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Exact-Vast3018 OP t1_j66fgni wrote

Reply to comment by dan_the_man48 in Eli5 How are seedless grapes made? by Exact-Vast3018

Ok i had a feeling they were manipulated the same way bananas were, i always thought they were natural.

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srcarruth t1_j66gzg0 wrote

Maybe they are, all navel oranges are related to a single mutant tree. Made from cuttings and endlessly propagated. People think science is magic too often.

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ISBN39393242 t1_j66ill2 wrote

>People think science is magic too often.

you can say that again.

peoples’ expectations of science and medicine are so wild. and the more uninformed, the more they expect. when you’re an actual scientist you realize it’s a mix of working banging your head against the wall for the most tiny incremental gain in knowledge (this is the vast majority of science) + the rare landmark finding, which usually gets milked for its every potential application across all fields of science.

but people really sit back and think scientists could just do whatever they wanted if they felt like it (and therefore the reason e.g. aids has no cure is because they don’t care enough, as opposed to the fact that it’s actually not possible).

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oblivious_fireball t1_j66iy43 wrote

usually seedless plants don't evolve from seed-bearing ones very often, simply because the plant then needs to reproduce through other means like offshoots or broken off pieces rerooting without human help, and most die out faster than these methods occur or can't spread away from the parent easily. One of the only natural cases i can think of is Devil's Ivy which has a genetic defect that prevents it from producing its flowers and therefore seeds. But its a rapidly growing vine that produces a lot of rooting hormone, so it pretty readily spreads and any broken pieces easily root down into new plants.

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