this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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So it's been years since I've seen it, but I do remember that episode. I went through the wiki a bit and read up on some of Backster's experiments and how they were received by the scientific community... not great. It is a very intriguing subject, but I think it gets anthropomorphized pretty bad. Even the title here, "plants do scream" almost implies consciousness. I do think there are mechanisms that plants may have evolved that we don't fully understand. Like holding onto water or nutrients if there are more plant clicks (screams) happening nearby. But we have to be scientific about this. In the article, they talk about possible sources of the clicks possibly being air bubbles escaping the plant. Jumping to some of the conclusions that were explored in the past like "plants have ESP" are tall claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Claims like that were never reproducible, so we shouldn't believe them. I think plants are amazing, and we should keep studying stuff like this, but best to stay realistic and phrase these findings appropriately. Just my two cents.