3 ms·

Is it just accidentally?

• robotresearcher 5y ago
  Yes. There’s no look-ahead in evolution.
  • Smaug123 5y ago
    Well, I think one could plausibly argue that the early small mammals which liked to be around flowers were more likely to survive because they could eat the abundance of insects attracted to the flowers. That effect compounds, and in general, places with lots of flowers (in the ancestral environment) tend to be pretty busy ecosystems full of things to eat. Which is not to say that this is in fact how it came about, but it's plausible enough that I wouldn't be comfortable asserting "it's pure coincidence". (By the way, David Deutsch asserts that flowers are, in some sense, objectively beautiful. I think he's wrong, but The Beginning of Infinity contains quite a bit on this subject.)
    • alisonkisk 5y ago
      Evolution creates by coincidence and perpetuates by utility.
  • 13of40 5y ago
    In recent centuries, flowers have evolved to be more attractive to humans because we've intentionally manipulated the evolutionary pressure on them. So it's not accidental, but it's our volition driving it, not the flowers'.
    • robotresearcher 5y ago
      Sure, once we were already interested enough in flowers to bother doing that.