Evolution in trees?

[Hamayun]

This is a question for the Atheists...

What did trees evolve from?

Did an Apple tree evolve from another tree? Will an Apple tree evolve to something else in a million years?

Thanks..

 

[Brasco]

akhi!


Bismillah!

Qur'an teaches us, that Allah ta'ala is Al Khaliq and Al Bari. Allah ta'ala has explained how He created everything in the universe and brought all life out of water. He created humans from earth and not monkeys. There is both in the Qur'an: creation and evolution and in both cases, it is only Allah ta'ala who has the power to do all things!

masalam!

 

[Hamayun]

^^ I know brother Brasco. Jazakallah Khair for your reply

This question was for the Athiests and their perspective on the subject

 

[Brasco]

Allah ta'ala explains in simple and direct terms about the creation of animals and their various functions and then assures us, that it is He who has the power to do everything. Allah ta'ala can if He wills, reshape and alter the creation as He chooses. There is clear evidence within many species of alteration and changes within the species. but there is no concrete evidence to support a cross over in development from one type to another, such as reptiles turning into birds or alligators turning into cows. The statements made in Qur'an are quite clear when Allah ta'ala tells us of having brought forth other life forms and then destroying or replacing them with others. This again, does not imply evolution in the sense of one type becoming or changing into another. Insha'allah this one will help you

if there was any cross over in development, the theory of evolution would be truth But there is not any fossil that supports this theory

masalam!

 

[Brasco]

now I got it! I am sorry akhi! I thought you needed help to discuss with one! I am sorry!!

maslam!!

 

[Hamayun]

Haha

Thanks for your posts Brother and I completely agree with you.

Jazakallah Khair.

 

[GuestFellow]

I never thought of that. O.O

 

[جوري]

(as a digression) yesterday I purchased some Cedar oil from a company called 'something cedar'.. I love to use it to give that beautiful scent to my wooden floors and wooden things in general..

I have three different types just like honey, they come in different scents, colors, potency.. the Virginiana is sweet, the texan is very musky very strong needs dilution, the mexican is earthy.. all of them come from cedar trees but even trees of the same taxon have differences.. it really makes you in awe.. I just love nature and love to use it to my benefit...

 

[Muhaba]

and why are there beneficial plants. how come all plants aren't harmful to animals/humans? If all plants were poisonous we would have a problem but wouldn't that be beneficial to the plants, helpful to their survival because animals and humans wouldn't be able to eat them? So what reason do evolutionists give? why did plants evolve so they wouldn't be harmful to humans & animals?

 

[alcurad]

brother, this has to do with science, not 'athiests' perspective', no?

 

[math]

What did trees evolve from?

Did an Apple tree evolve from another tree? Will an Apple tree evolve to something else in a million years?

Of course there are several questions in biology that are not entirely clear to biologists, but the questions you ask are quite well-agreed upon by scientists.

Yes, apple trees did evolve from other trees. Probably humans have helped evolution a bit, by only selecting the trees that gave the largest (or perhaps the most tastiest) apples for reproduction. So the ancestors of the current day apple tree was probably some tree with smaller apples.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in wheat. Corn is a version of grass that has evolved, with human help, in such a way that it has larger grains than 'regular' grass. For many species of corn, it is still quite easy to see from which species of grass it evolved, because of the striking similarities.
This apple-tree like ancestor of the current apple tree (which according to Wikipedia still grows in Central Asia) will have had some other tree as ancestor. The Wikipedia page on plant evolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_plant_evolution ) seems quite decent in case you would like to know all the details.

The apple tree will not only evolve in millions of years, but also during the current time. By combining 'fathers' and 'mothers' from a different family of apple trees, still new species of apples are created.

What the apple tree will evolve to in millions of years is harder to predict. It might be that the apple tree is extinct by then. It might also be that there will be an entirely new kind of apple tree-like species, or that the present day apple tree still exists. This will mainly depend on the circumstances in which the apple tree will grow (and of those circumstances humankind is probably an important one).

I hope this answered your question! If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Besides, I don't think you have to be atheist to subscribe to this point of view. At least in my country (The Netherlands), most Christians believe in evolution theory as well.

 

[math]

and why are there beneficial plants. how come all plants aren't harmful to animals/humans? If all plants were poisonous we would have a problem but wouldn't that be beneficial to the plants, helpful to their survival because animals and humans wouldn't be able to eat them? So what reason do evolutionists give? why did plants evolve so they wouldn't be harmful to humans & animals?

That is an interesting question. First of all, do not underestimate the number of harmful plants. If you go to the forest and start eating random plants, you will probably die very, very soon. The reasons humans (or other animals) do not get poisoned often in practice, is because animals are evolved in such a way that they do not like eating plants that are dangerous for them (any species that would enjoy eating poison is doomed to extinct). For example, many poisonous plants have a taste that is perceived as bad-tasting (often bitter) by humans.

