Have you heard of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse? In the tale, the city mouse is more savvy than the country mouse. When it comes to the wild plant and the house plant, the roles are switched. This is just some of the work that Dr. Paco Calvo is researching at the MINT Lab (Minimal Intelligence Lab). Dr. Calvo is a cognitive scientist and a philosopher of biology. He and his students are doing amazing work regarding plant cognition.
Dr. Calvo has recently written a new book called Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence. This is a must read for anyone who works with plants, is interested in plants, or who wonders how plants could possibly be intelligent (and they are). The information and compelling argument for plant intelligence is well laid out. Dr. Calvo talks about historical thinking regarding plants, Darwin’s personal research on plants, and how ground-breaking work is being done by modern scientists on plant communication and intelligence. He doesn’t write the book with the assumption that you will agree with him, rather he approaches the idea of plant intelligence with discussion from both sides. His ultimate goal is that you will become, at least a bit, flexible in your thinking regarding plant intelligence and be willing to say “what if?” I will say that there are certainly plenty within the scientific community who don’t.
Dr. Paco Calvo’s research is now leaning towards the intelligence of wild plants. Do they differ greatly in their abilities versus domestic plants, how and in what ways? This is exciting research and I look forward to seeing the future scientific research.
Please see the following links for more information on his work.
-”The Un-Nerving of Intelligence” (YouTube)