Saving the Apple's Ancient Ancestor in the Forests of Kazakhstan
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
Yeah, I don't know what they meant, but once you see that mistake in evolutionary discussions, it's hard to unsee it.
Sometimes I like to explicitly describe planting things as mankind's oldest technology. Know-how like which berries will kill you and which won't are an important knowledge base, and people today are likely to underestimate how much work--unsung, anonymous--was put into building it, and how much may have been forgotten.
Many fruits currently are either hybrids or were genetically modified with genes from other organisms. This genetic contamination can't be undone easily, and sometimes came with undesirable consequences.