If you want to make a teleological argument, then you could equally ask why agricultural animals, compared to wild animals, have much higher fat content and other characteristics that humans find delicious.
All evidence suggests those features are favored by humans, who are the animals currently responsible for ensuring their continued reproduction.
So cows and pigs - like many fruiting plants - co-evolved with the creatures that fed on them. In both cases, those creatures became necessary for their long-term survival.
Angiosperm co-evolution goes back hundreds of millions of years. Animal husbandry goes back what, 10,000? That’s an evolutionary blip. Yes, long enough to select for traits we prefer, but not long enough to develop the kind of symbiosis we see with fruits. Domestic pigs and cows do get some benefits from being kept, but we certainly aren’t necessary, except maybe some sheep.
Why does the length of time matter? Domesticated varieties of cows and pigs would go extinct if humans stopped raising them for meat. The only niche where they can survive is a farm. They are in symbiosis now even if they weren’t 10,000 years ago.
Time matters because that’s how evolution cements biological distinction. Domesticated cow and pig varieties can certainly survive off of farms. There’s the famous example of the cow that escaped to live with a herd of bison, and feral pigs are a well known phenomenon. Yes they are in symbiosis, but it’s not biologically obligatory symbiosis.
By that reasoning, fruit is not in a biologically obligatory symbiosis with the animals that eat it. There are many cases of fruit falling to the ground uneaten and forming a new plant near its parent. Those plants eke out an existence just as feral pigs do.
Yes, and this is an undesirable result. You can eke out an existence with no legs, but it is not the preferred state of things. You’re just debatelording now.
Yes, it’s possible but undesirable for both pigs and fruits to survive without assistance from humans. In both cases, that assistance is offered because humans eat the creatures they assist.
You still haven’t explained why this relationship is good for fruits but bad for pigs.
If you want to make a teleological argument, then you could equally ask why agricultural animals, compared to wild animals, have much higher fat content and other characteristics that humans find delicious.
All evidence suggests those features are favored by humans, who are the animals currently responsible for ensuring their continued reproduction.
Yes, that’s how agriculture works. You select the ones that are the plumpest and tastiest and breed those. Doesn’t change the origin.
So cows and pigs - like many fruiting plants - co-evolved with the creatures that fed on them. In both cases, those creatures became necessary for their long-term survival.
Angiosperm co-evolution goes back hundreds of millions of years. Animal husbandry goes back what, 10,000? That’s an evolutionary blip. Yes, long enough to select for traits we prefer, but not long enough to develop the kind of symbiosis we see with fruits. Domestic pigs and cows do get some benefits from being kept, but we certainly aren’t necessary, except maybe some sheep.
Why does the length of time matter? Domesticated varieties of cows and pigs would go extinct if humans stopped raising them for meat. The only niche where they can survive is a farm. They are in symbiosis now even if they weren’t 10,000 years ago.
Time matters because that’s how evolution cements biological distinction. Domesticated cow and pig varieties can certainly survive off of farms. There’s the famous example of the cow that escaped to live with a herd of bison, and feral pigs are a well known phenomenon. Yes they are in symbiosis, but it’s not biologically obligatory symbiosis.
By that reasoning, fruit is not in a biologically obligatory symbiosis with the animals that eat it. There are many cases of fruit falling to the ground uneaten and forming a new plant near its parent. Those plants eke out an existence just as feral pigs do.
Yes, and this is an undesirable result. You can eke out an existence with no legs, but it is not the preferred state of things. You’re just debatelording now.
Yes, it’s possible but undesirable for both pigs and fruits to survive without assistance from humans. In both cases, that assistance is offered because humans eat the creatures they assist.
You still haven’t explained why this relationship is good for fruits but bad for pigs.