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[Ali Baba]

Paul, here are some articles that you might be interested in reading:

Interesting, in so much as these articles would appear to be a load of mumbo-jumbo presented as fact. I am actually disappointed there was no food for thought there.

Agreed there Paul, however if you search plant neurobiology and the authors of the book in the Guardian article you will find some interesting stuff about signalling systems in plants. The authors do take the idea one step too far though, plenty of challenges to them from other plant physiologists. The idea that plants feel pain in the way that animals do is utter tosh in my opinion, and I am not going to stop pruning my roses or steaming sprouts any time soon

[Keith L]

Those who would like to know more about current understanding of how plants tick might be interested in "What a Plant Knows" by Daniel Chamovitz. He is a plant scientist, and the book is written in a style the non scientist will find easy to understand. Chapters cover seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing, location and memory! Each chapter has numerous references for those who would like to go deeper in to the aspect. I found it fascinating.

Keith

[habanerocat]

web-0238.jpg (122.38 KiB) Viewed 1826 times

I feel the pain!

[Leandra]

Many thanks for that link Keith. It does indeed look like a most excellent book and I will endeavor to look it out in due course.

I think it is wise to always remember that our scientific knowledge is only as good as the tools with which we can measure phenomena and ultimately, the history of scientific understanding is a combination of a record of that change coupled with politics of the establishment. This is what scientific models are- a conclusion built upon the evidence of the technology; if that technology changes, so does the hypothesis- providing it doesn't harm establishment interests!

It is not so long ago that the world was considered to be flat and the earth thought to be only a few thousand years old, the figures of which supported the biblical teaching- the accepted myth of the time. Anything that challenged those views was regarded as heresy. We have a similar situation now where our cultural mythology, built upon a Cartesian model of the world is being challenged by new emerging sciences and tools of measurement that are beginning to alter the accepted understanding of nature at fundamental levels but not necessarily embraced by the establishment, indeed, often actively opposed. Changes in paradigms understandably make some feel uncomfortable for any number of reasons. But these are happening due to new tools of measurement and work being done by scientists.

In any case, just because we have a different set of sensory apparatus to another lifeform or don't understand it, it doesn't mean plants don't feel something like pain, even if the translation of it is mediated through different types of sensory pathway. After all, pain is a fundamental warning system throughout the natural world and nature finds many diverse ways of translating a force that is so fundamental to survival of many species in that natural world.

Of course, this doesn't mean to say we stop eating our veggies and so forth- that's just ludicrous as life feeds on life, period. But we can learn to approach the natural world in a more enlightened way in line with newer understanding of it.

Leandra

[mistyhiss]

Ah I saw these the other day and they made me smile; didn't realise the poor things had been mutilated!