Saturday, December 23, 2006

OK, I've worked out this whole Intelligent Design thing...

I've been trying to ferret out this whole ID thing and it turns out, I've been going about it all wrong... it's not about ferrets, it's about squirrels.

Specifically, God designed squirrels intelligent enough to outsmart trees.

Bet you didn't know trees were smart, did you? Well, they are. To ensure the survival of their species against their major predators (which are squirrels, just in case you didn't know), they do not produce the same annual amount of seeds (the part of them that squirrels eat). They employ a "swamp and starve" strategy, which means that some years they hold back seeds - starving out the squirrel populations - and then swamp the land with seeds once they have starved out the hungry rodents. Pretty bloodthirsty if you ask me.

Turns out the red squirrel has foiled this carefully planned coniferous plot. In a manner that is - as yet - undetermined, the squirrels have worked out this seemingly random schedule and birth not one but two litters in these lean years. So they, and only they, amongst all their squirrel brethren decimate the unborn trees.

It's all starting to make sense to me now...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where you say "birth not one but two litters in these lean years"

you actually mean, two litters in the fat, phat years when the trees "mast," producing overwhelming oodles of seeds, right?

That's cool.

Deer ticks, and Lyme disease, also follow the dynamics of tree masting events. Because the little furry tick-hosts do.

TerriG said...

The interesting thing about these squirrels is that have two litters before the trees swamp the forest with their seeds. So it is indeed in lean years when there is not enough food that the squirrels birth two litters in anticipation of the feast to come.

Clarice Starling said...

You're kidding right?

You really don't buy into ID do you ---???? You aren't wasting your time (and mine) trying to explain how the Earth is 6,000 years old and how dinosaurs coexisted with people are you?

You really are smarter than that and accept the fact that adaptation takes place to insure survival.. That's what you are really trying to say in a scattered sort of devious way, right?

Stephen Smoogen said...

Yes... it all makes sense.. though it is my belief that Squirrels are truly the masters of this earth, and they have manipulated humans and trees into feeding them. We think they are all so cute, but it is just their intelligent design working on us.