It's no wonder many people can believe in evolution and the divine when evolution and the science behind it is so inaccurately reported. I don't believe the writer of the article is this silly, Victoria Gill is a science journalist. She probably know's her stuff. I'd be willing to bet that the breadth and depth of her knowledge surpasses most people.
Headlines like "Plant sends SOS signal to insects" are nothing short of an attribution of mentality to the plant, implying the plant has chosen to send a signal. One, or a few, of the plants mutated an advantage and the advantage meant those plants with it could succeed in a way others without the advantage could not. It did not decide it needed back-up from insect-marines to eliminate the evil caterpillar threat.
Further into the story, there is a quote from Silke Allmann, "Why the larvae would produce such an apparently [disadvantageous chemical] in their saliva remains to be determined". This hinting at the principle of evolution while simplifying it for the public, would you guess, irks me.
The reason the larvae produce such a chemical is because it is not such a disadvantage. The larvae do not choose to produce the chemical any more than we choose to salivate at the thought of our favourite foods. They produced it once, it became an advantage at the time and it has since to become a species threatening liability. What the advantage is might become known, or it's effects are now neutral, in some sort of natural equilibrium - but it is not such a disadvantage that the species are under threat. Even so, if they were under threat because of it, they would not simply choose to not produce it any more.
Journalism has a responsibility to report the facts in an accurate manner. With science and statistics it so often fails to do this.
No comments:
Post a Comment