Seedless Grapes

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 9:43 am

I was eating seedless grapes this morning, and thought of a question:

To what degree do you credit evolution for me being able to eat my seedless grapes? I.E. certain grape vines have developed extremely small and insignificant seeds, and people happen to prefer them because they like eating them that way. On the other hand, I expect that the majority of people would credit humans with the existence of seedless grape, because from history we know that people have cultivated the trait to bring it out.

It struck me as a small picture of how I see the whole creation/evolutionary origins debate/argument. Whatever the mechanism, I think it was God that "cultivated" the species into existence and thus deserves the credit.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:32 am

That basically goes right along with what I believe.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:41 am

Who invented orange cauliflower? Sure wasn't God.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:51 am

I think that's the point snoopy is making though. We, like God, can manipulate the mechanics of how things were created.

Dickson said the mutant was smaller and not as flavorful as white cauliflower, so it had to be crossbred with standard cauliflower. Development was tricky, partly because cauliflower hadn't been developed as a hybrid before.

This thing was on it's way out until we stepped in.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004- ... ower_x.htm

vision · Post by **vision** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:03 am

snoopy wrote:To what degree do you credit evolution for me being able to eat my seedless grapes?

Answer: Humans are the selective pressure. Just because we can manipulate the world around us, doesn't mean evolution isn't happening. The end.

[/thread]

flip · Post by **flip** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:08 am

Schneider explains that "the whiteness of the flowery fleece, usually called 'curd,' may also be yellow, orange, pinkish, green, or purple depending upon the variety, the growing area, climate and regional preferences." The book explains that growing white cauliflower is backbreaking work: "the nest of dusky green leaves is tied in a loose bundle around the budding new head, which continues to grow until harvest." The leaves shield the cauliflower's curd and keep the vegetable white

This seems to suggest that white cauliflower would be the hardest to produce in the wild, because the leaves have to be tied to shield it from the sun. I find the orange cauliflower argument getting weaker.

http://www.thekitchn.com/look-purple-and-33348

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:45 am

Orange cauliflower was a mixed breed created by man.

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 5:44 pm

Since God's involvement was suggested in the OP, I can say ...

God created and provided the components that people/man used to make it, so shouldn't God still get the credit either way?

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:13 pm

snoopy wrote:I was eating seedless grapes this morning, and thought of a question:

To what degree do you credit evolution for me being able to eat my seedless grapes? I.E. certain grape vines have developed extremely small and insignificant seeds, and people happen to prefer them because they like eating them that way. On the other hand, I expect that the majority of people would credit humans with the existence of seedless grape, because from history we know that people have cultivated the trait to bring it out.

It struck me as a small picture of how I see the whole creation/evolutionary origins debate/argument. Whatever the mechanism, I think it was God that "cultivated" the species into existence and thus deserves the credit.

Gonna have to disagree with you there. The truth is that God deserves all of the credit for everything created, but it was man that cultivated the seedless grape. The fact that man searched it out and selectively cultivated the grapes does not detract from the fact that God is overall the creator, but it is undeniably a separate thing. On a humorous note, I don't know that God would care for you to credit him with a fruit that can no longer reproduce itself (we screwed it up).

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:39 pm

Say What.

It is a mystery where the first seedless grapes originated from. Grapes themselves date back to prehistoric times. Some think that the first seedless grapes came from a genetic mutation thousands of years prior in Afghanistan. Obviously when it was discovered the grapes had no seeds, the vine was replicated. The most apparent way this would be done would be to take cuttings from the mutated vine and replant them. This eventually led to the massive amounts of seedless grapes produced today. It is possible that you can grown your own grapes without seeds, however doing so is a bit different than growing the traditional seeded grape.

http://grapes-for-growing.net/argrape/s ... grapes.php

Well, this is almost like the age old chicken and egg problem. Historians tell us that the first seedless variety was grown somewhere in Central Asia many centuries ago. A farmer with a keen eye noticed that one grapevine suddenly started producing grapes without seeds. This kind of thing happens all the time and is called mutation. He (or she) saw the advantage in saving and propagating this mutant and did so by "taking a cutting." The rest is history. Did I say that this kind of thing happens all the time? How come all interesting this like this happen centuries ago? As recently as two decades ago, another savvy farmer in California noticed that a vine that normally produced Emperor Grapes (with seeds) suddenly produced a seedless mutant. Now we have seedless Emperor grapes. When I say "seedless," do not take me literally. In some varieties, you may find tiny wannable seeds.

http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~vemuri/EngPopsci/grapes.htm

roid · Post by **roid** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 2:51 am

i not entirely sure i understand OP.

snoopy wrote:To what degree do you credit evolution for me being able to eat my seedless grapes?

