Well that's easy, silly -- because god wants us to eat delicious food. That's also why he invented Twinkies, jellybeans and club sandwiches.

I honestly don't know, but I'd be curious to read about the evolution of fruit as well.

I know that there are plenty of 'unintelligently designed' features in nature. As I understand it, evolution doesn't always favor the best or most logical solutions to problems, it simply rewards whatever works.

^I do tend to agree with Sarzy that a good club sandwich will sometimes give my atheism a moments pause.

That's a great question to ask, MG, and you can look for a similar answer in the question to "Why are trees so tall"? It seems (and is) highly inefficient for trees to spend so much energy on growing, when if they were all smaller, they could use that energy for producing seeds. Everything in nature is a trade-off, of that I'm sure we are all certain.

This can be applied to the area of fruit production. The fruit/vegetable, can essentially be considered the "egg" of the plant. During Natural Selection, consider the idea that if all the species of one fruit bearing plant produced the same small, and perhaps not that delicious, fruit (or "egg"). Then a mutation occurs wherein a plant produces a slightly larger fruit, that tastes just that much better. Those plants would, of course, be favoured and their fruit eaten more often. That, in turn, would lead to that plant's seeds being spread more, forgive the pun, fruitfully across the landscape.

Add a few thousand, and hundred thousand years of Natural Selection and you'd find all the plants which mutated fruit that tasted horrible, and small in size, to be extinct. Then those plants which produced large (larger fruit would provide more sustinace for the animals that eat it, this is almost a side to "artificial selection" on account of the fauna feasting on the flora), tastier fruit would be in greater abundance and flourish.

Plants, like most of us other organisms, don't see the "bigger picture" in the chain of Natural Selection. Natural Selecton does't produce a pristine, perfect world. It merely creates a world in which all organisms fight ferociously to survive, and reproduce. And after enough time passes, certain systems will reach an E.S.S. (Evolutionary Stable System). You can read a lot of detail about E.S.S. in Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene".

I'm a physicist, which is to say, the worst kinda biologist there is, but here is my stab: maybe bigger more nutrient fruits develop in soils and environments in which it is difficult for seeds to germinate and take root. The parent plant insures the survivability of at least some of its seed with nutrient rich fruit matter and any waste/excess enriches the local ecosystem near the parent plant, which in turn increases its fitness and likelihood for future reproduction. It seems, generally berries are present in rich soils (i.e. forests) whereas big fruit naturally occur in poor tropical soils. Alright I'm done bullshittin' for now.

There's a few things to point out here, one most fruits as we know them produce much more fruit to seed ratio than their wild relatives. So the 'natural' investment isn't like what you'd see in the grocery store. You may have known that already I just felt it necessary to point out. Also pollen is part of the fertilization phase, as a pollen producing plant can often also produce a fruit.

The rest is just speculation on my part, so take it for what its worth. Being disbursed by animals rather than say wind or just dropping to the ground has a few benefits over the former. With fleshy fruits where the animal swallows the seeds and eventually passes them, the seeds pass along with the fecal matter which I'd imagine would be a good high nitrate fertilizer, plus another seed eating animal such as a squirrel or bird would be less likely to go picking through feces for a meal. Only humans do that, what with their high priced monkey poo coffee beans (yeah I'm sure a few other animals do to). Even when the animal actually eats he seeds, in the case of squirrels, they tend to bury a lot more acorns than they actually eat, thus the seed become buried in the ground where if not found again by the squirrels it can germinate.

Animals can travel far and aren't hampered by which direction the wind happens to be blowing in, so there's always the benefit of that. Plus some of the seeds in fruits are a bit larger, which would have a harder time traveling on the wind. A larger seed generally means more nutrients for the potential plant to draw on.

Also evolution isn't always what seems the most logical, it's what develops and what works. So it not like some ancient not quite apple trees were sitting around and decided fruit was the way to go, it was a trait that developed, it worked and so now many happy animals have delicious apples to snack on. It's actually a fairly common occurrence in nature, two or more different methods for dealing with the same problem develop. Mammals have bear live young, birds have eggs, both have their draw backs both have their advantages, and both seem to work as of this point in time.

