# Do Plants Feel Pain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 14, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136 "2011-12-14T06:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/1 "2011-12-14T06:26:56Z")
All I know is they were talking about it in the 1980’s, when I was still in grade and high school. When you do some act of violence against a plant, even something minor like clipping off a leaf, it reacts strongly. I think they attached an electrode to the plant. And there was a strong neuroelectric response. And that’s the last I heard of the matter. Does anyone know what became of these experiments? (And please feel free to interject your own opinions and experiences [I personally don’t know enough to form an opinion on this matter].) 🙂 P.S. I just had to add this: If true, whatever are vegetarians (and even vegans) to do now;). Sorry, I just had to interject that:). ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/2 "2011-12-14T06:41:25Z")
There’s no way they feel pain; they don’t have anything to feel pain with. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/3 "2011-12-14T06:44:08Z")
I thought the Master had answered this one already, but it turns out he was more focused on [whether they could feel others’ pain](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1077/do-plants-have-esp). ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/4 "2011-12-14T07:16:57Z")
This will be quite hard to believe but I swear it’s a true story: A little over 13 years ago I bought a property as an investment. There were some trees on it that I decided to have cut down. Not all of them, just a couple. The hippy arborist that came to do the work made comments that it was ethically wrong to cut down perfectly healthy trees. Why the \*\*\*k he was a tree cutter then is beyond me. But then he pointed out another tree that he claimed was “sick”. The tree looked fine to me. It looked quite healthy. I don’t remember what it was he said it had, but it wasn’t apparent to me. It was not one of the trees I wanted cut down. He went on a rant that the tree was “suffering” and if we didn’t cut it down I was being cruel to it. And how I was mean to cut down perfectly good trees because they were in a location I didn’t want them in, but I was even meaner to let a sick tree go on suffering. :eek::rolleyes::smack::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Needless to say, I chased this goofy dip shit off my land and refused to pay for the little bit of work he actually did. But my point is, there are people out there that think plants feel pain. And they’re crazy as a shit house rat!!! ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/5 "2011-12-14T08:45:05Z")
you should have Glocked his face. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/6 "2011-12-14T09:25:31Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/7 "2011-12-14T10:11:51Z")
What matters is that crabs and lobsters feel pain. They are usually boiled alive. That is one of the reasons I do not eat them. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/8 "2011-12-14T10:20:42Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > What matters is that crabs and lobsters feel pain. They are usually boiled alive. That is one of the reasons I do not eat them. Funny thing is, people usually do this because they can’t stand killing them ahead of time. That said, supposedly, if you freeze them, they will not warm up enough to feel pain before they die. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/9 "2011-12-14T10:27:30Z")
Plants do react to trauma - for example, by producing additional thorns when they are grazed by animals, or by producing chemical toxins in response to insect attack. But these reactions are typically fairly slow to react (for example, they may be growth-based and driven by hormones), they’re not instantaneous, and probably more relevantly, they’re not general-purpose reactions. In animals, pain is a _general_ response to damaging stimuli, resulting in a reaction which (hopefully) resolves promptly to remove the risk of damage. Plants generally\* do not have the mechanisms with which they could _respond_ to pain, let alone the apparatus to percieve it (or percieve _anything_). \*With a few notable exceptions - the sensitive mimosa, for example, has a mechanism that permits it to collapse rapidly when touched. To insist that plants feel pain broadens the definition of pain so as to make it useless. We would also have to describe parking meters as ‘feeling hungry’ when the purchased parking time time expires, and describe cellphones as ‘feeling tired’ when their batteries are running low. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/10 "2011-12-14T14:18:43Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > To insist that plants feel pain broadens the definition of pain so as to make it useless. We would also have to describe parking meters as ‘feeling hungry’ when the purchased parking time time expires, and describe cellphones as ‘feeling tired’ when their batteries are running low. That analogy doesn’t hold. You’re extending zoomorphic responses to non-living things whereas the OP only asks if they extend to flora, which, though not animals, are as a class quite a few million years of evolution distinct from any category of non-living things. That said, I doubt anyone could show that plants have the level of consciousness required to be classified as ‘feeling pain’. They definitely do have the capacity to ‘feel’ stimuli and [react](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_pudica) to it, but does that count as pain? Probably not. Vaguely related…I remember reading a sci-fi style story where a guy invents a machine that can hear plants scream when they get damaged. Does anyone know which one I’m talking about? ETA: A quick search shows that it was the Sound Machine by Roald Dahl ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/11 "2011-12-14T14:20:04Z")
If we could hear trees scream, would we still cut them down? I suppose we would, if they screamed all the time for no good reason. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/12 "2011-12-14T14:39:01Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > P.S. I just had to add this: If true, whatever are vegetarians (and even vegans) to do now;). Sorry, I just had to interject that:). Don’t want to hijack, but just point out that there are many other valid reasons for vegetarianism besides animals feeling pain. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/13 "2011-12-14T14:42:14Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > If we could hear trees scream, would we still cut them down? I suppose we would, if they screamed all the time for no good reason. If a tree screams in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/14 "2011-12-14T16:47:07Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > That analogy doesn’t hold. You’re extending zoomorphic responses to non-living things whereas the OP only asks if they extend to flora, which, though not animals, are as a class quite a few million years of evolution distinct from any category of non-living things. It’s an analogy. Analogies are by definition, imprecise, illustrative tools. Maybe this wasn’t a very good choice analogy, but the point is: plants react to stimuli in a way that is, as far as we can tell, mechanical and without conscious perception - like a non-sentient machine. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/15 "2011-12-14T17:32:52Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > All I know is they were talking about it in the 1980’s, when I was still in grade and high school. When you do some act of violence against a plant, even something minor like clipping off a leaf, it reacts strongly. I think they attached an electrode to the plant. **And there was a strong neuroelectric response.** And that’s the last I heard of the matter. I’m not sure how the bolded part could be true, as a plant has no neurons. There may be some sort of electro-chemical response, I guess. [Here](http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/can-plants-think-ctd.html)is a somewhat recent recount of someone who was interested in this: L. Ron Hubbard. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-plants-feel-pain/606136/16 "2011-12-15T02:05:37Z")
This thread reminds me of the joke [attributed to A. Whitney Brown](http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/23557.html): > [@](#): > > I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals. I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants.