Quote:What, exactly, is the evolutionary advantage of popping into a tasty snack under hot, dry conditions?
If you knew anything about maize you would understand that it is not a result of evolution by natural selection but rather a domesticated wild grass.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...212037.htm
Quote:ScienceDaily (Mar. 25, 2009) — Maize was domesticated from its wild ancestor more than 8700 years according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in the Mexico's Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest dated evidence -- by 1200 years -- for the presence and use of domesticated maize.
Somehow I doubt that pre-historic Mexicans gave a rat's ass about popcorn but you'd have to ask them as they were the "designers." The domestication of maize, btw, provides an interesting insight into a complex, multi-generational task of bioengineering which most scholars would assert was beyond the abilities of "primitive" man.
Yet.... there it is.
