No, plants don't have feelings

And the repeated attempts to suggest otherwise may betray our latent discomfort with eating animals

Bleeding hearts
(Image credit: (Stephan Rech/Westend61/Corbis))

Why on Earth would somebody seriously entertain the notion that plants have feelings? One possible answer might be that the topic is too seductive to ignore. When Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird gave in to seduction and published The Secret Lives of Plants: A Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man in 1973 they were roundly accused of pseudoscience. But no matter: The book was a hit.

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