Talk:Plant intelligence

Plant gnosophysiology

@Pek @Remsense

Plant gnosophysiology is not a mainstream term nor is the term hardly used in the field of plant intelligence or any field of botany in general. A scan in the scientific literature shows only a handful of uses. Do we really need to mention this term in the lead? If the term was used more it may be warranted but this seems UNDUE to me. Veg Historian (talk) 18:21, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

My instinct, knowing next to nothing adequate in any adjacent field, is that it probably shouldn't be given in the lead, yeah. Remsense 🌈 论 18:22, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

But the term plant neurobiology is total misnomer, because plants don't have neurons. How can we have this in the lead, if it's such a huge misnomer. --Pek (talk) 18:24, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

It's not exactly our job as wiki editors to decide which terms used by our sources are "correct". Remsense 🌈 论 18:27, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Well at least keep the term plant gnosophysiology as a great alternative. It's not a bad thing to have alternative terms in the lead, I don't think there is any harm in that. --Pek (talk) 19:05, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

How about including it, but moving it out of the lead? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Complexities

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 March 2026 and 30 April 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): HamterFan, Xyan612, Candlewish (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Nymaker (talk) 01:22, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Tag

I've tagged the modern research section of this page for containing fringe theories without giving enough weight to mainstream scientific views. Largely, I did this because the language used states the existence of physiological phenomena that exist in animals, as though they may also exist in plants, when in fact this content is more about proposed processes that resemble, rather than actually are, animal phenomena. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Agree, we need to put this into mainstream perspective from plant physiology. Just to note Ken Yokawa, Ramsey Affifi and Vicente Raja have not argued for plant consciousness so it is misleading to put them under that subtitle. Carrot juice (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

In that regard, I have concerns that this might raise WP:BLP issues. Looking at that some more, I also think that in some cases there is a problem with organizing this content around the individual names of people. In some cases, this is appropriate, when someone has individually published a claim about plant intelligence. But a number of the cited sources are multi-author journal articles, and it is misleading to attribute a view to whoever was the first author. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

Then would you say arguments that go against plant neurobiology, exposing plant processes being resemblant of animal phenomena instead, should go in modern research? I initially wanted to put such ideas into the criticisms section. HamterFan (talk) 17:38, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two parts to that. The first is that it's misleading to present modern research as supporting plant intelligence. It doesn't, and the new text fails to make that sufficiently clear. The second is that, as pointed out by Carrot juice, some of the researchers are not really proponents of plant intelligence, but people who have examined both sides of the issue. I suggest taking a look at WP:CRITS, for how we try to deal with these things on Wikipedia: it's best to avoid having a point-counterpoint between "support" and "criticism" sections within a single article. So, while I'm OK with leaving the brief section about criticism, that was here before, in place, I would not want to have it become lengthy, especially when some sources would appear in both parts. The modern research section should cover the entire topic of modern research about plant intelligence, rather than segregating information on the basis of pro and con.

Also, Wikipedia differs from scientific journals in that we generally do not say things like "In 2023, Auge et al. described... ". If the author is someone notable (like Bose), then it makes sense to name them explicitly. But when we are citing an article with multiple authors, we cannot assume that the first author was the principal investigator. I'd change "... described plant memory as an environmental-dependent adaptive mechanism that utilizes past environmental stimuli to optimize future growth through better resource distribution" to "Plant memory has been described as an environmental-dependent adaptive mechanism that utilizes past environmental stimuli to optimize future growth through better resource distribution", with the superscript citation at the end of the sentence serving for attribution. Sometimes, giving the year is helpful, but not always. In this way, the narrative changes for the better (for our purposes), from being about who said what, to being about how research has progressed. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:05, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

I see that one of the student editors removed the Auge part, but did not fix any of the multiple other places with the same problem. I gave Auge as an example, but it's far from the only one. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 22 April 2026 (UTC)