3 ms·

I am going to ask a noob question: if this change is beneficial to plants, why has it not occurred already by natural mutation? Evolution can be blind "hill-cl

I am going to ask a noob question: if this change is beneficial to plants, why has it not occurred already by natural mutation? Evolution can be blind "hill-climbing", so if it's a step towards "local maximum", why has it not already been taken? Is it not a "local" step (i.e. hard to occur naturally) or not "towards maximum" (i.e. good for the farmer but not for the plant)

whitepaint 5y ago
Maybe not enough time has passed.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  That's a soft restatement of 1: Is it not a "local" step
  - freemint 5y ago
    I think demethylization would very much be a smooth direction of descent to produce more fruit. It's just that the production of more fruit is not beneficial.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      Yes, the consensus seems to be for 2: this change is not seen in the wild as it not beneficial there. i.e. it is not towards in a wild plant's local maximum of producing most offspring given limited resources.
mandmandam 5y ago
Perhaps after a few generations there is damage that would otherwise have been protected; or maybe the unmethylated FTO protects from adverse weather / environmental conditions that are not normally present in greenhouses. Either of those could prove catastrophic, so I don't think yours is a noob question - unfortunately, I am also a noob.
chmod775 5y ago
> if this change is beneficial to plants, why has it not occurred already by natural mutation? Because plants in the wild aren't selected for producing as much rice/tuber as possible. They're selected for being able to survive and reproduce, which only goes hand-in-hand up to a point, after which the plant would just be wasting nutrients. The amount of nutrients available to a plant in the wild might also be far from 'greenhouse conditions', so even if it was beneficial to the plants they wouldn't be able to do so anyways.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  So it's 2: this change is not in the wild plant's best interests, for being able to survive and reproduce in the wild. In that case the dial is best set to a lower level of resource utilisation, that still produces sufficient offspring.
  - whythre 5y ago
    Seems like an appeal to nature fallacy. If humans are ensuring that the plants reproduce, you don’t need to ‘set the dial lower.’ Almost all of our fruits and vegetables provide more nourishment than their naturally occurring counterparts. This is merely a continuation of that process.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      I do not think that I'm saying what you seem to be replying to. I merely asked why this mutation has not occurred in the wild if it is beneficial in the wild. And it was answered that it is not beneficial, in the wild. Farmed crops have different characteristics to wild plants, due to selection by the crop eaters. We know this very well. The same selection by crop eater is present in plants with berries where the seeds are dispersed by birds. The "appeal" and "fallacy" is you reading in a subtext that was not intended.
throwawaygal7 5y ago
I think the error is one of imagining evolution finds maxima of this sort. It just finds acceptable local values that are good enough to survive generation to generation. Ex) Biological immortality seems like a great trait for animals to have but precious few have it.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > Biological immortality ... but precious few have it. Because it is not "within reach" as a local maximum.
rsynnott 5y ago
It's not necessarily beneficial to plants from an evolutionary point of view, in that it doesn't necessarily help them reproduce. Evolution's 'objectives' (of course, they're not really objectives) are very different to humanity's on most food plants. Even ignoring genetic engineering, most of our current food plants aren't particularly similar to their wild ancestors, and the changes generally aren't for the better if you're only concerned with plant reproduction.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

whitepaint 5y ago

Maybe not enough time has passed.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
That's a soft restatement of 1: Is it not a "local" step
- freemint 5y ago
  I think demethylization would very much be a smooth direction of descent to produce more fruit. It's just that the production of more fruit is not beneficial.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Yes, the consensus seems to be for 2: this change is not seen in the wild as it not beneficial there. i.e. it is not towards in a wild plant's local maximum of producing most offspring given limited resources.

mandmandam 5y ago

Perhaps after a few generations there is damage that would otherwise have been protected; or maybe the unmethylated FTO protects from adverse weather / environmental conditions that are not normally present in greenhouses. Either of those could prove catastrophic, so I don't think yours is a noob question - unfortunately, I am also a noob.

chmod775 5y ago

> if this change is beneficial to plants, why has it not occurred already by natural mutation? Because plants in the wild aren't selected for producing as much rice/tuber as possible. They're selected for being able to survive and reproduce, which only goes hand-in-hand up to a point, after which the plant would just be wasting nutrients. The amount of nutrients available to a plant in the wild might also be far from 'greenhouse conditions', so even if it was beneficial to the plants they wouldn't be able to do so anyways.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
So it's 2: this change is not in the wild plant's best interests, for being able to survive and reproduce in the wild. In that case the dial is best set to a lower level of resource utilisation, that still produces sufficient offspring.
- whythre 5y ago
  Seems like an appeal to nature fallacy. If humans are ensuring that the plants reproduce, you don’t need to ‘set the dial lower.’ Almost all of our fruits and vegetables provide more nourishment than their naturally occurring counterparts. This is merely a continuation of that process.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    I do not think that I'm saying what you seem to be replying to. I merely asked why this mutation has not occurred in the wild if it is beneficial in the wild. And it was answered that it is not beneficial, in the wild. Farmed crops have different characteristics to wild plants, due to selection by the crop eaters. We know this very well. The same selection by crop eater is present in plants with berries where the seeds are dispersed by birds. The "appeal" and "fallacy" is you reading in a subtext that was not intended.

throwawaygal7 5y ago

I think the error is one of imagining evolution finds maxima of this sort. It just finds acceptable local values that are good enough to survive generation to generation. Ex) Biological immortality seems like a great trait for animals to have but precious few have it.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> Biological immortality ... but precious few have it. Because it is not "within reach" as a local maximum.

rsynnott 5y ago

It's not necessarily beneficial to plants from an evolutionary point of view, in that it doesn't necessarily help them reproduce. Evolution's 'objectives' (of course, they're not really objectives) are very different to humanity's on most food plants. Even ignoring genetic engineering, most of our current food plants aren't particularly similar to their wild ancestors, and the changes generally aren't for the better if you're only concerned with plant reproduction.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]