Evolution (ie: natural selection) is the process which lead to grapes, but humans have selectively bred grapes for a while. So it was natural selection until then, and then there was a lot of artificial selection by us.
In the case of seedless grapes, selection (both natural and artificial) prettymuch stopped the moment it became seedless - as the only way it could successfully reproduce from then on was non-sexually via cuttings. To be honest i'm not sure how much mutation could be involved via sex as i'm not even sure grape farmers actually plant seeds anymore - isn't everything done with cuttings and grafting in the grape business? Either way, mutation was involved to produce the first seedless grape vine - if not sexual, then within the plant itself? (ps: if sexual, then it's parent wasn't a seedless grape vine. The child was the first.)

snoopy wrote:It struck me as a small picture of how I see the whole creation/evolutionary origins debate/argument. Whatever the mechanism, I think it was God that "cultivated" the species into existence and thus deserves the credit.

Where does God come into it? Neither the Abiogenesis that created life, nor the Evolution that created the grape require the existence of a God. A God is hardly intervening everytime a gamete cell reproduces with some mutations, that's a perfectly normal and routine biological process.
(i just know this is going to attract an uneducated (& thus unwanted) reply from Thorne... sigh)

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:38 am

Honey I shrunk the Roid wrote:(i just know this is going to attract an uneducated (& thus unwanted) reply from Thorne... sigh)

Where's the love?

roid wrote:Neither the Abiogenesis that created life, nor the Evolution that created the grape require the existence of a God.

Nothing like bringing things from the realm of theory and transforming them into fact in order to win a point. I guess that's the educated way to dismiss God from the argument--replace reality with complex theories that preclude God, and then ask where God comes into it...

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:18 am

News Flash: Reality is full of complex theories. Actual, true, testable theories. God is going to have to learn to live aside them because they are true. Also, I notice the same people keep using the word theory in the colloquial sense. In science, theory == law, not hypothesis.

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:30 am

Sorry, law == law. A theory lies somewhere between law and hypothesis, not having been (or able to be) comprehensively tested. Reality is reality--what is despite how you choose to think of it.

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:33 am

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Sorry, law == law.

Sorry, but when we say "theory of evolution" we are talking about a framework that has stood up to tests for over one hundred years. It's a law as much as anything can be considered a law in science. Though I'll admit I was incorrect in saying "In science" above when I should have said "In discussion of evolution."

Sergeant Thorne · Post by **Sergeant Thorne** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:01 pm

I can hear you but your lips aren't moving... Evolution has undergone tremendous "evolution"-- it has NOT stood up to tests, as you say. Evolution is a framework for a naturalistic understanding of the world around us, and despite a great deal of crafting by some very intellectual people it is still full of holes. Evolution, for the greater part, is a failed theory conceived and kept alive in order to do away with God in our understanding of the world around us.

You can dispense with "in science", AND "in discussion of evolution", and just say "IMO" if you want to be accurate.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:21 pm

Erp x2

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:59 pm

the·o·ry
noun \ˈthē-ə-rē, ˈthir-ē\
plural the·o·ries
Definition of THEORY
1
: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2
: abstract thought : speculation
3
: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art <music theory>
4
a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action <her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn> b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory <in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all>
5
: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena <the wave theory of light>
6
a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption :conjecture

A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported(not proven. my words) with repeated testing. A theory is valid as long as there is no evidence to dispute it. Therefore, theories can be disproven. Basically, if evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, then the hypothesis can become accepted as a good explanation of a phenomenon. One definition of a theory is to say it's an accepted hypothesis.

theory is not law OR fact

it is a best scenario guess based on available information, it is speculation and conjecture.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 2:24 pm

Yeah, remember when I asked about who had taken a high school biology class? It's becoming pretty darn clear now who didn't.

vision · Post by **vision** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:09 pm

Or... took that biology class in an anti-reason state.

