Called it!

[Leisher]

Years ago I wrote a front page article about the "Vegetable Holocaust".

Plants feel pain and are far more intelligent than you think.

Enjoy making that smug cocksucker vegetarian or vegan you know eat a shit sandwich.

[Alhazad]

Plants have a nociceptive response, which is necessary but not sufficient to assert that they experience pain. The other component is the ability to feel internal anguish, which is usually measured in the ability to incorporate it in decision-making, e.g. the choice to head back into the burning house because your dog is still in there.

There's no evidence of the second facet, only reflex and instinct actions. The second article has some interesting findings that could be used to test for the ability -- put areas of chewing sounds right in the expected growth path of plants and see if they grow to avoid it -- but no proof.

[Malcolm]

I'm with Al. The science isn't close to "likely" let alone "proven."

[Leisher]

I don't know why people spend money researching things when they can just ask the internet...

Seriously though, obviously there's still work to be done in the field, but defensive reactions indicate intelligence even if it's only enough to excrete a chemical.

[GORDON]

To my knowledge there aren't even nerves in plants much less any nerve clusters or ganglion that could be interpreted as an organ aware enough to register pain.

Bullshit study is bullshit.

[GORDON]

Seriously though, obviously there's still work to be done in the field, but defensive reactions indicate intelligence even if it's only enough to excrete a chemical.

But that isn't intelligence, you can get two chemicals to create a third chemical just by exposing them each other. "Basic natural laws" describes how 99% of the "irreducibly complex" human body works, in general, much less a plant.