I can think of a couple of reasons why not all plants are poisonous:
- It is hard for plants to develop a poison that works against any kind of animal, without poisoning oneself
- Many plants use animals for their reproduction. Think of bees carrying pollen, or animals carrying sticky seeds in their fur. Note that in most plants, the part containing the seeds (fruits/berries) is most tasty - exactly for this reason.

At least to me this seems quite plausible, I don't know how you think about this after reading my reply?

 

[Tony]

Have u ever noticed that the very people who attack us for saying Allah knows best or we cxannot understand it, use the same argument within science :?

 

[Hamayun]

Of course there are several questions in biology that are not entirely clear to biologists, but the questions you ask are quite well-agreed upon by scientists.

Yes, apple trees did evolve from other trees. Probably humans have helped evolution a bit, by only selecting the trees that gave the largest (or perhaps the most tastiest) apples for reproduction. So the ancestors of the current day apple tree was probably some tree with smaller apples.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in wheat. Corn is a version of grass that has evolved, with human help, in such a way that it has larger grains than 'regular' grass. For many species of corn, it is still quite easy to see from which species of grass it evolved, because of the striking similarities.
This apple-tree like ancestor of the current apple tree (which according to Wikipedia still grows in Central Asia) will have had some other tree as ancestor. The Wikipedia page on plant evolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_plant_evolution ) seems quite decent in case you would like to know all the details.

The apple tree will not only evolve in millions of years, but also during the current time. By combining 'fathers' and 'mothers' from a different family of apple trees, still new species of apples are created.

What the apple tree will evolve to in millions of years is harder to predict. It might be that the apple tree is extinct by then. It might also be that there will be an entirely new kind of apple tree-like species, or that the present day apple tree still exists. This will mainly depend on the circumstances in which the apple tree will grow (and of those circumstances humankind is probably an important one).

I hope this answered your question! If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Besides, I don't think you have to be atheist to subscribe to this point of view. At least in my country (The Netherlands), most Christians believe in evolution theory as well.

Thanks for your reply. I wasn't referring to human intervention.

Just wanted to know if there is any conclusive evidence that shows trees evolved from simpler forms of life. Maybe I didn't word it well.

Thanks.

 

[- Qatada -]

:salamext:


Bro hamayun, there are alot of gaps which aren't explained in the evolution theory. What's usually done is that the theory makes logical sense to some extent, with some observations - so its taken as a general trend.

You probably won't find answers like these, just guesses.

 

[math]

Of course everything depends on what you mean exactly with 'conclusive evidence', but there is sufficient evidence that virtually all biologists agree about the evolution of trees from simpler forms of life.
Evolution of trees happened in parallel, i.e. the present day trees are distinguished in multiple families that each developed from a separate family of small plants. Some of these small plants that got children that evolved into trees are still on earth, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycophytes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_fern
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsetail

Note that some of those plants look already like miniature versions of the current day trees.

 

[Muhaba]

That is an interesting question. First of all, do not underestimate the number of harmful plants. If you go to the forest and start eating random plants, you will probably die very, very soon. The reasons humans (or other animals) do not get poisoned often in practice, is because animals are evolved in such a way that they do not like eating plants that are dangerous for them (any species that would enjoy eating poison is doomed to extinct). For example, many poisonous plants have a taste that is perceived as bad-tasting (often bitter) by humans.

I can think of a couple of reasons why not all plants are poisonous:
- It is hard for plants to develop a poison that works against any kind of animal, without poisoning oneself
- Many plants use animals for their reproduction. Think of bees carrying pollen, or animals carrying sticky seeds in their fur. Note that in most plants, the part containing the seeds (fruits/berries) is most tasty - exactly for this reason.

At least to me this seems quite plausible, I don't know how you think about this after reading my reply?

but there are many plants that are poisonous. don't they also get poisoned themselves? and don't they depend on animals for reproduction? And how did the plants know that animals were necessary for helping them reproduce? They don't have eyes to see that some animal has the seeds stuck in their fur. Likewise how did the flowers know that bees would help them pollinate? how did they know what the bees were doing and that pollin would get stuck to the bees that the bees would then carry to other flowers?

Btw why do poisonous plants taste bad? what makes them that way? why couldn't there be sweet-tasting poisonous plants that humans and animals would eat? did the poisonous plant think "lets taste bad so no one would eat us?" how did they know what "bad-tasting" is and that animals wouldn't like such a taste?

thanks for replying.

 

[math]

but there are many plants that are poisonous. don't they also get poisoned themselves? and don't they depend on animals for reproduction?

