In article ,
Alan Gould wrote:
In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

Well, as they generally lack anything like a scent receptor and
invariably lack anything like a nervous system, it seems a
reasonable deduction. You will gather that I have no great time
for Lysenko, but I am perhaps not alone in that :-)

T.D.Lysenko proposed that acquired characteristics are inheritable,
which may well be interesting but it has little to do with plant
sensibilities. Plants may not have a scent receptor, or a nervous system
of the kind found in animals, but they have some plant equivalent of
them. That enables them to detect and respond to a variety of
environmental conditions such as light, temperature, humidity, time,
soil nutrients, air pollution, insect and animal presence etc. etc.
I am suggesting that they may also be able to detect and respond to
other things like smell and noise.

They can certainly respond to particular chemicals (whether airborne
or not) and vibrations, but to describe that as a "sense of smell"
or a "sense of hearing" is pushing things beyond reason. Plants most
definitely do not stop growing because of bad smells!

I am pretty sure that Lysenko also proposed many other ideas, including
one of plants having a sensory system. I associate the basic idea
of inheritance of acquired characteristics (which IS the case for
mammalian behaviour and arguably human intelligence) with Lamarck.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679