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Someone had to design the color, fragrance, nectar, and structure of flowers designed to attract bees and to sprinkle them with pollen. Bees are designed to extract nectar and to take one flower’s pollen to another plant for fertilization. Clearly, the flowers and bees are designed to supply what the other needs.
This aspect I did not address previously.
How did the flowers know to make themselves pretty for bees to effect pollination?
First off pollination is not solely dependant on bees, their are other things like the wind that also works albeit less efficient. Your question also poses that all plants create flowers and all flowers yield seed from this process. Not really correct.
I have this cactus in my garden.
Note the fly.
Well there is absolutely no use for this flower. I even did a manual cross pollination. The flowers withered away and no seeds were forthcoming.
The cactus species spreads via the root system yet still creates flowers for no reason. This particular one, the flower opens at night when bees are not active and within 24 hours has withered away.
Why do flowers have colour?
There are simple explanations and of course what we see is the reflection of light, bees see them differently. For us, the colours are pleasant and we thus nurture and breed them. Their scent is more likely the attracting feature than the colour itself, then again, some flowers, to us, have no scent. I am no biologist but when we dig down to the DNA levels we start to get logical answers. Flowers also have DNA that match some of ours showing we are related in some way. Billions of years to evolve to what we see today would be enough time to adapt.
Corn/Maize is another plant/crop that does not rely on bees. It has no flower and the part we call the flower is not even attractive, the flower part creates no seed. The corn developes and only once seeds are there on the cob does the cross pollination take place. This is also a plant like the banana that has been adapted by humans. Seed is only good for consumption these days as they are generally useless to plant.
Suffice to say is that the relationship between bees and flowers are not that simple. A fellow christian Ray Comfort is the laughing stock of the scientific community in his banana debacle being a perfect fit for the human hand. It is like many other plants, a hybrid. IOW it was not created by any god.
Roses are another plant that no longer relies on seed. In all my years, the way you get a rose going is at pruning season, application of a hormonal powder on a shoot, trimmed just right, it will start forming roots. If you pop a shrivelled bud in the ground, nothing happens.
I am sure plant biologists will have far better explanations than me.
This idea that 'perfect adaptation' must be evidence for design is a misunderstanding. This is evidence of evolution, where animals or plants that have been able to increase their survival chances by doing all manner of things - changing their colours, hiding in a disused shell, holding a piece of sponge over themselves, kicking all the other eggs over the cliff or out of the nest or laying eggs in the host which the larva then eats - and elaborate interdependence in pollination as was raised here - look very odd when considered as 'Design'.
The process of selection will enhance the chances of propagation of those varieties of blooms with a more attractive colour or scent. That will push the species along the 'Micro -evolution' road and, in time can lead to a different looking plant or insect (which gets called a 'new species'). The Evolutionary process which does what it does and God does not have to see that what He designed was Good, when it often doesn't seem to be.
Thanks. I came across the Golden ratio and Fibonacci series some years ago postulated as evidence of design. In fact they turned out not to be exactly exact and (though I expected the ID bods to say that was close enough) that put an end to the thread.
It is like so many of these puzzles. It was so often used as a gap for God and everything from DNA to cosmic origins is proposed as evidence for goddunnit unless a full explanation -without-God-being-needed is produced.
So many of these have been answered that it now looks unreasonable of the believers to keep retreating to another unanswered question. Of course it doesn't look unreasonable to them and I know why. Their Faith that God is everything means that they see God as a big invisible human who hath made it all and they require the skeptic atheists to explain every damn' event down to the last detail or 'God' remains the only valid answer.
That is a totally false position but I can understand why they hold it. Buy into god -belief (for whatever reason) and it becomes the Given which unbelief has to disprove to the hilt, no matter what logic says about the burden of proof.
In the end, frustrating though it may be, it doesn't really matter. Knowing that the case for 'God' isn't worth a damn' is all we need to know. That we can't explain this to the god -believers is irritating, perhaps, but of no real concern to us. We are not trying to convince them - they are trying to convince us.
Or rather we are holding public debates to persuade the undecided. I'd say we are getting much the better of it, but much depends on the mindset the public is bringing to the debate.
How did the flowers know to make themselves pretty for bees to effect pollination?
First off pollination is not solely dependant on bees, their are other things like the wind that also works albeit less efficient. Your question also poses that all plants create flowers and all flowers yield seed from this process. Not really correct.
I have this cactus in my garden.
Note the fly.
Well there is absolutely no use for this flower. I even did a manual cross pollination. The flowers withered away and no seeds were forthcoming.
The cactus species spreads via the root system yet still creates flowers for no reason. This particular one, the flower opens at night when bees are not active and within 24 hours has withered away.
Why do flowers have colour?
There are simple explanations and of course what we see is the reflection of light, bees see them differently. For us, the colours are pleasant and we thus nurture and breed them. Their scent is more likely the attracting feature than the colour itself, then again, some flowers, to us, have no scent. I am no biologist but when we dig down to the DNA levels we start to get logical answers. Flowers also have DNA that match some of ours showing we are related in some way. Billions of years to evolve to what we see today would be enough time to adapt.
Corn/Maize is another plant/crop that does not rely on bees. It has no flower and the part we call the flower is not even attractive, the flower part creates no seed. The corn developes and only once seeds are there on the cob does the cross pollination take place. This is also a plant like the banana that has been adapted by humans. Seed is only good for consumption these days as they are generally useless to plant.
Suffice to say is that the relationship between bees and flowers are not that simple. A fellow christian Ray Comfort is the laughing stock of the scientific community in his banana debacle being a perfect fit for the human hand. It is like many other plants, a hybrid. IOW it was not created by any god.
Roses are another plant that no longer relies on seed. In all my years, the way you get a rose going is at pruning season, application of a hormonal powder on a shoot, trimmed just right, it will start forming roots. If you pop a shrivelled bud in the ground, nothing happens.
I am sure plant biologists will have far better explanations than me.
so why are you taking a question from the atheist board and spamming the religion board?
so why are you taking a question from the atheist board and spamming the religion board?
I'm glad he did. I don't have a habit of checking the atheist board. Besides, the answers on a religion board will no doubt be different from those on an atheist board.
Aren't you up to learning something new?
Last edited by DewDropInn; 09-06-2013 at 11:22 AM..
I'm glad he did. I don't have a habit of checking the atheist board. Besides, the answers on a religion board will no doubt be different from those on an atheist board.
Aren't you up to learning something new?
I love science, and learning things. I just wondered why he was spamming. I was only asking a question.
The thread was locked when I wanted to post the reply and here is actually where we debate each other. You really are not keeping up with the happenings here and the more you post, the more foolish you come across. Perhaps instead of going off half **** you should actually read the post. You never have a rebuttle and contrary to your beliefs, this part of the forum has never been anyone's domain.
The thread was locked when I wanted to post the reply and here is actually where we debate each other. You really are not keeping up with the happenings here and the more you post, the more foolish you come across. Perhaps instead of going off half **** you should actually read the post. You never have a rebuttle and contrary to your beliefs, this part of the forum has never been anyone's domain.
I'm just asking a question. Am I not allowed to do that without you going off on me?
Good to know. Of course what you learn is only as good as the source. If you're learning about science from the Old Testament or from anything that would be displayed in the creation museum I'd urge you to expand your base.
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