Of course there are no plants that poison themselves, because any mutation that causes a plant to poison itself, would cause the plant to die, so that it cannot reproduce. Probably mutations that causes plants to poison themselves have occurred, but the plants probably died before we could research them. My point was rather that not any poison would work, and plants need the right balance between being poisonous for animals, but not so poisonous that their own system would be disturbed.

And how did the plants know that animals were necessary for helping them reproduce? They don't have eyes to see that some animal has the seeds stuck in their fur. Likewise how did the flowers know that bees would help them pollinate? how did they know what the bees were doing and that pollin would get stuck to the bees that the bees would then carry to other flowers?

Of course, plants do not really 'know' anything about this. You can imagine that at a certain point there only existed poisonous plants with non-sticky seeds. Because of a certain mutation, some plant suddenly got sticky seeds. This plant could more easily reproduce itself, because the animals would transport the seeds in their fur, so the plant could spread itself faster than the non-sticky plants (although it wouldn't happen often, because the plant was not attractive for animals because of its toxicity). From this point on, the plant would benefit from being non-toxic, so non-toxic 'children' would spread over the world faster. It is a quite beautiful system, I would say: although all the organisms in nature can be relatively simple and do not need to have explicit 'knowledge' about the organisms that act as their 'friends', still everything works well together.

Btw why do poisonous plants taste bad? what makes them that way? why couldn't there be sweet-tasting poisonous plants that humans and animals would eat? did the poisonous plant think "lets taste bad so no one would eat us?" how did they know what "bad-tasting" is and that animals wouldn't like such a taste?.

It works the other way around. You can imagine that animals at some point in time enjoyed eating poisonous food. But of course, such animals wouldn't live long. So only the animals that liked healthy food, and disliked poisonous food, would survive and be able to reproduce.

thanks for replying.

You are more than welcome. Fortunately these are simple questions that science has well-agreed answers on. But don't worry, there are more than enough questions left, for example about the origin of the universe, that science cannot answer and are free to religion to debate on .

 

[Muhaba]

Of course there are no plants that poison themselves, because any mutation that causes a plant to poison itself, would cause the plant to die, so that it cannot reproduce. Probably mutations that causes plants to poison themselves have occurred, but the plants probably died before we could research them. My point was rather that not any poison would work, and plants need the right balance between being poisonous for animals, but not so poisonous that their own system would be disturbed.

What I meant is, if some plants did become poisonous, why didn't all plants become poisonous? it would be beneficial for their survival because animals wouldn't eat them (due to their bad taste). Why are there still non-poisonous plants that animals can eat? why haven't they become extinct? If evolution were true, shouldn't all plants be poisonous as they would survive while the non-poisonous would have become extinct because they would be the ones that the animals ate?

Of course, plants do not really 'know' anything about this. You can imagine that at a certain point there only existed poisonous plants with non-sticky seeds. Because of a certain mutation, some plant suddenly got sticky seeds. This plant could more easily reproduce itself, because the animals would transport the seeds in their fur, so the plant could spread itself faster than the non-sticky plants (although it wouldn't happen often, because the plant was not attractive for animals because of its toxicity). From this point on, the plant would benefit from being non-toxic, so non-toxic 'children' would spread over the world faster. It is a quite beautiful system, I would say: although all the organisms in nature can be relatively simple and do not need to have explicit 'knowledge' about the organisms that act as their 'friends', still everything works well together.

Why does everything work well together? why do plants get nutrients from soil? why is there soil in the first place? if there were only sand or rocks/pebbles, plants wouldn't be able to grow. Who created the soil?
why is rain beneficial to plants? if rain / water had been harmful (like acid rain) then plants and animals wouldn't survive. Who made the rain/water compatible with plant & animal needs?

Why are plants beneficial to animals? why aren't there only harmful plants? why is the sun beneficial to plants and animals? Why are plants able to use sunlight to make food? what if plants couldn't use sunlight to make food, or sunlight didn't cause plants to make chlorophyll, what would happen? Did all this really happen by itself or did God make it happen. It's unrealistic to think that it all happened by itself. It's impossible for it to happen by itself and so if anyone thinks with an open mind he/she will realize that God made it happen.

It works the other way around. You can imagine that animals at some point in time enjoyed eating poisonous food. But of course, such animals wouldn't live long. So only the animals that liked healthy food, and disliked poisonous food, would survive and be able to reproduce.

my question was, why should poisonous plants taste bad? what makes them taste bad? the bad taste wards off animals so animals don't eat them. That's good for the animals, otherwise animals would end up eating poisonous plants and dying. But why should poisonous plants taste bad while nonpoisonous plants taste good? Why don't all plants taste the same? if evolution had caused it, it would be equally likely for poisonous plants to taste good and nonpoisonous plants to taste bad. But actually, it didn't all happen by itself. God made it happen. God caused poisonous plants to taste bad to keep animals from eating them while nonpoisonous plants don't taste bad in order to make animals eat them, which is necessary for animals' survival.

