Figs and Wasps

[Pete Zicato]

Ew.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...s/fig-wasp.htm

[infinite monkey]

omg!

This arrangement is called mutualism. Both plant and wasp depend on the arrangement to survive, and without one, you wouldn't have the other.

http://www.cellar.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=958

Do not fold, spindle, or mutualate!

[footfootfoot]

yeah, put me off figs for a while

[Gravdigr]

If you ever get a chance to see the episode of Nature titled The Queen of Trees, I highly recommend it. It explores the relationship between the fig wasps and the fig tree.

It renewed my belief in God.

What? It did.

[DanaC]

How the hell did the story of the wasp and the fig restore your belief in God?

It's one of the key examples used by evolutionary biologists to demonstrate the evolutionary process.

[Aliantha]

I've never heard of fig wasps before, and I don't really care if we have them here or not. I love fresh figs, and fig jam (which I make a very delicious version of I have to say) and if they've got grubs in them, well, it's just extra protein anyway. Same with guava's. It's pretty hard to get a tree ripened one of those without grubs in it.

We're pretty rustic over here.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by DanaC

How the hell did the story of the wasp and the fig restore your belief in God?

It's one of the key examples used by evolutionary biologists to demonstrate the evolutionary process.

Without getting into an Evolution vs. Hand of God thing, there's just too much interdependence happening there. The fig tree can't get along without the fig wasp. The fig wasp does not possess the tools/skills to do it's thing to the fig, until another critter does it's thing to the fig. Lather, rinse, repeat. And that's just what I remember from the Nature show, there was more to it.

I choose not to believe all this was just a happy accident.

There's enough things in life that make me think there never was a God. This is one of the very few things that make me rethink things.

All this is just my uneducated opinion. (But, it's the only one that counts.)

[Gravdigr]

A different thought:

Doesn't some book somewhere state that the fig (and the fig tree) contains all the things necessary for life?

Or did I pull that out of the ether?

[Sundae]

Figs - yumyum.
And I'd rather eat a wasp that died as nature intended than swat one with a newspaper.

[infinite monkey]

I think it's that the Big Fig Newton that contains all the necessities of life:

[DanaC]

If by 'happy accident' you mean a very long process of natural selection manifesting in something amounting to an evolutionary 'arms race' between the fig and the wasp, then yes. It was a happy accident.

Richard Dawkins uses the fig wasp as an example of evolution and natural selection. If you enjoyed that documentary, I highly recommend Climbing Mount Improbable. Not only does it show very clearly how that happened, but it also gives a bunch of other really fucking freaky examples too :p

Here's a quick explanation from a piece abot the 'dangers of evolution' by someone else, but drawing from Mount Improbable:

The story of figs and wasps is very interesting and one that is explained and illuminated quite well in Climbing Mount Improbable. One of the things he draws attention to is that all nine hundred species of fig have their own unique species of wasp. Each fig species have evolved through time in conjunction with a particular wasp. (You could say it the other way round. Each species of wasp has evolved with a particular fig as its counterpart.) This evolutionary partnership has had tremendous benefits for both the wasp and the fig.

The wasp needs a source of food and a place to lay her eggs. In the distant past when there was only one fig and one wasp species, competition was fierce. Over time new fig and wasp species appeared and as the wasp population became divided between those that used one kind of fig and those that used another, competition for food and space lessened.

As yet more species of each evolved, the competition decreased even more, until the wasp and the fig arrived at their present situation where each species of wasp feeds and lays her eggs in just one species of fig tree that is unique to that wasp species. Competition is still there but it is much less than it was all those aeons ago. Natural selection has done its bit. By pairing wasps and figs together it has helped the wasps fill niches that are particular to its species. The figs have also benefited from this arrangement, as they no longer have to compete with other fig species, or indeed other flowering plants for pollinators. This has meant that they no longer have to waste huge amounts of energy in producing garish advertisements; they have a captive market.

https://homepages.westminster.org.uk...evolution.html

[DanaC]

Sorry Grav. I realise this is me jumping on you a little, but of all the examples to point to as one of the reasons to believe in God, that one...I just can't walk away from it :p

[Happy Monkey]

It's a system that, at first glance, appears to incorporate irreducable complexity. And like all the rest, as next glance, it doesn't.

[Trilby]

/threaddrift/ i remember sitting in a class to become a certified hearing conservationist (it's true and I did) and thinking that the ear was the most amazing thing and that it proved the Goddess exsists and loves us.

[ZenGum]

Figs are a transitional phase from flowers to fruit.

Get a flower, a fig and an orange. Cut each in half and see how the fig is a flower sealed in on itself, with fat pulpy stamens, and the orange is a fig with thicker skin and fatter, juicier stamens.

If you chose a good flower you could eat all three.

It often happens when we see something as it is now, it is not immediately clear how that arrangement could have developed step-by-step, with each step bringing a selective advantage in it's context. Yet for every concern I have ever seen raised, I have seen an explanation. I have been involved in academic debates on this stuff until I got bored with the same moves over and over again.