[HN Gopher] Why is everything an orchid?
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Why is everything an orchid?
Author : dnetesn
Score : 62 points
Date : 2024-01-16 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com)
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Sounds like Orchids are the Crabs of the plant word.
| sand500 wrote:
| To add context, animals across the world have evolved
| independently to resemble crabs.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
| moron4hire wrote:
| Crustaceans, not animals in general, and there are also
| examples of crab-like species that have evolved away from
| crab features. This is one of those popsci memes that is
| wrong and just won't die.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > Everything evolved to a crab
|
| Cant' wait until this people eventually discover the
| Coleoptera
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's exactly the other way around.
|
| While every animal seems to eventually become like a crab,
| orchids seem to eventually become like every plant and then
| some more.
| lisper wrote:
| > every animal seems to eventually become like a crab
|
| Say what??? Reference needed. I can think of plenty of
| animals that are nothing like crabs.
| RajT88 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation
|
| It comes from a recent clickbaity headline, "Why does
| everything keep evolving into crabs?".
|
| Crab-like creatures have independently evolved a bunch of
| times from different crustaceans. Nobody is saying that
| fish keep evolving into crabs.
| moron4hire wrote:
| Nobody? GP said "While every animal seems to eventually
| become like a crab...". That's not nobody. I think you'll
| find a lot of people online who have gotten the
| "crustacean carcinisation" idea wrong and think it
| applies to all animals.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Fine, fine - I will clarify so as not to get dinged by
| the pedants.
|
| Nobody _in the scientific community_ is saying that fish
| keep evolving into crabs.
| PakG1 wrote:
| But... what about humans???
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Why you think rust is so populare?!
| RajT88 wrote:
| See: Zoidberg
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| okay then...
|
| Nobody in the scientific community _except humans_ is
| saying that fish keep evolving into crabs.
| carabiner wrote:
| I'm a crab and I can type on computers.
| hinkley wrote:
| Given the right spacing of keys, I suspect a crab could
| manage a pretty high wpm rating. Assuming the brain could
| keep up of course.
|
| Sort of like tap dancing on the FAO Schwartz piano (Big),
| but with six legs per creature instead of two.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It's a popular over-generalization, made purposefully for
| humor.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| They aren't crabs yet, but they might be, in a billion
| years.
| cmrx64 wrote:
| If crabs are the terminal object in the category of evolvable
| animals, orchids are an initial object in the category of
| evolvable plants?
| Clamchop wrote:
| Article doesn't appear to be presenting a similar thesis at
| all, nearly the opposite. It doesn't have much to say about
| non-orchid plants, certainly not that they evolve to be orchid-
| like. Orchids are famous for being unusual and unusually
| diverse, that's what the article lingers on.
| k__ wrote:
| Yes, sounds more like Brassica oleracea to me, lol.
| krick wrote:
| No, not really. Brassica oleracea is a single species
| manually cultivated by humans into variety of forms that
| are known by different names. Orchids are a huge family of
| plants. If anything, you should compare them to all
| Brassicaceae. A quick refresher: Brassicaceae family aside
| from that notorious Brassica oleracea also contains such
| things as mustard and horseradish, and even Brassica genus
| alone contains a whole lot of things that are completely
| unlike all these Brassica oleracea varieties. And
| Brassicaceae family is 5 times smaller than Orchidaceae, in
| terms of number of species.
|
| So this is a silly comparison. Talking about all "orchids"
| is talking about like 15% of all flowering plants. In fact,
| I would say that even the mere fact that somebody knows a
| common English word to name all "orchids" kinda suggests
| that the family is not that diverse... Except, an even
| larger family is Asteraceae, and they probably look even
| more like each other.
|
| (That said, I actually have no idea why all these broccoli,
| kale, etc are still considered a single species. Can you
| really easily cross-bred modern specimens of broccoli and
| kale?)
| Aunche wrote:
| A better example of crabs in the plant world are trees.
|
| There's no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29621646
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I thought everything was Brassica oleracea.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea
|
| \s: https://xkcd.com/2827/
| nathancahill wrote:
| https://twitter.com/faineg/status/1386522223901618177/photo/...
| lazydon wrote:
| Summary: "This article ponders the various reasons why many
| people are fascinated by orchids. Specifically, it mentions their
| enduring position in popular imagination, commercial value, and
| role in the sciences. The piece discusses how orchids appeal to
| the senses and resonate with human experience. Their popularity
| has led to widespread cultivation globally, including
| hybridization. Further, within the scientific community, orchids
| offer a wealth of information regarding climate change,
| evolutionary biology, horticultural science and conservation
| biology. They also have a certain cultural cachet including a
| rich literary history and being favored by elites."
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Would appreciate this kind of comment being labeled as by
| ChatGPT or whatever you used.
| codeflo wrote:
| Or not posted at all. It baffles me that people genuinely
| seem to think that pressing a button on a tool (that we all
| have access to) is a unique and valuable contribution to the
| discussion.
| fferen wrote:
| Fails to mention the actual reason people are fascinated: their
| diversity of appearance. Typical AI summary with many words not
| saying very much.
| svachalek wrote:
| So does the article, because it's about speciation not
| humans. The summary doesn't describe this article at all.
| bane wrote:
| Wait until the article comes out that most of the vegetables we
| eat are cabbages.
|
| - kale
|
| - cauliflower
|
| - broccoli
|
| - turnips
|
| - bok choy
|
| - horseradish
|
| - rapeseed
|
| - mustard
|
| and on and on and on it's wild
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| It's cultivated, so literally the opposite of wild ;)
| sophacles wrote:
| My favorite part of this fact, is that a surprising number of
| different brassica family vegetables are just one species:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea#Cultivars
| gcanyon wrote:
| I know it's a fine point, but I think it's important: the title
| is "ON The Origin of Species..." Omitting the "On" gives it a
| different sense that I think contributes to the mistaken belief
| the book is about convincing us that evolution happens, rather
| than describing _how_ it happens.
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