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Aside from the fact that literally is not a gradable adjective, I don't see the grandparent suggesting any kind of intelligent design. Evolution implies getting

Aside from the fact that literally is not a gradable adjective, I don't see the grandparent suggesting any kind of intelligent design. Evolution implies getting adapted to your environment, this includes an oxygen level of roughly 20%, availability of nutrients, etc. But this also goes the other way: plants to some extend need animals to spread their seeds (you could go as far as to say it's the reason for our existence...), so it's to their benefit when they evolve beneficial effects on animal through combinations of nutrients/chemicals]; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-evolution So while there may be a _reason_ the mate plant evolved to have pleasant effects on us, this is not necessarily because there is a design or teleology.

Camillo 14y ago
Nobody is arguing against the existance of beneficial compounds in plants. Remember that the claim was that natural products somehow contain the perfect blend of compounds, which is a very high bar to clean. Co-evolution does not imply maximum benefits for all the organisms involved: for example, a plant that wants you to eat its fruit to disperse its seeds may make itself delicious, but it does not really care if it poisons you a little along the way (see the example of the Solanaceae, which I already cited). You should also consider that humans and the mate plant have coexisted for maybe 15 thousand years, which is not really a lot of time to come to a perfectly harmonized balance with the entire ecosystem; and that the average (US) American's ancestors have been around the mate plant for approximately zero generations, so, if they are to benefit from the short period of co-evolution of the plant with humans, it needs to be through changes in the plant (and it seems to me that an animal would evolve to maximize benefit from its food source faster than the food source would evolve to maximize benefit to it). You may then say that the plant co-evolved with animals similar to us, but then, see the comment someone else made about lethal doses being quite different between species. I am not disputing the presence of beneficial compounds in some plants, but the claim that they would somehow contain the perfect blend that maximizes benefit to our particular species. Also, "pretty much" is not a grading adverbial phrase.

Camillo 14y ago

Nobody is arguing against the existance of beneficial compounds in plants. Remember that the claim was that natural products somehow contain the perfect blend of compounds, which is a very high bar to clean. Co-evolution does not imply maximum benefits for all the organisms involved: for example, a plant that wants you to eat its fruit to disperse its seeds may make itself delicious, but it does not really care if it poisons you a little along the way (see the example of the Solanaceae, which I already cited). You should also consider that humans and the mate plant have coexisted for maybe 15 thousand years, which is not really a lot of time to come to a perfectly harmonized balance with the entire ecosystem; and that the average (US) American's ancestors have been around the mate plant for approximately zero generations, so, if they are to benefit from the short period of co-evolution of the plant with humans, it needs to be through changes in the plant (and it seems to me that an animal would evolve to maximize benefit from its food source faster than the food source would evolve to maximize benefit to it). You may then say that the plant co-evolved with animals similar to us, but then, see the comment someone else made about lethal doses being quite different between species. I am not disputing the presence of beneficial compounds in some plants, but the claim that they would somehow contain the perfect blend that maximizes benefit to our particular species. Also, "pretty much" is not a grading adverbial phrase.