Draguhn, Andreas

Robinson, David G

Taiz, Lincoln

English

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eScholarship - University of California

UC Santa CruzUC Santa Cruz Previously Published WorksTitlePlant “intelligence” changes nothingPermalinkhttps://escholarship.org/uc/item/8nh5s65jJournalEMBO Reports, 21(5)ISSN1469-221XAuthorsRobinson, David GDraguhn, AndreasTaiz, LincolnPublication Date2020-05-06DOI10.15252/embr.202050395 Peer reviewedeScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital LibraryUniversity of CaliforniaCorrespondencePlant “intelligence” changes nothingDavid G Robinson1, Andreas Draguhn2 & Lincoln Taiz3EMBO Reports (2020) 21: e50395Comment on: F Baluska & S Mancuso(March 2020)See reply: F Baluska & S Mancuso(May 2020)W e view the publication of thearticle by Baluska & Mancuso inEMBO reports [1] with consider-able scepticism. The authors, principal advo-cates of the plant neurobiology concept,have tried in numerous articles to dissemi-nate the notion that plants are intelligentorganisms that make conscious decisions,based on hypothesized cognitive acts. Inseveral papers, we have taken great pains toseparate fact from fiction in regard to “plantintelligence” [2–4]. We conclude that there isno solid scientific evidence to support theclaims that plants possess neurons or havethe equivalent of a brain, feel pain or containa memory. Words like “smart” and “intelli-gent” are now being used rather loosely as in“smart phones” and “intelligent machines,”and it is only in this very broad sense thatplants can be considered “intelligent”.Part of the confusion stems from the useof the misleading term “ecological strategy”.Plants in an ecosystem do not stand aroundthinking about what their “ecological strat-egy” will be, and then act on their decisions,as in game theory. Most ecologists under-stand that “ecological strategy” is a mislead-ing teleological shorthand for evolvedadaptive behaviour determined by naturalselection. Baluska & Mancuso seem to havetaken the term “ecological strategy” literallyin their ideas about plants. In short, plantsare not “conscious organisms” that makeconscious strategic decisions. If currentclimate models are incomplete (as they mostassuredly are), it is not because they areoverlooking plant intelligence or conscious-ness. It is because we still have much tolearn about the adaptive responses andinteractions of plants in the biosphere.Attempts to humanize plants may be inline with current trends towards rampantanthropomorphism in biology, but paint ahighly distorted picture of plant life. Thepresent article in EMBO Reports adds anextra dimension to the apparent cognitiveand social abilities of plants: sentences like“A new view of higher plants as cognitiveand intelligent organisms that activelymanipulate their environment to serve theirneeds” and “Humans are not excluded fromplants’ manipulative behaviour. . .” appeal topsychological and neurobiological conceptsof social cognition without providing empiri-cal basis for such a far-reaching proposal.We agree that plants make an indispensablecontribution to homeostasis in the biosphereand that they are highly complex organismsfeaturing multiple interactions with theirenvironment. We maintain, however, thatthe plant science community is not benefitedby the approach taken by plant neurobiolo-gists and that it is highly misleading to thegeneral public.References1. Baluszka F, Mancuso S (2020) EMBO Rep 21:e501092. Alpi A, Amrhein N, Bertl A et al (2007) TrendsPlant Sci 12: 135 – 1363. Taiz L, Alkon D, Draguhn A et al (2019) TrendsPlant Sci 24: 677 – 6874. Taiz L, Alkon D, Draguhn A et al (2020) TrendsPlant Sci 25: 218 – 220License: This is an open access article under theterms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0License, which permits use, distribution and repro-duction in any medium, provided the original workis properly cited.1 Centre for Organismal Studies, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. E-mail: david.robinson@urz.uni-heidelberg.de2 Institut für Physiologie und Pathophysiologie, Medizinischen Fakultät, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany3 Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USADOI 10.15252/embr.202050395 | EMBO Reports (2020) 21: e50395 | Published online 16 April 2020ª 2020 The Authors. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license EMBO reports 21: e50395 | 2020 1 of 1

Plant “intelligence” changes nothing

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Plant "intelligence" changes nothing.

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