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:16 pm

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libra ... cat01.html

In science, a theory is a rigorously tested statement of general principles that explains observable and recorded aspects of the world. A scientific theory therefore describes a higher level of understanding that ties "facts" together. A scientific theory stands until proven wrong -- it is never proven correct. The Darwinian theory of evolution has withstood the test of time and thousands of scientific experiments; nothing has disproved it since Darwin first proposed it more than 150 years ago. Indeed, many scientific advances, in a range of scientific disciplines including physics, geology, chemistry, and molecular biology, have supported, refined, and expanded evolutionary theory far beyond anything Darwin could have imagined.

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:45 pm

Cuda wrote:theory is not law OR fact

it is a best scenario guess based on available information, it is speculation and conjecture.

You're right that there's no mechanism for proving (in a mathematical sense) that any scientific claim is true, since you could always find some future evidence that contradicts it. But this is true for *any* scientific claim. You wouldn't consider any scientific claim to be a fact? Not even gravity? The second law of motion? I'm wondering if you're consistent with your skepticism of scientific claims.

It's fine to be skeptical of a scientific claim if there isn't much evidence for it. But that isn't your argument here. You're arguing that we should be skeptical of a scientific claim because it's a scientific claim. I find that peculiar.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:46 pm

vision wrote:Or... took that biology class in an anti-reason state.

and some people will never admit that there is a massive difference between and scientific theory. and proven fact.

As was already stated. A scientific theory can not be proven to be true, it can only be proven to be false. there can be reasonable evidence to assume it's true. but cannot be proven as fact. to believe otherwise is just making it your religion.

re·li·gion
[ri-lij-uhn] Show IPA
noun
2.
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons :

so what's its gonna be boys. are ya gonna admit that a scientific theory is not absolute fact as you portray it, or is it just your religion

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 3:47 pm

Jeff250 wrote:
Cuda wrote:theory is not law OR fact

it is a best scenario guess based on available information, it is speculation and conjecture.
You're right that there's no mechanism for proving (in a mathematical sense) that any scientific claim is true, since you could always find some future evidence that contradicts it. But this is true for *any* scientific claim. You wouldn't consider any scientific claim to be a fact? Not even gravity? The second law of motion? I'm wondering if you're consistent with your skepticism of scientific claims.

It's fine to be skeptical of a scientific claim if there isn't much evidence for it. But that isn't your argument here. You're arguing that we should be skeptical of a scientific claim because it's a scientific claim. I find that peculiar.

not at all. but blind faith in it, lacks wisdom.

P.S. and don't portray my arguments as a denial of evolution. they are not.

I just feel the "blind faith" in the absolute truth of their beliefs is foolish. you cannot have an absolute truth in an unprovable theory

P.S.S. this discussion is about evolution nothing else

It's fine to be skeptical of a scientific claim if there isn't much evidence for it. But that isn't your argument here. You're arguing that we should be skeptical of a scientific claim because it's a scientific claim. I find that peculiar.

thats where my arguments are heading

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:18 pm

You might have something against evolution's specific claim, but we should not be skeptical of it simply because it is a scientific claim.

I don't think anyone in this thread accepts evolution on blind faith. When people say that it is a fact, they're just saying that they believe there is enough evidence to consider it true for all practical purposes. Tomorrow, apples might start falling up from trees, but for all practical purposes, I'm going to consider gravity a fact and not stand under heavy objects. If tomorrow apples do start falling up from trees, then I may reconsider our understanding of gravity (but I'll also check the apples for strings).

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:32 pm

Jeff250 wrote:You might have something against evolution's specific claim, but we should not be skeptical of it simply because it is a scientific claim.

you need to read deeper into what I said

I don't think anyone in this thread accepts evolution on blind faith. When people say that it is a fact, they're just saying that they believe there is enough evidence to consider it true for all practical purposes.

ya try that with an argument about the tenants of Christianity. anyone who has researched the historical accounts of Christ will tell you it's fact.
yet those that have not will not

full circle

Tomorrow, apples might start falling up from trees, but for all practical purposes, I'm going to consider gravity a fact and not stand under heavy objects. If tomorrow apples do start falling up from trees, then I may reconsider our understanding of gravity (but I'll also check the apples for strings).

speaking of apples, try not to throw oranges in the discussion. we are talking evolution. not gravity

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:59 pm

Cuda wrote:ya try that with an argument about the tenants of Christianity. anyone who has researched the historical accounts of Christ will tell you it's fact.
yet those that have not will not

We don't all agree on which claims are facts and which are not because we don't all agree on which have good evidence and which do not. But that has nothing to do with my point. My point is that when people say that evolution is a fact, this doesn't have anything to do with blind faith, just like you believing that Christian historical accounts are fact has nothing to do with blind faith.

