
Guided by Plant Voices - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/84/outbreak/guided-by-plant-voices
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chownie
The parts about plant acoustics are interesting, that's something I hadn't
encountered before but it makes sense. That's the most interesting part of the
given article that's provable.

The focus on habituation studies as if these findings are rocking the world
doesn't make sense to me. Holmes & Gruenberg ran habituation studies on
differing stimuli in 1965. Pfeffer ran habituation studies in 1873, all with
the same Mimosa Pudica!

The spiritualistic/shamanistic parts of the article are a bit suspect. The
circumstances are too into the outlandish to make sense to me:

1\. A scientist has dreams, in these dreams she sees people

2\. She is not seeking out psychedelic experiences

3\. She flies to Peru where these exact people happen to be, and she knew
where to find these people that she didn't know

4\. They just so happen to have psychedelic drugs, which she definitely wasn't
seeking out but accepted when they were offered (???)

5\. She has life changing experiences as a result of all of these unlikely
coincedences but is adamant that they're legitimate coincedence and not
planned

This quote is really what makes me doubt:

 _But even that is not correct because inside my head it does sound exactly
like a conversation. Not only that, but I know it’s not me. There is no way
that I would know about some of the information that’s been shared with me._

There's so many places she could've picked up the idea of using peas over
sunflowers, the sudden presentation of this idea during a hallucinogenic
experience is another in a chain of requests to the listener to ignore Occam's
Razor and opt for the more fantastic sounding.

~~~
bluntfang
I feel like your straw manning here. Shouldn't you be criticizing her work and
not how she came to do the work? The how is just a story, sure it's
fantastical. Sure she probably did drug tourism explicitly. Does that detract
from the outcomes? Does it make the data less trustworthy?

I assume you know a little bit about the startup scene since you're reading
HN. Do investors buy tech or do they buy compelling stories?

~~~
pvaldes
> She did drug tourism. Does it make the data less trustworthy?

Mmmh... Yes it does?.

Would we build the hanging bridge designed by the drunk engineer, or would
take the design of the sober boring guy? This is not much different.

This looks more a quest for social acceptation in the line of "craving to be
seen as cool" than about dry truth. Probably fueled by horrible working
conditions as researcher or by the pressure of finding something, whatever,
before a narrow interval of time expires. Can bring the beacon and even show
something new and unexpected, but can distroy also her credibility pursuing a
ghost race. Is a treacherous path.

" _The first time I went, I found this place that was in my dream. It was just
exactly the same as what I saw in my dream. It was the same man I saw in my
dream, grinning in the same way as he was in my dream._ "

This paragraph honestly triggers a blinking red flag for me.

 _" of course, all plants are psychedelic"_

seriously?

~~~
bluntfang
>Would we build the hanging bridge designed by the drunk engineer, or would
take the design of the sober boring guy?

Are you trying to say that successful engineers can't drink outside of the
job? Why the heck do you think startups have beer hours? It's so they get a
little loose and talk about their work and think up of ways to solve their
current problems.

------
guide42
An interest read on the subject is _plant intelligence and the imaginal realm_
by stephen harrod buhner.

Also the biography of barbara mcclintock.

