4 ms·

That’s not what the article said. Verbatim quote (emphasis mine): “…marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered stu

by yojo 3y ago

That’s not what the article said. Verbatim quote (emphasis mine): “…marigolds and sage plants exposed to the noise of traffic from a busy motorway suffered stunted growth” There’s a link in the article with more details on the experimental design: “The plants were grown from seed and allowed to mature for two months in the same space before they were divided into two groups. One group was exposed to 73 decibels of traffic noise recorded from a busy motorway in Tehran for 16 hours a day. The other group was left to grow in silence. After 15 days had passed, samples were taken from the youngest fully expanded leaves on every plant in the experiment and studied.” The plants were exposed to sound in a lab, with a control group. They were not actually next to a motorway.

pvaldes 3y ago
Evolving that system still does not have sense from neither a biological point of view, nor from a common sense. This came from the (incorrect) assumption than nature is quiet. Exactly the opposite to what we can empirically observe: The tallest, fast growing plants live in extremely loudly places called rainforests. Only the ocean is louder 73Db is a joke. Many of the animals here are incredibly loud. Common coqui frogs sing all night long at 90 Db, 20,000 frogs in each hectare. The place is filled with cicadas, Howling Monkeys, and Wild Red fowl roosters competing to be the most annoying thing. Cotinga birds and friends sing at 110-125 Db!. non stop, by day... Do we think that plants care about that? They couldn't grow faster.
- skeaker 3y ago
  How do you explain the difference in growth rate under controlled conditions, then?
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    > How do you explain the difference in growth rate under controlled conditions, then? There is not a lack of candidates: Riding the academy game (plants must be sentient now, just because this is where the money is now), pure luck (moving more of the better genetics to one group just by random), cherry picking (The experiment results were publishable the 49th time, pffew), or giving your greyhound a helping hand without even noticing it. Choose one, there are much more other coming. This single study is irrelevant because is negated by a million of empirical observations in the real life. We need to just stop for a minute and apply some old good common sense. To start Tagetes and Salvia are two extremely popular plants cultured in every f*k roundabout of each big city in this planet. Because they grow perfectly well in this (really noisy) conditions. How I know this? Because I like culturing plants, so I know what to expect. And this knowledge does not came from academy. Is achieved killing a few tons of plants by mistake like I did, and trying again. This is what this teams seem to be lacking. They are blind to the big picture. They just believe what they want to believe. Moreover, Tagetes and Salvia are unrelated, representatives of two different families with two very different defense strategies. Why they would need to evolve the same sound sensors twice?. There are tens thousands of counterexamples in the real world, against this single result (But then you don't have a career, of course).
    - skeaker 3y ago
      > Riding the academy game (plants must be sentient now, just because this is where the money is now), pure luck (moving more of the better genetics to one group just by random), cherry picking (The experiment results were publishable the 49th time) or giving your greyhound a helping hand (and faking the results). Choose one, there are much more other coming. In other words, "they are liars," "they did not account for genetics and there just happened to be mutations that killed samples in one group," "they are liars," or "they are liars." To your credit, point 2 could have very well happened and I can't seem to find an actual citation in the article to determine that it didn't, but I dislike your reasons to doubt them on all other points. You could hardly trust anything at all following that logic. Not to say that I doubt your experience. They certainly didn't test every plant in existence under every possible condition. I am certain that their results don't apply to everything.
      - pvaldes 3y ago
        In other words, 1) "what is not funded in science doesn't exist", 2) "sometimes you obtain the desired result by luck or rogue factors that are unrelated with your desired explanation" Speakers have big magnetos, for example. Other team could repeat exactly the same experiment and conclude that "magnetic forces stunt grow". 3) "sometimes only the 'correct' results can be published, so people repeat the experiment until being convinced of their results" and 4) "yes some scientists are liars" I will add a 5) you may favor desirable events and ignore undesirable ones without even realizing it (provide better care to one group, water for a few seconds more each day or have two different people caring for different groups)... ... Because unplanned events and lab accidents happen. I assume that having big speaker boxes near plants may trow a temporary shadow on them each day. If it happens in your lunch hour you could never realize it. And this things happen in science. All the time. I would suggest to put a couple of turned off speakers of the same size near the quiet group and repeat the experiment.

