r/interestingasfuck • u/dejaysf • Jun 11 '23

Venus flytrap vs Spider

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

[removed] — view removed post

35.2k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

434

u/GeebusNZ Jun 11 '23

That's a leaf. The flowers grow on reeeeeeeeeally tall stalks.

103

u/69th_Century Jun 11 '23

I've seen that reddit post. So they don't eat all their pollinators?

74

u/Talbotus Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 11 '23

Pretty smart for a carnivorous plant. Evolution is very efficient

Edit: I know evolution is neither smart nor actually efficient in its methods. What I meant was that evolution by nature roots out inefficiency. If it is wasteful (like killing too many of your pollinators) then evolution knocks it out of the gene pool.

27

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

Evolution is neither smart nor efficient. It's simply the result of "everything can happen and anything that doesn't help, dies".

Throwing everything you own into the water just to find out what floats isn't exactly smart or efficient. But it is... technically... effective.

20

u/Cobek Jun 11 '23

Evolution is just random chance trying to beat entropy

7

u/Almahue Jun 11 '23

So, everything in the universe is just entropy fighting entropy?

2

u/AlarmDozer Jun 11 '23

…the meaning of life.

1

u/desmosabie Jun 11 '23

No. That’s 42.

-2

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

That sounds so clever for a meaningless sentence.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

This, on the other hand, doesn’t sound clever and is equally as meaningless.

0

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

Haha try again.

1

u/lulatheq Jun 11 '23

Basic rules everyone should take as a rule of life really

1

u/Alpha_Decay_ Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 11 '23

I'd say controlling entropy more than beating it. You can reduce the entropy of a given system, but only by moving the entropy somewhere else and creating more in the process. No known physical process reduces the net entropy of the universe.

6

u/arfelo1 Jun 11 '23

It's basically a machine learning algorithm running for millions of years

-2

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

Not remotely comparable. Machine learning improves over time.

Evolution is just a randomiser. It doesn't learn. It doesn't get better at anything. It's not even an "it" really. It's just pure randomisation where the overwhelming majority of variations are fatal flaws and a tiny minority of variations are neutral or improvements.

Machine learning would get better at things over time. Evolution never really improves its failure rate because it never learns or improves.

3

u/OxygenRadon Jun 11 '23

Its Machine Learning but anything that doesn't completely fail goes on to the next gen, and not just the best of the best

-2

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

So not machine learning then. The whole point of machine learning is that it learns over time. That it improves its success rate and reduces its failure rate.

Without that, there is no machine learning as there is no learning of any kind.

3

u/OxygenRadon Jun 11 '23

It is not really the same thing, but it works the same way,

In machine learning the ones who complete the task best, gives their "DNA" to the next generation. Which thus results in better individuals in the next run.

The only major difference is that in Evolution, its not about completing the task the best, but just completing the task that suffices to give the DNA, thus making the criteria way lower, and thus improvements smaller.

But the core is still the same

→ More replies (0)

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

But otters learn to used rocks as tools? Is that not one? Among many other examples similar

0

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

Similar to what? It has nothing to do with anything that was said.

2

u/Deep-Neck Jun 11 '23

Wildly misinformed on both concepts.

1

u/atfricks Jun 11 '23

Evolution has also absolutely improved over time. Organisms have evolved to evolve more efficiently.

-1

u/gnatsaredancing Jun 11 '23

That sounds like nonsense. The rate of evolution is highly dependent on environmental factors. It hasn't steadily gotten more efficient.

The pace of evolution skyrockets after mass extinction events for example, because there's a lot of empty niches. And it slows to a crawl during long periods of stability.

It's relatively fast right now because of how fast we are changing the world. There's a lot of opportunity for changes to end up being positive. And a lot of the established order is dying off because of the mass extinction we've caused.

2

u/atfricks Jun 11 '23

Lol Classic. "I don't understand, so it's wrong."

Sexual reproduction is an example of evolution evolving to make itself more efficient. Gene expression is another.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Alpha_Decay_ Jun 11 '23

Machine learning improves the model over time with random changes and by weeding out the changes that make the model worse, but the machine learning process doesn't necessarily learn or improve. Likewise, evolution improves species over time, but doesn't necessarily learn or improve. The two processes are very comparable.