Cuda wrote:speaking of apples, try not to throw oranges in the discussion. we are talking evolution. not gravity

Your request is unreasonable--I'll use appropriate analogies as I see fit. You above introduced an analogy yourself: Christian historical accounts. We can use that one if you prefer. One cannot mathematically prove that anything historically happened either, yet you consider there to be certain historical facts. Why the inconsistency?

I don't see any problem considering some scientific claims to be facts. I don't think you do either if you're willing to be consistent. If the only things that can be facts are things that can be mathematically proven, then the only facts we have are mathematical theorems, which is not only distressing but inconsistent with how we use the word "fact" in English.

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:20 pm

Jeff250 wrote:Your request is unreasonable--I'll use appropriate analogies as I see fit. You above introduced an analogy yourself: Christian historical accounts. We can use that one if you prefer. One cannot mathematically prove that anything historically happened either, yet you consider there to be certain historical facts. Why the inconsistency?

no inconsistencies. there are eye witness accounts and historical documentation to beck up my claims.there are no eyewitness accounts or historical documentation to support evolution.

again I am not in disagreement with the theory. just in disagreement with those that take it as an absolute. you can take it as a belief based upon the current evidence. you cannot take it as an absolute fact.

I don't see any problem considering some scientific claims to be facts. I don't think you do either if you're willing to be consistent.

not at all.
However in the context of this discussion evolution is not fact

If the only things that can be facts are things that can be mathematically proven, then the only facts we have are mathematical theorems, which is not only distressing but inconsistent with how we use the word "fact" in English.

change your wording from Facts to evidence and we have an agreement

" then the only evidence we have are mathematical theorems"

facts denote absolutes, evidence denote a preponderance of proof. not the same things

just to clarify we are talking origin of species and not evolution. there are possibly two different conversations gong on here

Jeff250 · Post by **Jeff250** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:00 pm

Cuda wrote:no inconsistencies. there are eye witness accounts and historical documentation to beck up my claims.there are no eyewitness accounts or historical documentation to support evolution.

again I am not in disagreement with the theory. just in disagreement with those that take it as an absolute. you can take it as a belief based upon the current evidence. you cannot take it as an absolute fact.

I don't think that anyone should take any scientific or historical claim as 100%-certain, absolute truth, because you can always find something extremely unexpected that contradicts that claim tomorrow. But the way people usually use the word "fact" is just something that they consider true for practical purposes (until if/when something extremely unexpected is discovered to contradict it). Otherwise, if facts can only be 100%-certain, absolute truths, then we have no scientific or historical facts.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:35 pm

The fact that living organisms have changed over time, i.e. evolved, is indeed a basic fact: we have direct physical evidence stating as much. (Or have you noticed any dinosaurs strolling down the street? Because if you have, let us know and share the wealth, man, because that'd be sweet.) Charles Darwin's original explanation for how different species came to be, that natural selection allowed individuals best adapted to their surroundings to pass on their genetic material more successfully, started as a hypothesis. Other people tested it, and their results corroborated the hypothesis...over time, it was substantiated and expanded, leading to what we now call the theory of evolution via natural selection. It is certainly true that a scientific theory fundamentally differs from a scientific law: a law is a basic observation about the universe ("object at rest will remain at rest," etc.), while a theory is a comprehensive model that provides an explanation for related phenomena. And it is also true that a scientific theory can never be declared as definitively proven, since that's just not how it's defined. However, if a certain theory holds up over many decades, and gets supported by more and more experimental results, it's probably doing its job pretty damn well. The theories of special/general relativity, and the theory of evolution via natural selection, fall into this category.

(And really, quoting dictionary definitions when talking about terms like "theory" and "law" in the scientific sense is pretty much useless, as any regular dictionary will list the common everyday meanings of those terms first, and that's not what we want here.)