by yojo 3y ago

pvaldes 3y ago

Evolving that system still does not have sense from neither a biological point of view, nor from a common sense. This came from the (incorrect) assumption than nature is quiet. Exactly the opposite to what we can empirically observe: The tallest, fast growing plants live in extremely loudly places called rainforests. Only the ocean is louder 73Db is a joke. Many of the animals here are incredibly loud. Common coqui frogs sing all night long at 90 Db, 20,000 frogs in each hectare. The place is filled with cicadas, Howling Monkeys, and Wild Red fowl roosters competing to be the most annoying thing. Cotinga birds and friends sing at 110-125 Db!. non stop, by day... Do we think that plants care about that? They couldn't grow faster.

skeaker 3y ago
How do you explain the difference in growth rate under controlled conditions, then?
- pvaldes 3y ago
  > How do you explain the difference in growth rate under controlled conditions, then? There is not a lack of candidates: Riding the academy game (plants must be sentient now, just because this is where the money is now), pure luck (moving more of the better genetics to one group just by random), cherry picking (The experiment results were publishable the 49th time, pffew), or giving your greyhound a helping hand without even noticing it. Choose one, there are much more other coming. This single study is irrelevant because is negated by a million of empirical observations in the real life. We need to just stop for a minute and apply some old good common sense. To start Tagetes and Salvia are two extremely popular plants cultured in every f*k roundabout of each big city in this planet. Because they grow perfectly well in this (really noisy) conditions. How I know this? Because I like culturing plants, so I know what to expect. And this knowledge does not came from academy. Is achieved killing a few tons of plants by mistake like I did, and trying again. This is what this teams seem to be lacking. They are blind to the big picture. They just believe what they want to believe. Moreover, Tagetes and Salvia are unrelated, representatives of two different families with two very different defense strategies. Why they would need to evolve the same sound sensors twice?. There are tens thousands of counterexamples in the real world, against this single result (But then you don't have a career, of course).
  - skeaker 3y ago
    > Riding the academy game (plants must be sentient now, just because this is where the money is now), pure luck (moving more of the better genetics to one group just by random), cherry picking (The experiment results were publishable the 49th time) or giving your greyhound a helping hand (and faking the results). Choose one, there are much more other coming. In other words, "they are liars," "they did not account for genetics and there just happened to be mutations that killed samples in one group," "they are liars," or "they are liars." To your credit, point 2 could have very well happened and I can't seem to find an actual citation in the article to determine that it didn't, but I dislike your reasons to doubt them on all other points. You could hardly trust anything at all following that logic. Not to say that I doubt your experience. They certainly didn't test every plant in existence under every possible condition. I am certain that their results don't apply to everything.
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      In other words, 1) "what is not funded in science doesn't exist", 2) "sometimes you obtain the desired result by luck or rogue factors that are unrelated with your desired explanation" Speakers have big magnetos, for example. Other team could repeat exactly the same experiment and conclude that "magnetic forces stunt grow". 3) "sometimes only the 'correct' results can be published, so people repeat the experiment until being convinced of their results" and 4) "yes some scientists are liars" I will add a 5) you may favor desirable events and ignore undesirable ones without even realizing it (provide better care to one group, water for a few seconds more each day or have two different people caring for different groups)... ... Because unplanned events and lab accidents happen. I assume that having big speaker boxes near plants may trow a temporary shadow on them each day. If it happens in your lunch hour you could never realize it. And this things happen in science. All the time. I would suggest to put a couple of turned off speakers of the same size near the quiet group and repeat the experiment.