this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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You mean that by controlling humans, maize evolved to a stronger plant?
It's not stronger but more versatile. I'm not sure you call something that can't reproduce without human intervention stronger. The stalk is definitely stronger than the original teosinte plant, that trait was selected over time for bean support.
So it sacrificed independence for symbiosis to assure a robust position in the ecology. The strains of escherichia coli in our gut depend on us to survive, but man, what a crib!
Particularly in the US most people are literally made of corn. Most foods have corn additives, the beef we eat is primarily fed corn before being slaughtered. On a molecular level we're corn.
The corn won. We are corn.