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Friday, October 26, 2007

On the Origin of Deciduous Trees by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Cottonwoods in the Struggle For Leaves

As I walked a beagle to lunch today, I had an epiphany. It begins with the fact that it is Fall, and as a result trees are everywhere shedding their leaves. These leaves quite often fall on the sidewalk.

Now let me ask you a question. As you are walking down a clean, empty sidewalk and you happen to notice a single leaf fall onto the sidewalk ahead of you, do you:

A) Examine the leaf in wonder as you walk past it?
B) Ignore the leaf completely?

Or

C) Curse the weather & seasons for conspiring to litter?

The answer is, of course, none of the above. Because what you do (at least if you’re male) is you step on the leaf! Don’t try to deny this guys, you know it’s true. If a leaf falls on the sidewalk five feet in front of you, without even thinking about it, you manage to shift your stride ever so slightly so that your foot will come down exactly on the leaf and you’ll hear that satisfying CRUNCH. (By the way, surveys have demonstrated this: a full 93% of men admit to going out of their way to crunch leaves. Interestingly enough, the study also found that 7% of men lie about whether they go out of their way to step on leaves.)

Anyway, I happened to notice today en route to lunch that there was a section of sidewalk that was about 2/3s empty, but 1/3 covered by leaves. This is due to the wind that had blown the leaves into a leaf-drift on the left-hand side of the sidewalk. So, 1/3 of the sidewalk was covered with leaves and 2/3s was clear.

Naturally, the vast majority of people were walking on the 1/3 side covered in leaves, and only stepped out of the leaves in order to pass others. Statistically, this validates my point that people enjoy crunching leaves.

At first, I didn’t make the connection, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it I realize that this actually proves Darwinism correct. You see, I live in Colorado Springs, and I’ve seen pictures of the Springs back in the 1870s when it was founded. There are no trees anywhere. It’s prairie all over the place. Even pictures going up into the mountains (Ute Pass) show no trees on the hills.

Now, there are trees everywhere. Why are the trees here now? Because they were planted. But people could have planted any number of different kinds of trees. We have blue spruce, pine, and other trees littering the mountainsides all over Colorado. So why is it that the vast majority of trees that were planted in the city are deciduous trees?

Because people like to crunch leaves in the Fall. It’s that simple. Nature has selected for deciduous trees so that humans (at least male humans) are able to crunch leaves during Fall. This gives pleasure to the humans, and ensures that they will plant new deciduous trees when old ones die. The result of this symbiotic relationship causes selection pressures to choose for deciduous trees. The result is that in just over 100 years since the founding of Colorado Springs, we have gone from prairie having no trees to twelve billion leaves in my backyard that I have to clear out.

Need we any more proof that Darwinism is true than this simple observation?

10 comments:

  1. hehehe... Beautiful application of naturalistic presuppositions in explaining the facts with one of the most common non-sequitors of Darwinian propaganda.

    I blow the curve, however. I'm a study-the-leaf-carefully kind of guy.

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  2. Jim,

    It's obvious you are one of the 7% guys...

    Interestingly, after I formulated my conclusions I decided to test them out (which is the proper sequence for true science). I asked a couple of guys here at work the same question as above (i.e., If you see a leaf on a sidewalk do you A, B, or C. etc.). At no time did I offer the "none of the above" answer (stepping on the leaf) though.

    The first guy I asked said, "I have a fourth option. I step on the leaf." The second guy said, "Is the leaf dry? If so, I step on it."

    Thus far, I'm 2 for 2. Which is 100%. Ergo... :-P

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  3. "Now let me ask you a question. As you are walking down a clean, empty sidewalk and you happen to notice a single leaf fall onto the sidewalk ahead of you...(at least if you’re male)...you step on the leaf! Don’t try to deny this guys, you know it’s true. If a leaf falls on the sidewalk five feet in front of you, without even thinking about it, you manage to shift your stride ever so slightly so that your foot will come down exactly on the leaf and you’ll hear that satisfying CRUNCH.

