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Would those who believe in unguided (by a superior power) spontaneous evolution or random evolution or similar theories believe that evolution played a part in human's taste buds? In other words, are out taste buds, like our predator placement of eyes, the result of a need that is accomplished by their current configuration?

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Originally Posted by INVICTUS:
Originally Posted by Not Shallow Not Slim:

Of course.  What if you had a taste for hemlock or petroleum?

 

Those who evolved a taste for nutritious food that was available had an advantage over those who did not.

 

DF

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Sorta like those who evolved with a taste for Wishful Thinking.

Thanks for making an essential point of atheism.

 

DF

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:

... unguided (by a superior power) spontaneous evolution or random evolution or similar theories ...

Unguided?: Yes. As in unguided by supernatural intelligence.
Spontaneous?: No. Gradual changes, over vast periods of time (unless we're talking about organisms with very short lifespans & reproductive cycles)
Random?: No. There's nothing random about it. It's purely "guided" by natural forces.
Similar theories?: No. Just one scientific theory (Biological evolution through natural selection & other causes such as genetic drift and mutation) and no others, whatsoever, to explain and prove the phenomena throughout all of biology.

FV, are you really a nurse? Like a RN or more like a CNA? How long ago (& extensive) was your education in biology prior to becoming a nurse?

Every single facet of modern biology (on which medicine & health care is based) is entirely dependent on our knowledge & understanding of Evolution. Without understanding Evolution there would have been no advances in medicine, treatment and care for well over a hundred years. In the last hundred+ years, human health has improved exponentially. That's no coincidence and it has nothing to do with God.

Do creationist doctors/nurses only use centuries year-old treatments or do they & their patients tacitly benefit from the accepted fact of Evolution - while thanking their gods for healing them?

Yes, I'm really an RN. In fact, I'm a BSN/RN from UAH. Before that, I rec'd a biology minor at UNA. I also have bachelor's degrees in English and history. My nursing degree was in 2004. Perhaps you've confused me with an imposter on a Sweetwater inspired forum where there was a Firenze who was a bi-sexual CNA. Lovely people that SW crowd.

 

Also, I know the difference between genetic shift and genetic drift, but that isn't the subject of this topic.

 

Now, let's return to A&P, circa 2001 or 2002, not that distant in the past. The prof. says, "Your receptors for bitter taste are placed in the back of the mouth." Now you notice, he didn't say who or what placed them. If you have a problem with his wording, I can PM you his name and addy.

 

He asks why. No one answers. He then continued that almost all poisons are bitter, a fact that I'm sure most in the class did know. He went on to relate that this placement was due to the fact many shovel food, etc., into their mouths without it touching the front of the tongue (I'll confess I'm envisioning the male of the species here)...or any anterior taste buds, but obviously food has to touch the back of the tongue. He called it nature's last attempt to keep us from poisoning ourselves.

 

I'm simply curious as to why evolution, no matter how many millenia in the making, would create that particular configuration. After all, it's not like evolving to breathe air or develop bipedal locomotion.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

Originally Posted by Mr. Hooberbloob:

I've been told ethylene glycol tastes good.

 

I believe it has more to do with how your parents fed you.  Chocolate covered ants and monkey brains doesn't tempt my buds, but is a delicacy elsewhere.

 

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Speaking as a mechanic who has had the misfortune to get an improptu bath in ethylene glycol from time to time, lemme tell ya....

 

Unless you're a canine-it certainly doesn't taste good.

 

Trust me.  

He asks why. No one answers. He then continued that almost all poisons are bitter, a fact that I'm sure most in the class did know. He went on to relate that this placement was due to the fact many shovel food, etc., into their mouths without it touching the front of the tongue (I'll confess I'm envisioning the male of the species here)...or any anterior taste buds, but obviously food has to touch the back of the tongue. He called it nature's last attempt to keep us from poisoning ourselves.


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 He may need a refresher course, it isn't due to people "shoveling food" into their mouth. And too, how long would it have taken humans to learn which plants were poisonous and which were safe?




The fact that the bitter taste buds are located at the back of the tongue may be an adaptive phenomenon for primarily plant-eating humans, since nutritious plants tend to be sweet and poisonous plants tend to be bitter. When intensely bitter plants touch the back of the tongue, they may trigger the gag reflex as a protective mechanism and be spit out.

 

http://www.askdrsears.com/topi...bout-your-taste-buds

Best, look at what your article said. That's the point. Bitter foods/poisons/etc. are detected by the posterior taste buds. It doesn't really make any difference if the offending item touches the anterior taste buds or not. Humans don't taste bitter with the front of their tongue--at least not to that degree, and many don't use their anterior taste buds at least some of the time. Ever see a 13 year old boy eat?

 

Now you said something profound about finding out what plants were poisonous or not. So...why do we (as ancient man/woman) need our taste buds to tell us this. If we see Ig or Og die or become violently ill from eating a plant, the odds are we're not going to eat it and the odds are we will tell our offspring not to eat it.

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:

Best, look at what your article said. That's the point. Bitter foods/poisons/etc. are detected by the posterior taste buds. It doesn't really make any difference if the offending item touches the anterior taste buds or not. Humans don't taste bitter with the front of their tongue--at least not to that degree, and many don't use their anterior taste buds at least some of the time. Ever see a 13 year old boy eat?

