I think he's pointing out the fundamental misunderstanding a lot of people have about natural selection: nothing chooses to evolve; there is no active participation. Whether the plant could see hummingbirds or not is irrelevant because it can't change it's genetics and mutate on a whim anyways.

Natural selection is when genetic mutations happen by chance, and sometimes those mutations just happen to benefit the survival and reproduction of that individual, so the genetics mutation gets passed on. It's just a fluke though. It's a fluke that the mutation occurred and and even bigger fluke that it lead to reproductive benefit.

So the evolution of any kind of survival mechanism is, at its core, a coincidence.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, that's all true, but their use of "random coincidence" seems to entirely dismiss the selective pressure that created this plant. Selective pressure is not "a random coincidence". It's a long series of random coincidences all leading up to the organism we see now.

It was a very dismissive, useless comment.