Living in Texas, nearly everything here bites, stings, or has sharp thorns. The YEC crowd has read the origin of thorns as beginning with the fall, though present in the fossil record much earlier. In fact, I also thought they were present primarily to discourage herbivorous animals from eating them, but evidently the original enemies they defended the plants from were insects. Here is an interesting article that demonstrates that science trumps our presuppositions and intuitions at times:
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I saw you and your post … all alone … with nobody to keep you company. I have come to offer you comfort and solace …
It’s a good article. But on the Monty Python-esque “gravitas” scale, it’s more “tinny” than “woody” !!!
I recommend a nice Ring Species vintage article when enjoying a pre-apologia repast!
Ring Species (or virtual Ring Species) provide the closest thing to “Real Time” evidence of Speciation … with each case only one cataclysmic episode away from creating 2 or more species!
And that makes the world go round !!!
Thanks for the company. I think the evolutionists around here are animal-centric and really do not have much respect for plant evolution, despite Biblical verses referring to the lilies of the field, and the fact that Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. sigh.
Oh well, I thought the article was good however, and the idea that the original function of something (in this case, thorns) may well not be the function we now see today is applicable to such things as the vestigial organ discussion.
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