Can Plants Feel?

[Kalei]

Very weird question, but ever since a long time ago, I have always wondered if plants can feel pain or not. If we cut a bush, or pull out a flower, does the plant feel anything? I wonder if there would ever be a way to know?
http://i14.tinypic.com/4y806m1.jpg

[Hellow]

I dunno. I have always wondered that too. I guess it needs to go alongside the question "Does the refrigerator light go off when we close the door?" LOL.

[Karen]

I don't think plants feel pain, given all that we have studied and dissected about them, I do not think they have anything like the nervous system of even the simplest invertebrate that is what enable us to feel pain.

[crow_noir]

There was an experiment done where there were some volt meters or something like that... I forget what they are called. The were attached to some plants. A high school teacher was conducting this. he asked for one person to stay after the class. He instructed that person to one day walk into the class and brutally kill one of the plants. For a whole week everyone took care of the plants. Then the morning after The Day the teacher had the students walk into the class single file. When the person that killed the plant walked into the room the needles went flying like crazy on the meters.

[Kalei]

There was an experiment done where there were some volt meters or something like that... I forget what they are called. The were attached to some plants. A high school teacher was conducting this. he asked for one person to stay after the class. He instructed that person to one day walk into the class and brutally kill one of the plants. For a whole week everyone took care of the plants. Then the morning after The Day the teacher had the students walk into the class single file. When the person that killed the plant walked into the room the needles went flying like crazy on the meters.

Holy crap, I'm not exactly sure what it means, but it sounds scary. What were the needles detecting?

[Catlady711]

I saw this episode on Mythbusters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_4%29#Primary_Perception

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal)
More recently, the television show MythBusters performed an experiment aiming to either verify or disprove the concept. The tests were done by connecting plants to a polygraph's galvanometer, and then employing both actual and imagined harm upon the plants, or upon others in the plant's vicinity. The galvanometer showed some readings which surprised the researchers initially (showing some kind of reaction about one third of the time), so a much more accurate EEG machine was used. However, when the presenters used a machine that dropped eggs randomly into boiling water, the plant had no reaction whatsoever, though they were using methods which Backster would not have accepted. The show concluded that the theory was bogus.

[KittyGurl]

I've heard if you pulled a leaf out of the plant it won't feel nothing. I guess it's the same thing with trees and grass too. Not sure if it's true though.

[Kalei]

Wow I just got alot of information from many sites about if plants can feel pain or not.

There are definately alot of arguments about it, but essentially, plants do not have a brain or a nervous system, which is what a living being needs to feel pain. So right now I"m leaning on the plants not feeling pain side.