly) that the corn is getting much bigger in the last 1000 years "by climate change", instead because people select

> A similar plot could made us conclude (wrongly) that the corn is getting much bigger in the last 1000 years "by climate change", instead because people selected more modern varieties of corn. Surely this conclusion would only make sense if we believed that relevant climatic changes were occurring over the same time frame as the changes in size. In the case of the cherry trees, the shift in the full-flowering date corresponds very well with the shift in the local temperature record (also provided at [0]), lending credence to that being the explanatory factor. Other factors are, of course, possibly relevant, but I don't think that the link is as weakly founded as your counter-example suggests. [0] http://atmenv.envi.osakafu-u.ac.jp/aono/kyophenotemp4/ http://atmenv.envi.osakafu-u.ac.jp/aono/kyophenotemp4/