Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [27]
I asked him to comment further on how other scientists had received his research. He said that when he travels and presents his work, it is not questioned much. Rather, it leads other scientists to ask themselves questions they have not previously considered. He regards this as a success, even if his work does not provide answers to his main questions.
When asked if he could suggest any other scientists doing work on intelligence in nature, he mentioned an Austrian biologist studying cognition in amoebas. He also suggested several Japanese research teams: one working on color vision among insects, another on cricket olfaction, and a third on butterfly neurology. âGo to Japan,â he said.
I left Martin Giurfa in front of his laboratory in the early afternoon. We promised to stay in touch. I felt elated, but also a bit dazed. I had come half expecting to meet a cold scientist. Instead I found a fellow who encouraged me to keep looking into intelligence in nature. I felt as if he had given me a license to continue deeper into unknown territory.
Chapter 6
PREDATORS
I returned to the Jura Mountains and spent the following months reading and thinking about plants and animals. Martin Giurfa had made me look into the relationship between movement and intelligence. It is true that some observers claim that plants lack intelligence because they do not see them move. But this is an optical illusion caused by the different timescales we operate on. Plants, in fact, do move.
Most plants move slowly, but some plants move fast even in human terms. A Venus flytrap can snap its leafy lobes shut in a third of a second to catch insects lured by its nectar. The flytrap is a predatory plant that eats flesh by secreting digestive juices and dissolving its prey. Its reflexes are triggered by electrical signals similar to those that run along our own nerves.
Unlike the Venus flytrap, most plants do not eat animals. Instead they take nutrition from sun and soil. Plants are also eaten in large amounts, being the basic element in all food chains. They are clearly successful at surviving, as they make up 99 percent of the mass of Earthâs living organisms.
Movement can be a criterion of intelligence among animals, but it does not apply to plants. They eat freely available sunlight and soil nutrients, so they mainly do not need to move from one place to another. Those among us who lack this ability are obliged to move about in search of food. Animals are, by definition, organisms that move to feed themselves. Animals are animate. They move.
Over the course of evolution, animals with efficient nervous systems have had an edge over their competitors. A nervous system that conducts information down to the muscles in a matter of milliseconds, rather than seconds, helps avoid being eaten. We use our brains to escape from predators. And as predators, we use them to catch our prey. This neurological arms race between animal predators and animal prey has certainly contributed to the development of brains such as our own.
But plants have not remained inactive. They may appear to sit around merely absorbing sunlight and being eaten in large amounts, but these brainless organisms have developed thousands of chemicals to try to stop themselves from being eaten. Plants have contributed to the arms race of evolution in the domain of chemistry. Unlike animals, they never had to develop movement or nervous systems to avoid predation.
We humans operate on a very rapid timescale compared to most plants. To us, plants can look stupid just sitting there. In fact, the term vegetable is an insult when applied to humans. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, it means âa person who is incapable of normal mental or physical activity, especially through brain damage; a person with a dull or inactive life.â We have animal prejudices against vegetables, and they come