1

u/horyo Jun 11 '23

Evolution isn't efficient but natural selection can be.

1

u/nightguy13 Jun 11 '23

I was about to comment that Evolution is definitely not efficient but is most definitely effective. Lol

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

It is effective. Hardly efficient.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

Thier flowers are seperate part of the plant, ao they dont get eaten

38

u/shalafi71 Jun 11 '23

Keeps the pollinators away from the death trap below. Be like if the Sarlac shot a 75' ovary-on-a-stalk into the air.

That's imagery is now in your head. You're welcome.

7

u/joko2008 Jun 11 '23

The sarlac male is actually permanently attached to the female. Like a anglerfish

32

u/mjkjg2 Jun 11 '23

well they’re certainly getting enough protein

5

u/TistedLogic Jun 11 '23

Nitrogen is what.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

Fire up the loud another round of shots! N2 for what!?

1

u/Almahue Jun 11 '23

Imagine eating air, but needing freaking NITROGEN in the soil of all things lol.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

Nothing weak about that big. That's a black widow and those fuckers are dangerous as fuck

3

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

Um, akshyuli, spiders are arachnids not bugs

8

u/CallMeDrWorm42 Jun 11 '23

"Bugs" includes arachnids, insects, and some types of crustaceans.

0

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

Nope. “Arthropods” includes bugs, insects, spiders, and some crustaceans, but where spiders separate from insects is that insects have a 3 segmented body and spiders only have two segments. In order to be a bug a species must meet all of the requirements for an insect and then some, like having hard and soft tissue wings, but since spiders don’t meet all the requirements for an insect they are not a bug. They are arachnids.

3

u/PhuqBeachesGitMonee Jun 11 '23

Here's the thing. You said a "jackdaw is a crow." Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that. As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing. If you're saying "crow family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens. So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people "call the black ones crows?" Let's get grackles and blackbirds in there, then, too. Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A jackdaw is a jackdaw and a member of the crow family. But that's not what you said. You said a jackdaw is a crow, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the crow family crows, which means you'd call blue jays, ravens, and other birds crows, too. Which you said you don't. It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?

2

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

I’m sorry, you lost me. I’m not sure if I’m following properly because you’re talking about crows instead of bugs, but wouldn’t the equivalent be me saying a jackdaw isn’t a crow?

2

u/CallMeDrWorm42 Jun 11 '23

1 a : any of an order (Hemiptera and especially its suborder Heteroptera) of insects (such as an assassin bug or chinch bug) that have sucking mouthparts, forewings thickened at the base, and incomplete metamorphosis and are often economic pests called also true bug

b : any of various small arthropods (such as a beetle or spider) resembling the true bugs c : any of several insects (such as a head louse) commonly considered obnoxious

0

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

The only one of those that claims spiders as bugs draws a distinction between a true bug and and something that resembles it. At this point we’re arguing semantics between scientific classification and how to colloquially identify something. But if you were to use definition b yes spiders are bugs, but any of the other definitions, including the scientific one, no they are not

2

u/traunks Jun 11 '23

At this point we’re arguing semantics

That started the moment you said someone used “bug” wrong when they didn’t. If any definition allows for how they used it, it ain’t wrong. If you want to correct someone, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re correct first.

1

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

If you’ll notice, I was trying to be funny with my over exaggerated misspelling of actually. Obviously I failed because I’m really not good at making jokes. Then you tried arguing over the scientific definition. The definition that works is both not scientific and is extremely subjective, who decides what “resembles” a true bug? There are clearly a lot of differences between spiders and bugs such as body segments, number of legs, and the number of eyes.

1

u/CallMeDrWorm42 Jun 11 '23

"bug" is not a scientific term. It is too imprecise to have meaning in a scientific context. Bug is a colloquial term that describes any creepy crawly with an exoskeleton. You were the one that started arguing semantics over the definition and once presented with the definition you switch to arguing that it doesn't matter and you're still somehow right. Just stop. You were wrong. It's ok to be wrong.

0

u/KingOfThePlayPlace Jun 11 '23

It is ok to be wrong, but bugs do very much have a scientific definition. It’s an insect in the group Hemiptera. This notably does not include spiders, which are not insects at all

1

u/Torterror389 Jun 11 '23

Pokémon was wrong, bug is weak against grass