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Chemistry

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  • $\begingroup$ I think you read too much into the question. The OP confused "is emitted" and "is visible [detected by the human eye]". Also, there are probably good explanations regarding evolutionary advantages to having vision in just that region of the spectrum, given the organs our predecessors had and evolution started from. A ripe colorful fruit tastes better than an unripe green one. A coincidence? $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn ♦
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ Buck Thorn, All I wanted to emphasize is that there is no need to provide a reason to every question. We tend to find an explanation to observations, which is a good exercise, but a deeper science history has shown time and again that widely held ideas, once considered to be true, were wrought with fallacies. This will be true for many ideas, centuries later, if the world survives that long! The unit of human progress is very slow, spanning centuries. Same goes with your question, that a ripe fruit looks more attractive, many beautiful colored fruits are highly toxic too. $\endgroup$
    – ACR
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ The unit of human progress is very slow, spanning centuries. Same goes with your question, that a ripe fruit looks more attractive, many beautiful colored fruits are highly toxic too. Using evolutionary ideas to explain things like these is like knowing the results and selecting exactly those few points which fit the narrative. $\endgroup$
    – ACR
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ Like all science, evolutionary theories are developed by constructing and testing hypotheses. There might be multiple explanations for why a fruit would have a red color, say, but without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that the theory of co-evolution of fruit traits and the dietary habits of fructivores is fairly well supported. I agree that, in the wild, fruit color traits have likely rarely been driven by human preferences (since we were until recently not ecologically important), rather by birds and other animals. But we have exploited the trait to identify edible fruits. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn ♦
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ Which would be challenging without color vision. Other factors are important for identifying edible foods, taste [ed: and odor] mainly. See also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn ♦
    Commented yesterday