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Darwin’s Flowers: Unraveling an ‘Abominable Mystery’ | Big Think

Big Think | January 26, 2026



Darwin’s Flowers: Unraveling an ‘Abominable Mystery’
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One of the most famous branches in plant’s evolution is the difference between gymnosperms and angiosperms, which puzzled Darwin.
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Professor Rob Martienssen:

Professor Rob Martienssen leads the plant biology group at CSHL, where he focuses on epigenetic mechanisms that shape and regulate the genome, and their impact on development and inheritance. His work on transposons or “jumping genes” in plants and in fission yeast revealed a link between heterochromatin and RNA interference. His work, along with that of his colleagues, was awarded the “Breakthrough of the Year” by Science magazine in 2002. He has also developed reverse genetics strategies using transposons in maize and Arabidopsis that have become powerful and widely used tools in plant genetics research. He was one of 13 scientists nationwide who was named an HHMI-GBMF Investigator last year.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Rob Martienssen: It’s difficult for any evolutionary biologist to understand some of the arguments against evolution that are in the public domain. I mean, the evidence for evolution is not only overwhelming, but it drives everything that we do.

Goldschmidt famously – who is a famous geneticist once said that nothing in biology can be understood except in the light of evolution. And that’s true. I think we wouldn’t understand as much as we do about the pathways that I described without the evolutionary side of it that makes it all real. Especially in plants. We can rewind the clock of recent evolution by remaking a hybrid, for example, and then seeing how it evolves in the laboratory or in the field and compare that to what we know happened even in recent history. And so evolution is an experimentally tractable topic. I mean, it’s very real.

One of the most famous branches in plant’s evolution is the difference between gymnosperms and Angiosperms. And let me explain what they are. They’re both seed plants so they have seeds, but Angiosperms also have flowers, so whereas gymnosperms have a different sort of reproductive structure or cone. So people will be very familiar with, for example, with cones on pine trees, which are gymnosperms and flowers on, you know, their favorite garden plant. The difference between gymnosperms and angiosperms is very important in evolution because angiosperms were able to somehow radiate into thousands and thousands and thousands of species, whereas, gymnosperms are rather narrow in their species. Also, gymnosperms have very, very large genomes that are largely a component of transposons.

Transposons are pieces of DNA that can move around the genome. And so they, they can move potentially and cause genetic as well as epigenetic changes without having to go through a sexual cross. And most genomes are actually composed mostly of transposons. So, for example, the human genome is about 50 percent transposons and only about five percent genes. The maize genome is even more extreme, it’s about 80 percent transposons and only two or three percent genes. So the bulk of the genome is actually prepared, if you like, for epigenetic change. And this is the area that we work on the most looking at the way in which transposon control, and especially epigenetic transposon control, has influenced the phenotype, the properties of plants over the generations.

Darwin famously referred to the radiation of angiosperms, the generation of thousands of species, as an abominable mystery because it didn’t fit with his gradual change hypothesis of evolution. And we think that maybe some of the explanation lies in this ability to control transposons. But that’s very speculative, but it’s an interesting, interesting thought.

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Comments

This post currently has 32 comments.

  3. @dev4

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    This video wasn't very informative and the interviewed scientist wasn't able to get to any conclusion. Please upload another one about this issue

  6. @MichaelGroesbeck

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Evolution is just Death-Over-Time

    I'm really ashamed of Atheists who don't accept this. They turn out to be just as religious about the magic of bio-tech….some jackasses are actually saying they'll discover IMMORTALITY!

    Lmao….yeah right…The Forces of Change are simply too great & resources are truly finite….not to mention how some people are pushing against the laws & morals we have today that limit experimentation on human beings…potentially creating a culture of human sacrifice.

    Evolution really being turned into a "titan-dragon-worshiping" religion. It's a shame.

    I'm Deist & I thought Atheists would be more objective than to fall to these absurd dreams of achieving God-Hood. I thought life for you & I was just about living & then dying?