    First--if you've just witnessed the leaf falling to the ground, it isn't yet dry, and it won't crunch.

    Second--where did you get the idea that only males enjoy stepping on crunching leaves?

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  4. You're correct, Peter. I make no claims to being normal. (c8

    I just had a thought that the Darwinist could go further by saying that our collective predisposition to crunching leaves is an evolutionary result of needing the soil to be adequately fertilized. Our modern tendency to rake and burn leaves goes against the noble, natural people we evolved to be.

    I've got to consider the converse also. Many Christians make similar types of arguments from a different set of presuppositions. Namely, that God gave us an inclination to crunch the leaves to help grind them into the ground for more fertile soil. While the naturalistic propaganda focuses on leaf crunching, the debate should be over which set of presuppositions are correct, but lucid debate on this is rarely digestible by the public at large and never satisfactorily makes it into the mass media.

    These are just some observations as I consider this post. and I know it's open-ended, but I hope my bunny trail isn't too far off base.

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  5. ree said:
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    First--if you've just witnessed the leaf falling to the ground, it isn't yet dry, and it won't crunch.
    ---

    Actually, here in Colorado leaves crunch right off the tree. (Then again, we rarely have about 20% humidity here.)

    Ree said:
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    Second--where did you get the idea that only males enjoy stepping on crunching leaves?
    ---

    Actually, I don't think that ONLY males do. However, I did ask three guys what they'd do (without giving the option of crunching the leaf), and finally found one who didn't automatically add that option despite it having not been given. (As soon as I said, "You wouldn't have crunched it?" he said, "You didn't give me that option" which proves he's part of the 7% too...) On the other hand, I asked 5 different women what they'd do, and only one of them said she'd crunch the leaf. The other four said they wouldn't, even after I added that as an option.

    Soooooo...take that undersampled, nonscientific data for what it's worth :-D

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  6. Correction!

    I said:
    ---
    (Then again, we rarely have about 20% humidity here.)
    ---

    I meant we rarely have more than about 20% humidity here.

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  7. Jim said:
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    I just had a thought that the Darwinist could go further by saying that our collective predisposition to crunching leaves is an evolutionary result of needing the soil to be adequately fertilized.
    ---

    Hmmm, that theory has potential. We can also engage in a bit of Social Darwinism here and point out that the unfit spruce trees have got to go so that we can plant more cottonwoods for more crunching leaves, which is all much better for the soil in the end.

    Jim said:
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    I've got to consider the converse also. Many Christians make similar types of arguments from a different set of presuppositions. Namely, that God gave us an inclination to crunch the leaves to help grind them into the ground for more fertile soil.
    ---

    Hmm, actually wouldn't this disprove the existence of God? I mean, a God would would give us an inclination to grind leaves to help the soil is obviously an immoral God. Evolution is the better explanation.

    Jim said:
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    These are just some observations as I consider this post. and I know it's open-ended, but I hope my bunny trail isn't too far off base.
    ---

    Are you kidding? There is no bunny trail that is too far off base for me to try to get it even further off base.

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  8. I enjoy the sound of crunching leaves. It makes me happy, as it reminds me that this world is filled with pleasures that God has given for us to enjoy with thankfulness.

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  9. Personally I avoid the leaves so as not to soil my shoes unnecessarily... But Peter's probably going to think that I'm simply suppressing the truth in unrighteousness anyway, even though he only has statistics to quote, and no actual facts about my own habits.

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  10. Mordor said:
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    But Peter's probably going to think that I'm simply suppressing the truth in unrighteousness anyway
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    What kind of materialistic scientist who sees Darwinism in the crunching of leaves would think there's such a thing as unrighteousness? :-P

    Mordor finished:
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    even though he only has statistics to quote, and no actual facts about my own habits.
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    Statistics show us the consensus of science.

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