 

Now you said something profound about finding out what plants were poisonous or not. So...why do we (as ancient man/woman) need our taste buds to tell us this. If we see Ig or Og die or become violently ill from eating a plant, the odds are we're not going to eat it and the odds are we will tell our offspring not to eat it.

 

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I don't imagine you would "need" your taste buds to tell you what was poisonous after a while. The point, because people "shoveled food" into their mouth wasn't actually the reason the buds were positioned like they are. How many people chew with their front teeth? 

If Ogg dies from eating poison, then chances are Ogg's kids are never born and Ogg's postilion of taste buds is deemed hazardous. 

Why have taste buds at all?  If we couldn't taste sweet, there would be less overweight people and without bitter, more kids would eat their vegetables.

So it's not 'where they are located' but 'why they are even there'?

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:

I agree with that, Zazu; hence my question. Twenty-five percent of people really can't taste that much, and twenty-five percent are super tasters. Go figure.

 

Dogs and cats supposedly can't distinguish among many tastes, but they seem to scarf it down extremely well.

Tell that to my cats.  Each one will only eat certain brands of cat food.

 

So if animals do have taste buds, what is the benefit? The theory that they can't tell the next guy not to eat the purple flowers would work with animals, but then humans have the power of communication and could warn of impending danger.  And one more, babies and children don't seem to have acute powers, since they will put anything into their mouths regardless of smell or taste. So do the taste buds have to be 'trained'?

Originally Posted by O No!:

And our tastes are so different! There are people who love broccoli for example, and others who can't choke it down without gagging. Does that mean that certain poisons would taste good to some people? In that case, why didn't that "line" die out?

That also makes a mess of the idea of the original DNA code being passed down. Since evolution relies on recessive traits being allowed to dominate in certain circumstances, what happens when there are no more recessive traits?

Originally Posted by INVICTUS:

Yes taste buds need training, as we age, our taste changes.

When we become pregnant, we will eat anything dead or alive,

pink, green or brown. smell doesn't matter as long as there is a

pickle close at hand.

Interesting.  Would that be dill or sweet pickle?  LOL

 

If we have to 'train' our tastes, then could we train them to accept poison? Small non-lethal doses working our way up much like allergy shots?

Originally Posted by FirenzeVeritas:
...He went on to relate that this placement was due to the fact many shovel food, etc., into their mouths without it touching the front of the tongue (I'll confess I'm envisioning the male of the species here)...or any anterior taste buds, but obviously food has to touch the back of the tongue. He called it nature's last attempt to keep us from poisoning ourselves...

His whole assumption ignorantly presupposes that humans have been 'shoveling' food into their mouths for hundreds of thousands of years or more. The modern abundance of food through super high crop yields and industrial farming, etc. is a very, very recent phenomenon (& due to our understanding of Evolution, I might add). Throughout 99.99% of the last million years and further back, hominids merely subsisted. Back when our tastebuds were evolving, there simply wasn't copious amounts of food for a 13 year old male Australopithecus or Homo erectus to shovel into their gapes.

I must have had some very different instructors than you had, A.R. I was taught success in farming depended on rotation, irrigation, and fertilization. BTW, the first two were used thousands of years ago. One of the best fertilizers? Good ol' phosphate, a byproduct of animal decay and nothing synthetic or genetically enhanced about it. (It caused a "Frenzy" in Mt. Pleasant.)

"In other words, are out taste buds, like our predator placement of eyes, the result of a need that is accomplished by their current configuration?"

 

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Of course. To understand this, you must understand what environment humans are adapted for.  We are NOT adapted for this modern world of plenty. We are adapted for hunting and gathering.


We modern humans are adapted for seasons of famine and feast. Agriculture didn't develop until about 10,000 years ago (and, interestingly, all around the world at more or less the same time). Up until then, we burned calories hunting our food or we starved. Our bodies adapted to store food reserves in our bodies for the inevitable lean times.

That was only 10,000 years ago. We humans have not "evolved" or adapted to an agrarian diet with lots of leisure time.  Perhaps in another 200 or 300 thousand years our metabolism might speed up to counter the ill effects of living in a world of plenty.

So, our tastes generally have a high preference for high calorie stuff:  Datty meats, sweets and starchy stuff. We "like" those things because they contain a vast amount of energy. Even on a subconscious level, our bodies often tell us what it needs. Thirst when we need water, cravings for salty snacks when our sodioum gets low, cravings for bananas when we need potassium, for example.

People who are obese today are the survivors of ancestors who efficiently stored energy in fat.  Yes, obesity is a survival trait. They are fat because their bodies are doing exactly what they are supposed to do: Store all those excess calories as fat so they can survive during the lean times. The problem is that there are no lean times any more.

So, yes, our taste buds evolved to bring pleasure to us for things that are good for us or have lots of energy value. They protest at things that are bad for us. Sour things, decaying animals, too salty, not "fresh" all these things can be detected by our taste and sense of small to warn us of the good and the bad.


A.R.,the current thought isn't that there are no taste buds for bitter (or the other three/four) on all parts of the tongue, just more placed at the posterior. The 25% of the population who are super tasters are thought to have more sensitive taste buds and undertasters less. I find it very interesting that super taste is a recessive characteristic. Why? Wouldn't it be of use to be able to taste more. Or, perhaps not, since it means we don't have as varied a diet.

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