CUDA · Post by **CUDA** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:45 pm

Top Gun wrote:(And really, quoting dictionary definitions when talking about terms like "theory" and "law" in the scientific sense is pretty much useless, as any regular dictionary will list the common everyday meanings of those terms first, and that's not what we want here.)

apparently you missed the part where I quoted the definition of Scientific theory. ALONG with the general definition of a theory

flip · Post by **flip** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:54 pm

I think a great deal could be explained by atmospheric changes. I don't see how dinosaurs contribute at all to evolution. The longest standing thought is that a meteor caused atmospheric change leading to widespread extinction. Nothing about evolution. I think the difference, as far as dinosaurs are concerned

, could be explained by increased lifespan. Take an iguana for instance. A juvenile iguana looks much different than an adult iguana. As they grow they develop spines across their back and their jaws begin jutting out. All this just in what we know of it's lifespan. The preponderance of evidence points to the Sun as the major contributor for aging. Let's say for the sake of argument, that throughout the Earth's history, the atmosphere was maybe even one layer thicker. Or all layers combined were thicker than now. If an Iguana lived 400 years. How big and how much different would it's appearance be from an adult Iguana today at 20 years old? If I were going to make an argument using dinosaurs, it would aimed at the atmosphere, not evolution.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 8:29 pm

Um, Flip dude...the asteroid impact and subsequent atmospheric change are pretty much the very definition of the concept of being suited to an environment. Large dinosaurs couldn't withstand that dramatic climate shift and died out, meaning that their genes didn't get passed on; the only stuff that made it through were their small relatives, which eventually became today's birds and reptiles. On the flipside, something that did do very well after that climate shift were these small fuzzy creatures...you might know them better today as mammals. Mass extinction events provide dramatic instances of reshuffling the genetic deck of cards, but the same process occurs far more gradually all around us every day.

Heretic · Post by **Heretic** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:45 pm

Funny how you all state as fact that Dinosaur Extinction happen from an asteroid. The truth is, we don't what caused dinosaur extinction and it might have been a combination of things like asteroids, volcanoes, gradual climate changes, and even disease.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C005824/extinction.html

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:02 pm

Heretic, that site appears to be intended for grade schoolers...it's not exactly useful for our discussion. There's no doubt that a large asteroid did strike the Earth approximately 65 million years ago; the smoking gun was the K-T boundary, a thin geological deposit around the world that's rich in iridium, an element very rare on Earth but abundant in most asteroids. Further research pinned down the Chicxulub crater (say that three times fast), on and off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, as the impact site of that asteroid. There were certainly other processes occurring around the same time that would have produced some degree of widespread climate change, but an asteroid impact of that size would have had a massive effect on a global scale, and the broad scientific consensus is that it was the primary factor in the Cretaceous extinction.

flip · Post by **flip** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:20 pm

That's basically what I said TG. Conditions changed from those that favored dinosaurs to conditions that favored other mammals. Although I'm not 100% sure that dinosaurs wern't just really old lizards. There is also the Cambrian layer that needs to be taken into consideration. We were just having a discussion on .com about this very thing but concerning galaxy formation. That things seemed to happen very fast on a geologic scale and the fact that 98% of the creatures that used to exist on the planet are extinct seems to suggest evolution is failing at it's job significantly.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 11:53 pm

The Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so, and biological life has been crawling on it for something like 3.5 billion. It's kind of the default that most of the species that ever lived are now extinct, given how long we're talking about. And the fact that so many different types of species have come and gone kind of proves that the mechanisms of natural selection do just fine...if they didn't, then all of those species wouldn't have developed in the first place.

roid · Post by **roid** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:21 am

i am quite sure the significance of a scientific theory has been explained to you people before, yet here we are on the merry go round again.
Hey sure lets explain it all again.
and then again next week too.
yeah this train is going places

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:37 am

I don't even know why the hell I keep bothering myself. A fool's hope, maybe.

flip · Post by **flip** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:42 am

Well, the problem with that line of thought is they didn't develop so much as they exploded, and from that time till now 98% of them have died, whole species have disappeared. Natural Selection must not have worked for them. The current theory of evolution depends on a fossil record and slow development over time but that's not what we see in the evidence. We see things happening very quickly and then periods of rest in between. In fact the science is pointing to explosions in most fields. The Big Bang explosion, then almost as soon as the Sun burst into flame we have an Earth with water already created on it, then there is an explosion of life at the cambrian layer. I see a trend developing so forgive me that I don't just swallow the science hook, line and sinker. Maybe your just more trusting than me or maybe your just following a fool's dream

.

EDIT: Just for good measure, the extinction of the dinosaurs happened pretty damn quick too. Imagine how many dinosaurs there must have been to create all the crude oil, and just about overnight, they were finished.