this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They dont. It just happens that natural selection favored flowers that looked vaguely bird like and over time, flowers that looked more and more like a bird outcompeted the ones that looked less like one.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's funny is how absurd this is. Most flowers don't look like birds and they're fine.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This has nothing to do with natural selection. It's just a coincidence that the buds very shortly and from a specific angle vaguely look like birds.

Most of the images shared are probably photoshopped to enhance the effect too.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

looks at user name

Sounds like something a BIRD would say!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Squaaawk, you got me!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's about tiny percents.

A bird will land on a flower.

A bird will not land on a bird.

So every one in a million time a bird mistakes a flower for a bird, that's a flower that survives.

All you have to do is wait a couple million years for the odds to turn in the bird flower's favor.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right, but what about the mimic plant? It mimicks whatever plant is near it. And it can mimic plastic plants. https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/11/30/23473062/plant-mimicry-boquila-trifoliolata

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Appear to look like"...

I wonder what they look like if you manage to ignore the appearances.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

My guess would be Yulan magnolia blossoms.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Animals are something plants invented to help spread their seeds around.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Know what's wild? For millions of years nothing around ate trees, so when a tree grew and died and fell it was permanently there because there was no rot. Which is how we got petrified forests.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

From my readings, I don't think this is the case. Lignin degradation evolved rapidly with terrestrial plants. Coal and petrified wood is more due to geological events and swamps for example. Evolving ligninases is trivial for bacteria and fungi.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Life in general is most likely something the universe invented to speed up entropy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Life is a natural part of entropy for sure.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Why do plants know how birds look

The potatoes told them. (Potatoes have eyes)

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[–] corsicanguppy 31 points 1 year ago (6 children)

"..how birds look like.."

Just one of many issues with the English here.

  • what it looks like
  • how it looks

You need to pick a lane.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I typically assume it's a non-native speaker with things like this, but I'm not sure in this case.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'd read this with commas around 'like', rather than with a period after it: "... how birds look, like, I'm afraid" works as a sentence while "... how birds look like. I'm afraid" is both wrong, like you point out, but also sounds much more serious than the jokey tone I'd expect from a message without punctuation and capitalization

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did you understand what was being communicated? Yes? Congratulations!

Because, really, that's generally all that's necessary.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago
 MY PARSER BROKE
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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

More evidence birds aren't real

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There are a lot of weird flowers out there

Evolution is wonderfull

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

My aunt had one of these but she watered it too much and it drowned. lmao

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I rewatched Annihilation recently. That fucking bear scene still haunts me. Great film.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

droning sounds intensify

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you know it's not a bird trying to look like a plant? Y'know to evade predators and all...

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Why are people so unfathomably dumb, like, I'm afraid.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, some people can't even recognize a joke.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Right, anytime anyone fucks up it's sarcasm, anytime anyone is dumb, it's a joke, nothing is real, everything is a cake.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] UncleBadTouch 5 points 1 year ago

i like cake

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

“Science memes”

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

People don't get the timescale of an evolutionary feature like this. And how long it was only kinda bird like.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Intuitively understanstanding evolution is something most people dont need so i cant really fault people for it. But yeah either trolling or actually stupid who knows.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I do wish that the personification of evolution wasn't such a thing. People so often attribute reasoning or intention to the process, when there is no such thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Wait until they advance and start thinking about things like, how did plants find out what bees like to eat. This will spook them to mind-blown town.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Intuitively understanstanding evolution is something most people dont need so i cant really fault people for it.

LOL, how meta ("people haven't evolved to understand evolution").

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There are plants that cam see, so you are rightly afraid.

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