Sunday, May 25, 2014
Ovi = vivi
I'm sure this is old stuff to biologists, but it struck me for the first time while reading this marvelous and precise logical exposition on the exact starting point of human life.
There's really no difference between oviparous and viviparous.
All multicellular animals, and nearly all multicellular plants, are viviparous. All of them contain the initial zygote in some form of protective housing during its initial development. A plant's seed is not a zygote. It's a living free-floating womb, containing a mostly-formed new plant and providing sufficient nutrition and protection for the new plant to reach the point where it can live on its own. Same for a fish egg or a bird egg. The only difference is that some wombs are decoupled from the mother, while others remain inside the mother.
Which style of womb has the advantage? We're accustomed to thinking of our type as superior, but Nature doesn't know that. Our tightly-coupled womb depends on the limited lifespan and limited traveling ability of the mother. The plant seed doesn't have those limits. Under the right conditions a plant womb can contain its new life for thousands of years or carry it thousands of miles, into times and places that the mother couldn't possibly imagine.
Labels: Grand Blueprint, Smarty-plants
¶ 5:14 PM
