The Genetic Literacy Project’s slogan is “science over ideology.” Apparently, that’s a crock, as a post on the site pushes “plant rights.”

From “Are Plants Sentient Beings with Rights?,” by Jeremy Hance:

Plants are intelligent. Plants deserve rights. To most of us these statements may sound, at best, insupportable or, at worst, crazy.

But a new book, Brilliant Green: the Surprising History and Science of Plant Intelligence, by plant neurobiologist (yes, plant neurobiologist) Stefano Mancuso and journalist Alessandra Viola makes a compelling and fascinating case not only for plant sentience and smarts, but also plant rights.

Good grief, based on what?

Plants face many of the same problems as animals, though they differ significantly in their approach. Plants have to find energy, reproduce, and stave off predators. To do these things, Mancuso argues, plants have developed smarts and sentience. “Intelligence is the ability to solve problems and plants are amazingly good in solving their problems,” Mancuso noted.

News flash: Plants don’t know that they exist.

Plant rights? They don’t have brains. They don’t have nerves. They are not sentient. They don’t think. They don’t consciously perceive or react to anything. They interact with their environment via non-conscious, non-deliberate chemical and molecular processes.

This, however, isn’t the first we heard of the notion. Remember the professor who claimed that “peas are persons“? This Mancusco fellow gives TED talks. Of course he does!

Science over ideology, my right ear lobe.

Photo by Bi-frie (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.