  11. @Unboundedominion

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Don't say this at church, lol. Even though some school districts have made it mandatory for creationism to be taught. Also probably not a good idea to bring up the subject that if church wants to swing their weight around into politics and education that they should pay taxes. Heheh. Yeah not a good idea…

  12. @slayerwulfe

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    who said what is not important only the information is, everyone that ever said anything that is dead and not aware they ever existed they don't know, why do you care if they don't. it's a waste of time and resources, honors, awards and even Olympic medals.what creates this human condition, need. i am Darwinian but beyond and before Darwin. Evolution has a beginning and that is when organic has it's first moment as an extension of inorganic. what i have promoted in my early first digit yrs. you have to start at the beginning but it's too complicated to solve in one lifetime. need suggest get what you can out of it, monetary reward etc. by following others who have started in the middle. i choose to start at the beginning, water as the catalyst of life and the first moment of evolution and i am totally alone. 
    i will not hear from anyone and i don't care because they have nothing to offer. 
    i will save it.
    slayerwulfe cave

  15. @steveb0503

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Dobzhansky said; "Nothing in biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution." – not Goldschmidt.
    You'd think an evolutionary biologist could've managed to not get both the quote and its attribution wrong.

  16. @timwoodward88

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    So lemme get this straight…a transposon is a segment of DNA that floats around the genome of plants and can be transported to other species of plants without interaction (plant-sex/pollination)? That makes no sense at all, I'm going to assume I misunderstood this man. Perhaps someone has a better definition of transposon?

  23. @ISamuelII

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    I am embarrassed that there are fellow humans that openly and proudly display their closed minds. The fact that they come up with wild extremes in their own minds as proof of the facts not being facts, like their "crocoduck" demands. They do this in other areas and issues like the gay marriage laws. Their extreme to prove you can't do that is some body would want to marry a dog. Their minds do not operate properly. The answer for every mystery they have is "god did it", is nothing but a lazy mind not working.

  24. @josephvictory9536

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Controlling transposons,

    This seems an awful lot to suggest consciousness (albeit limited) perhaps this can help us to understand the evolutionary context of placebo effects.

    That is, if i understand transposons to be gene types that are influenced by non reproductive conditions.

    And that by control we are talking about some sort of non standard feedback loop. Something that isnt just related to environmental factors but perhaps something at the level of consciousness (although a limited definition)

    This raises far too many questions and some of them seem to me to raise serious issues with not just evolution but the entire materialistic worldview given just basic leeway.

    I think there is probably a much simpler explanation. Corn has developed to be totally dependent on humans to survive in its current form. Its symbiotic with us for survival. Flowers perhaps adapt to insects, some more than others and this diversity is perhaps due in part to the immense diversity of insects that influence them and not any particular genetic flexibility. A stretchy rubberband will remain unstretched if few pull at it.

    then again i have absolutley no clue if i even understand anything about this topic beyond what i gleaned from the transcripts.

  25. @joseluis8291

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Many people believe that the word "Theory" implies something that is a figment, as when your friend says "I have a theory, maybe the following happened…". That only shows the ignorance about what a scientific theory is…

  27. @Wastingsometimehere

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    If you don't know something, learn it. Don't just slap "someone must have did that" and walk away. In it's core, that's what creation is. Refusing to learn because it's much easier to walk away.

  31. @JungleJargon

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Time is a physical expanded relative fabrication that expanded from no time …some time in the past. There is no time or space at the speed of light. The galaxies of ultra deep fields don't exist at the speed of light. There is also no time or space in a black hole. We consist of expanded time and expanded space so you cannot use expanded time as a measure of time because time expanded from no time, probably about 6,000 years ago.

  32. @libriano91

    January 26, 2026 at 11:49 am

    Good and informative video but the quote "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is actually from Ukrainian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky not Goldschmidt.

Comments are closed.

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