Anyways that's what I got, hope I was at least somewhat insightful.

Also whys it gotta be atheists huh huh? One can believe in God and in evolution, whatcha gotta say to that mr. smartypants ?

I have to say that I believe in both God and adaptation. Now what, Mr. Notsosmartypants?

First of all, I'm not wearing any pants, so this invalidates whether they're smart or not. Secondly I was referring to your title asking Atheists to offer an explanation, when there are those who might not be atheists and yet could still offer viable explanations as to "Why Fruit?"

Why MarineGunrocks? Huh? It just doesn't make any sense!

Evolutionary history is full of rat races, like the one between the cheetah and the antelope. Both expend drastic amounts of energy on running fast, because they evolved in tandem.

>> ^Sarzy:
Well that's easy, silly -- because god wants us to eat delicious food. That's also why he invented Twinkies, jellybeans and club sandwiches.


Sarzy, if God didn't invent Jellybeans why do I find some many tasty ones on the street wherever I go? I mean it's either got to be God or someone leading me into some sort of trap.

^God could BE that someone!

because just as with animal life, forms of plant life differ in how much they invest in the potential of individual offspring.

if you're a dandelion or something, you'll have a more insect-like approach. send up hundreds of spores, that each have a 1% chance of germinating. easy come, easy go.

if you develop fruit, you're going for something different. more investment, therefore more expectation, and need, of a payoff.
just like humans.

so, in a like manner, one might wonder why we humans spend roughly a quarter of our lives 'in the nest'. why not something easier?
because we're going for something different.
something a lot more complicated, demanding, and potentially rewarding.

Why fruit? Well, that's a silly question. Because, MG, fruit is delicious. The end.

MG back to the topic at hand...

Is the mass of fruit per the size of the plant bearing it different between berries and larger fruits? I think it's relatively similar. A bigger tree can produce bigger fruits. Bigger animals probably eat those bigger fruits because, let's face it, it's a more "efficient" way of eating right? So let's say that bigger fruits allow for the spread of seeds over a larger area. At least that would be the case if it weren't for birds...I'm sure they have a big influence on the evolution and spread of berry plants.

I'm no scientist by any means, but if I can throw in here, I believe that evolution is tied directly to geography and the surrounding environment. Which is why you have cranberry bogs which thrive in the northeast/west, as opposed to oranges and grapefruits which are more pervasive in southern climates. The "tidal" forces of each region determined the evolution of said fruit, i.e., weather, soil, wind patterns, rainfall, etc, etc. Every variable you can think of is what helped (and continues to help) that particular fruit evolve into its current (and future) state. Which is also why you don't find raspberry brambles growing naturally in southern Texas or pumpkins in northern Idaho.

In addition to everything already mentioned, I read that the fleshy, sometimes hard protective layer of the fruit can also act as a sort of stasis chamber, holding the seeds until the proper conditions exist to break down the barrier and allow the seeds to germinate in those proper conditions. How some fruit structures have evolved to serve multiple functions, in addition to their primary function, due to some change in the environmental factors that have thus far shaped it.

I think I'm going to go read up on how fruit-bearing plants originally came to be now that I'm on it.

*quality

Awarding MarineGunrock with one star point for this contribution to VideoSift - declared quality by UsesProzac.

Haha, oh, how I was a fucking idiot just a few years ago. Hooray indoctrination!

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Haha, oh, how I was a fucking idiot just a few years ago. Hooray indoctrination!


Yeah I tend to look at about four years ago as the time I stopped being a fucktard. And no matter how old I get, I always seem to have been a fucktard four years earlier.

At least you didn't believe in an invisible sky-daddy.
>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^MarineGunrock:
Haha, oh, how I was a fucking idiot just a few years ago. Hooray indoctrination!

Yeah I tend to look at about four years ago as the time I stopped being a fucktard. And no matter how old I get, I always seem to have been a fucktard four years earlier.

@gorillaman - so very true.

@MarineGunrock - i much prefer the new you.

@UsesProzac - heeeeey baby how YOU doin'? ~_^