Plants can think and feel, they also have self-preservation in mind. While plant emotions may not be as complex as human emotions, well, neither are non-sentient emotions. (Excluding mice and other primates.) Fruit aren't alive, though, if you tear an apple from a tree then the tree will be like... hurt and stuff. You said it yourself, humans aren't dominant simply because we say we are. Then you make the induction that, since you don't know if plants can or cannot think or feel, (They can, polygraph proven) that since you are of higher judgement because you don't "murder" animals, that you are invariably right. And honestly, if humans weren't eating cows, something else would be. And this 'something else' doesn't kill the animal before eating it. If anything, humans are mercy-killers.
Well I guess I'm a horrible person because I eat meat. I have had rabbit, squirrel, pork, beef, lamb, poultry and Venison. I'm sure there are others I can't think of off the top of my head. I used to hunt and help my family dress the animals they got from hunting or raised to eat. I do also eat plants. I was raised to try anything once and if I don't like it to POLITELY say no thank you and not touch it again.
Plus they are autotrophs and are actually the only source of food since they turn the energy of the sun into carbohydrates which are then eaten either directly or indirectly by every other living organism.
It's Life. If hunters didn't kill rabbits and deer, their population would sky rocket. Who ever put us on this earth made it so that one species is contained enough that it won't over populate. Think of flies. There are billions of them. They lay eggs like crazy. But they are small so it can keep the species down. If a hawk didn't kill a mouse. We'd probably have mice in our hair right now. I am a "Murderer" I guess because I buy steak at the market. Usually animals that are farm raised like it says on the package ( for fish i know) are bred to be killed and usually killed humanely. Think of war. Killing one for another's belief. Meat eaters believe that since the animal is killed or whatever that it is ok. Vegetarians believe that killing an animal is wrong. I have the solution to this argument. If there were no vegetables, grazing animals could not live, and lets say a cow for example poops. They use cow manure as fertilization for farms. If they did not have said fertilization the vegetables would idk, not grow as quickly or be as nice to eat?
We are the dominant species because we have the ABILITY to say we are. Do you see any other species going out, making communities, THRIVING, and making their own food? Do you see other species entertaining themselves? Do you see other species expanding their population? Do you see other species that are not endangered by any other species? We aren't prey to anybody but ourselves, that is why we are dominant. If you are a religious person, chances are you aren't vegetarian. Not meaning to offend those Atheists out there. (Not that anybody cares) But whatever God we have put us on this Earth as a dominant species.
I say eat and let eat. I enjoy a nice murdered cow stuck between two buns smothered in ketchup, and you like lettuce and tree branches. Who are we to judge how others eat?
Most plants make their own food. I've seen birds playing in steam billowing up out of factories for fun. All species work to expand their populations. Humans are threatened by other species, but have better ways of preventing it. Humans aren't the only species that can do these things, so these can't really be reasons why we're dominant.
All plants make their own food. It's part of what defines the Kingdom Plantae: autotrophic. Although some plants have less ability to make their own food and actually gain some of their food by being parasitic or rarely even carnivorous (pitcher plants and flytraps, for example). Prior to 1969, fungi were considered part of the kingdom Plantae but partly because they don't produce their own food via photosynthesis they were reclassified. Interestingly, molecular and DNA evidence shows that Fungi are more closely related to Animalia than to Plantae. (So don't eat any mushrooms, because that's murder. )
This was tested on MythBusters and it was busted. As far as they could tell plants cannot think or feel.
This thread has gotten way out of hand, I started this because I wanted to know if real life vegetarians chose to be vegetarians in MC that is all.
They tested it using the scientific principle that if something is true it should be repeatable. It was not repeatable hence it was not true.
First, I'm curious which plants they chose to test since they could probably do a similar episode with some animals and get similar results. Second, I had surgery in February where they had to "put me under." During the anaesthesia, I could neither think nor feel. So if lack of ability to think and feel is the moral criteria for what we can eat then it would be totally moral to go to hospitals and start dining on people under anaesthesia. (Which kind of reminds me of a Stephen King short story called Survivor Type)
When I said "most plants" I was excluding flytraps and other simmilar plants due to not being completly sure if the could do photosynthesis, but I guess it was safe to assume they do, because they have chloroplast and are in the kingdom Plantae. I don't know what I was thinking, honestly. I'm in biology in high school so I know about the kingdoms through species.
1.I'm a pacifist. 2.Before the "New World"(North and South America) was "discovered" in the 15th century by Columbus there were very few people living here. This meant that most of the ecosystem had little or no human contact, and yet it sustained itself. Ecosystems do not need intervention from humans.
Actually, College Biology 2 (with Lab) and Calculus 2 were the only college classes I didn't get As in, but I did learn enough of the basics to get by (not that there were ANY basics in Calculus [<---me in Calc class]).
