this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] raccoon@lemmy.ml 128 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's cute that homeboy thinks it's learning.

[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 62 points 5 months ago (1 children)

People tend to have a really hard time understanding evolution, and attribute human characteristics to it.

[–] modifier@lemmy.ca 34 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Which I think is really fine for casual internet conversation. It's not even attributing human characteristics, just mis-characterizing what is happening. But it's a useful way to short hand it, especially if the discussion is more about the result than the process.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, there's absolutely nothing about the wording of this post that indicates they actually believe "it's learning" as opposed to just using quite a common shorthand. Calling that out is the laziest, most bad-faith type of "um, actually" behaviour IMO.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 months ago

Personally, I'm not a fan of these shorthands, because I've seen many people (including me when growing up) make some pretty glaring logical errors based on them. And particularly with creationists also existing, I'm really wary of people thinking it's an intelligent process.

[–] batmaniam@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Agreed, and I spent like a decade in protein engineering and pre-biotic chemistry.

And if someone really wants to be a pedant about it, go ahead and prove conscious "intent" is inherently different than, not just a more complex form of, what's going on here. If someone's managed to solve all of the philosophy around consciousness, self, and intent, they could really save us all a bunch a time! Until then, pedantically, you're not wrong to say the plant "knows" to do this as much as I "know" to pay my rent; it's all just chemical reactions based on environment.

... Or we could allow people to enjoy the pressures and reasons that give rise to the subtle aspects of organism in this complex ecosystem we call earth without being a dick about it, and trust that the level of language specificity will increase/decrease commiserate to the degree of precision the topic requires.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 4 months ago

go ahead and prove conscious "intent" is inherently different than, not just a more complex form of, what's going on here. If someone's managed to solve all of the philosophy around consciousness, self, and intent, they could really save us all a bunch a time!

Ha, that's good!

And good timing. Just yesterday I watched an interview with the author of a book about intelligence in plants, and the interview dealt a lot with questions around the meaning of intelligence and how certain adaptations seen in plants could arguably count.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Evolution is best described as "survivorship bias."

[–] rockerface@lemm.ee 8 points 5 months ago

Biologically powered bruteforcing

[–] RealFknNito@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Someone should tell them the ones who didn't do this fucking died.

[–] raccoon@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago

That would break his heart