Question for Atheists ( hoping for a interesting debate)
Why do Roses 🌹 have thorns?
36-40, M
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SatanBurger · 36-40, F
Heavenlywarrior · 36-40, M
@SatanBurger Did the rose evolve thorns randomly… or because avoiding being eaten is a goal embedded in how life organizes itself?
SatanBurger · 36-40, F
@Heavenlywarrior Thorns are built-in genetic adaptation that evolved over many generations because plants with thorns were more likely to survive and reproduce.
Heavenlywarrior · 36-40, M
@SatanBurger copied from my other reply:
If mutations were just random noise, we’d expect chaos—not the consistent emergence of functional, optimized systems like vision or flight. Saying “it worked in hindsight” assumes a pattern existed to begin with. But why does randomness so reliably produce coherence, not collapse? Natural selection filters results, but it doesn’t explain why so much biological “noise” keeps generating structure. This suggests deeper organizing principles at play—more than just chance, and more than hindsight can explain. more like insight.
If mutations were just random noise, we’d expect chaos—not the consistent emergence of functional, optimized systems like vision or flight. Saying “it worked in hindsight” assumes a pattern existed to begin with. But why does randomness so reliably produce coherence, not collapse? Natural selection filters results, but it doesn’t explain why so much biological “noise” keeps generating structure. This suggests deeper organizing principles at play—more than just chance, and more than hindsight can explain. more like insight.
SatanBurger · 36-40, F
@Heavenlywarrior Mutations are random with respect to fitness, that is, they don’t “aim” toward creating complex systems like wings or eyes. But natural selection isn’t random. It's the opposite: a consistent, directional filter that preserves anything that gives even a slight advantage in a given environment.
So over long timescales, this interplay random variation and non-random filtering can lead to the emergence of highly structured systems. It's not that randomness creates order by itself, but that it feeds possibilities into a filtering system that amplifies the useful and discards the rest. It’s a bit like shaking up letters randomly but keeping any sequences that spell actual words. Eventually, whole paragraphs emerge.
And crucially, those outcomes seem like they were inevitable or insightful in hindsight—but they weren’t planned. They’re just the result of billions of tiny trials, most of which failed, but some of which stuck because they worked.
As for deeper organizing principles—some scientists do think there are additional constraints at play. Things like developmental pathways, physical laws, and ecological interactions all shape which mutations are likely to be viable in the first place. That’s not quite “insight,” but it does mean evolution isn’t working from pure chaos, it’s working from a shaped possibility space.
Biology finds so many ways to sculpt randomness into function.
So over long timescales, this interplay random variation and non-random filtering can lead to the emergence of highly structured systems. It's not that randomness creates order by itself, but that it feeds possibilities into a filtering system that amplifies the useful and discards the rest. It’s a bit like shaking up letters randomly but keeping any sequences that spell actual words. Eventually, whole paragraphs emerge.
And crucially, those outcomes seem like they were inevitable or insightful in hindsight—but they weren’t planned. They’re just the result of billions of tiny trials, most of which failed, but some of which stuck because they worked.
As for deeper organizing principles—some scientists do think there are additional constraints at play. Things like developmental pathways, physical laws, and ecological interactions all shape which mutations are likely to be viable in the first place. That’s not quite “insight,” but it does mean evolution isn’t working from pure chaos, it’s working from a shaped possibility space.
Biology finds so many ways to sculpt randomness into function.