The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
The Light Eaters is one of those science books in which the author travels to richly described locales to interview assorted researchers at work and to vividly describe their discoveries for a general audience ... Schlanger, who spends much of the book seeking confirmation from her scientist subjects that plants could be 'intelligent' and perhaps even possess 'consciousness.' The fact that there isn’t a scientific consensus on how to define either of those terms makes it especially difficult to pin them to an edge case like plants, which don’t have brains or nervous systems. Plants do exhibit behavior, of a sort—they react to their environments, and some even seem to retain 'memories' of, say, the time of day when pollinators visit. But without a clear understanding of what it means to be intelligent or conscious, it’s hard to say if this qualifies as either ... This quest, while it provides a narrative thread for the book, becomes the one thorn among the otherwise lush pleasures of The Light Eaters. Why is it so important to Schlanger that plants be acknowledged as 'intelligent' by these humans? ... Schlanger seems to insist that if we can’t identify with plants and see forms of our own experience in their very alien way of being, we will continue to disrespect and ignore them.
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Schlanger’s focus on the botanists themselves overcomes a challenge inherent to science writing: where to find drama ... The Light Eaters is a special piece of science writing for the way it solves the genre’s bind; it doesn’t force its people or their findings into narrative engines. Instead, the field of botany itself functions like a character, one undergoing a potentially radical change, with all the excitement, discomfort, and uncertainty that transformation brings.
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Grounded in the history of botany, [Schlanger] lucidly and vividly explains startling findings about plant communication, memory, decision-making, motion, sense (touch, hearing, vision), defenses, kin recognition, altruism, and many other forms of green intelligence ... The discoveries Schlanger shares in this involving, vibrant, and affecting dispatch from the vanguard of plant research profoundly expands our appreciation for plants, their essential role in the great web of life, and how recognition of plant intelligence can help us reverse environmental decimation.
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