#71 Fruit

Everybody loves fruit. But have you ever done any research on “fruits”? I tried to find out how many different kinds of fruits there are in the world, but I could not find an answer. Nobody knows. Clearly there are thousands. (For fun go to Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [1] or 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [2].)

“Although it is not known exactly how many types of fruits exist in the world, the answer numbers in the thousands. Agriculturalists constantly cultivate new varieties of fruits; for instance, at least 1,600 varieties of bananas exist as of 2014.” [3]

Imagine a life without fruits. Eating would be much more boring, but we would be much more sickly as a human race, maybe even extinct.

What do evolutionists say about where fruits came from? Not much actually, I googled it. They say of course that slowly over great lengths of time, random mutations somehow produced a sweet fruit. Animals and insects liked them so much more than other plants that they ate a lot of them and spread their seeds all over the place by pooping.

Let’s think about this a little more seriously and try to imagine the step by step processes that would have had to be involved.

I want to discuss particularly two of the most astounding features of fruits: (1) they taste so great and (2) they carry many, many health benefits for humans. There are others, but I think these two will show that fruits clearly defy the concepts of evolution.

Even with all of our creative genius and intelligence as human beings, we cannot create even one fruit that is better than the ones in nature. Doesn’t that tell you something? Not just a few, but all these thousands of wonderful fruits just accidentally happened without any intelligence involved. That means that random accidents are smarter than all the combined human intelligence because randomness comes up with better food for us than we can make on our own. Not only did it happen one time, but it happened over and over again thousands of times. So the smartest scientists are like dummies compared to random mutations.

Evolutionists have a faith in randomness that goes beyond blind faith if you ask me.

So in the course of historical time, what came first, the fruits evolving on the plants or the animals to eat them? Evolutionists say animals spread the seeds that grew in the fruits. So that means that fruits came into existence after there were already animals. But if there were no fruits for the animals to eat, how did they get all the nutrition that they needed to survive. It’s kind of a catch 22. So they would have had to evolve simultaneously, right? But that doesn’t make so much sense either, because if the fruit were only partially developed, why would the animal eat it?

Think for a minute of what is necessary in the way of changes in a plant for it to go from a plant that has no fruit to one that bears fruit. There would have to be thousands of chemical and biological changes in the plant. Usually the fruit is an integral part of the reproductive organs of a plant. This means that the male and female parts of the plant or else the male plant and female plant would both have to make evolutionary changes that completely corresponded to each other simultaneously. If not, then the plant would not be fertilized correctly and there would be no next generation.

Apple seedling

Plants have a life cycle. Starting from a seed, it can take many years for a plant (fruit tree) to reach maturity and be able to bear seeds of its own. Standard apple trees take at least 5 to 8 years to bear fruit and cherry trees take longer.[4] So if a tree is one that does not bear fruit and begins a simple mutation, it is probably going to take some 5 years before that mutation could be passed on to another generation of trees. Remember also that scientists tell us that most mutations are detrimental or neutral and very few are positive.[5] How many of the seeds would actually carry the mutation when it happens? Certainly only a tiny, tiny fraction of the seeds would have any mutation at all, but an even much tinier fraction of those would have a mutation going toward producing a partial fruit. Now among all the seeds that a tree produces each year, what percentage do you think will grow up into another mature tree? I’d be willing to bet that percentage is very low. I remember my aunt and uncle had this huge old cherry tree that used to produce so many cherries that the ground would be covered with them. But not many new trees sprung up.

If a plant somehow mutated enough to make a fruit, (a big if) how did it get the taste just right to be so satisfying to humans, or even animals? How many possible mutations are there that taste terrible? There isn’t enough time since the Big Bang for a plant to mutate all the combinations of tastes in order to get just the right one. And you can’t please all the people all the time. Some people like apples and some don’t. Some people who love apples love the Delicious but not the Granny Smith. The seeds of the apple won’t get spread for the evolutionist if the people (or local animals) don’t like the taste.

Now here’s another incredible difficulty for evolutionists. They may talk about the great taste of fruits as the reason they are here according to natural selection, but they still have to take into account that fruits each have many, many health benefits. How did that come about? People might eat the fruit because it tastes so great, but what if it poisoned them. No more evolution. How can evolutionists explain that fruits contain many wonderful nutrients for humans? The nutrients don’t particularly help the plant or tree itself. Did the plants mutate again and again until it somehow got exactly the right combination of nutrients for humans (animals, or insects, etc.) and also the right taste too? That would mean thousands of millions of new chemical and biological processes. That doesn’t make much sense because there are so many other plants and trees that are doing just fine and they don’t make any fruits that are edible.

“The total number of plant species in the world is estimated at 270,000. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 species of plants are edible by humans. About 100 to 200 species of plants play an important role in world commerce, and about 15 species provide the majority of food crops.” [6]

What is more difficult to evolve, a great taste or great nutritional benefits for humans? It seems to me that the chemical and biological processes to produce great taste would be easier and also more likely to get the fruit eaten and the seeds spread. But it is going to be way more complicated for the fruit to become full of healthy nutrients. Even if the plant had wonderful nutrients, humans and animals won’t eat it if it tastes terrible.

     25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas [7]
     Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts [8]
     The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous [9]
     5 Health Benefits of Apples [10]
     15 health benefits of eating apples [11]
     10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple [12]
     13 Health Benefits of Oranges [13]
     Etc., etc., etc.

Once again we could ask, which came first, the nutrients in the fruit or the animal to eat the fruit. If the animals are not there to eat and then spread the fruit seeds, how do the seeds get spread? If the nutritional fruits are not there for the animals, how do they survive without it? If they evolve side by side at the same time, matching each other step by step, you have a scenario that takes more blind faith to believe than any religious person has.

Here’s another very interesting point. You have surely noticed that oranges come in segments inside the peal, usually 10. Another fruit like bananas however grow in a totally different way, on a huge stalk in a big bunch. 

The banana peal comes off rather easily and the banana can actually be divided into 3 sections. What does evolution have to say about fruit being conveniently packaged for human and animal consumption? Could 10 segments in an orange have developed by some slow and gradual process of natural selection? And why is that feature selected for over some other simpler system?

I love fruit. Because there is fruit, I conclude there must be God.

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[1] Christine Vrey, Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/08/top-20-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[2] Christine Vrey, 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/23/20-more-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[3] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[4] How Many Years Until Your Tree Bears Fruit?, by Stark Bro's, http://www.starkbros.com/blog/how-many-years/

[5] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #27, Truth About Mutation, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

[6] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[7] 25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas, http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/25-powerful-reasons-to-eat-bananas

[8] Jessie Szalay, Live Science Contributor, Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts, http://www.livescience.com/45005-banana-nutrition-facts.html

[9] Chad Hagy, 14 Banana Health Benefits You Might Not Know About, The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/14_banana_health_benefits_you_might_not_know_about.aspx

[10] Matthew Kayser, 5 Health Benefits of Apples, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/5_health_benefits_of_apples.aspx

[11] 15 health benefits of eating apples, http://www.besthealthmag.ca/eat-well/nutrition/15-health-benefits-of-eating-apples

[12] Rose Alexander, 10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple, The Health Benefits And Convenience Of Pineapple, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/10_reasons_to_eat_pineapple.aspx

[13] Diana Herrington, 13 Health Benefits of Oranges, http://www.care2.com/greenliving/13-health-benefits-of-oranges.html