You are more than welcome. Fortunately these are simple questions that science has well-agreed answers on.

unfortunately, science doesn't give the correct answers for these questions. just saying "it all happened by itself" is not correct. It's not sensible to believe that it could all have happened by itself and yet all work perfectly together. it's sad that those as knowledgable as scientists would believe such impractical ideas.

But don't worry, there are more than enough questions left, for example about the origin of the universe, that science cannot answer and are free to religion to debate on

yes, the origin of the universe is something all athiests/agnostics/evolutionists should first try to answer, before believing that evolution caused it all. where did the first cell or dust particle or matter come from from which everything evolved? As long as they haven't got the answer to this, the whole theory of evolution (that it all happened by itself) has no basis.


Allah mentions in various parts of the Quraan that what we have on earth, in the universe, etc are signs of Allah. For example, in Surah 17 (Al-Isra) verse 12 Allah says:

We have made the night and the day as two of our signs ...

Now if Allah (God) hadn't made the night and day, life on earth might be impossible or at least very difficult. Imagine if the earth didn't rotate around the sun and so one part of the earth always faced the sun and the other part always faced away from the earth (as is the case of the moon) what would happen? Wouldn't life on earth be difficult? Is it sensible to say that this happened by itself? Or are the night and day really great signs of Allah just as Allah has said in the Quraan?

In Surah 78 Al-Naba Verses 6 - 23, Allah says:

Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse*

And the mountains as pegs?

And (have We not) created you in pairs,

And made your sleep for rest,

and made the night as a covering,

and made the day as a means of subsistence?

And (have We not) built over you the seven firmaments,

and placed (therein) a Light of Splendour?

And do We not send down from the clouds water in abundance,

That We may produce therewith corn and vegetables,

And gardens of luxurious growth?

Verily the Day of Decision is a thing appointed -

the Day that the Trumpet shall be sounded, and you shall come forth in crowds;

and the heavens shall be opened as if there were doors,

and the mountains shall vanish, as if they were a mirage.

Truly Hell is as a place of ambush -

For the transgressors a place of destination:

They will dwell therein for ages.


*Note: the earth as a wide expanse is a metaphor. This doesn't mean that the Quraan is stating that the earth isn't round. If you look at the earth you will see it is expansive, spread out, and flat (as opposed to hilly and crators/valleys) - that is, it is fit for human habitation. Had the earth all been mountains and crators/valleys it would be difficult for humans to live on it.

Since Allah has given us everything to make our lives on earth possible and easy, likewise Allah has given us a way of life to follow and will judge us on the Day of Judgment. The Lord who had the power to create the universe the way it is has the power to recreate us after death, judge us and reward us with Hell or Heaven depending on our faith and deeds.

After mentioning some signs of Allah in verses 95 to 103 of Surah 6 (Al-Anam) Allah says in verse 104:

"Now have come to you, from your Lord, proofs (to open your eyes): If any will see, it will be for (the good of) his own soul; If any will be blind, it will be to his own (harm): I am not (here) to watch over your doings."

So it's important to think over all this with an open mind.

 

[nocturne]

Of course there are several questions in biology that are not entirely clear to biologists, but the questions you ask are quite well-agreed upon by scientists.

Yes, apple trees did evolve from other trees. Probably humans have helped evolution a bit, by only selecting the trees that gave the largest (or perhaps the most tastiest) apples for reproduction. So the ancestors of the current day apple tree was probably some tree with smaller apples.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in wheat. Corn is a version of grass that has evolved, with human help, in such a way that it has larger grains than 'regular' grass. For many species of corn, it is still quite easy to see from which species of grass it evolved, because of the striking similarities.
This apple-tree like ancestor of the current apple tree (which according to Wikipedia still grows in Central Asia) will have had some other tree as ancestor. The Wikipedia page on plant evolution ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_plant_evolution ) seems quite decent in case you would like to know all the details.

The apple tree will not only evolve in millions of years, but also during the current time. By combining 'fathers' and 'mothers' from a different family of apple trees, still new species of apples are created.

What the apple tree will evolve to in millions of years is harder to predict. It might be that the apple tree is extinct by then. It might also be that there will be an entirely new kind of apple tree-like species, or that the present day apple tree still exists. This will mainly depend on the circumstances in which the apple tree will grow (and of those circumstances humankind is probably an important one).

The idea of Evolution is interesting and fascinating. Being a muslim, i am more obliged to believe in creation than evolution.

But, i think they can both co-exist.

Anyway, i think this question was if the apple tree was left alone will it evolve. In my opinion, chances are that nothing will happen unless there is a drastic change in environment or any other induced man-made changes.