The truth about the secret life of plants

The NRG website conjured up an old idea that plants have feelings. After the mess of an interview with a dead person, at least it's a far-fetched but harmless idea. Here is the explanation - why the researcher's work was not scientifically valid

The consciousness of plants or the Baxter effect - a complete 'science' in an office pot

Plants are living creatures with cell walls made of cellulose (cellulose), lack nervous systems and have no sensory organs. The cell wall of animals, on the other hand, does not contain cellulose, but they have nerves and sensory organs.
The website skepdic.com states that no physiologist - whether he deals with animals or plants would ever think of trying to conduct experiments on plants to find consciousness or EPS because their knowledge would be enough to rule out the possibility that plants have feelings or consciousness and certainly not with the strength of human feeling and cognition. In simple terms: plants do not have brains or anything resembling a brain.
However, one person who is ignorant of everything related to animals and plants not only conducted such experiments on plants to detect sensations and emotions, but even claimed to have scientific proof that plants experience a wide variety of sensations and emotions. He also claimed that the plants could read human minds. His name is Cleve Backster and he published his research in a New Age magazine called the International Journal of Parapsychology under the title "Evidence for primal recognition in plant life"). The article was published in the winter 1968 issue (volume 10, issue 4) of the journal. He tested his plants on a polygraph machine and found that plants respond to truth and lies.
Dr. Baxter claims to have a D.Sc degree in Complementary Medicine from Medicina Alternativa. He also claims a degree from the Institute of Technology for Human Sciences, an unknown institution founded by Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama to study "humans as three dimensions". Dr. Motoyama claims that he is a scientist and a Shinto priest who "reached a level of awareness that allows him to see beyond the boundaries of time and space."
So he's not a doctor. Baxter's 'scientific' claims have been refuted by Horowitz, Lewis and Gasteiger (1975) and Kmetz (1977). Kamtez summarized his findings against Baxter in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer (1978). Baxter did not properly use the controls during the experiment. When controls were used, the researchers were unable to detect responses or thoughts about truth and lies. These researchers found that the causes of polygraph errors can be the result of several factors, including static electricity, movements in the room, changes in humidity, etc.

Despite this, Baxter became a favorite of some cult leaders, parapsychologists and pseudo-scientists. His work has been cited as a defense of dowsing and other forms of energy healing, instrumentless remote sensing, and the Silva Mind Control Program (also known as the Silva Method). In 1995, Buckster was invited to lecture at the Silva International Convention in Laredo, Texas. Almost 30 years after his original 'discovery', he still tells the same story. It is a very revealing story and worth repeating. It shows his curious nature, as well as his ignorance of the danger of confirmation bias and self-esteem. Baxter clearly does not understand why scientists use controls in causal studies.

Baxter says that on February 2, 1966, in his laboratory in New York, he performed the initial plant experiments. His laboratory was not a scientific laboratory. In fact, it wasn't a lab at all in the first place. It was a place where he conducted training in the use of the polygraph. There was a plant in the room. And according to him, "For unclear reasons, it seems to me that it would be interesting to see how long it takes for the water to reach the root, the entire length of the stem, and finally the leaves. After saturating the plant, I thought, 'What could be, I have a lot of polygraph equipment, let's check the reaction of the device that tests the galvanic skin of The polygraph for the leaves".
The GSR leaf galvanic tester - galvanic skin response - is a section of the polygraph that tests the skin's resistance to a weak electric current. Proponents of polygraph use say that these reactions of the skin are related to excitement, and therefore to telling the truth. The theory is that if the person lies, he is more anxious and the amount of sweat increases somewhat but at a measurable rate. As the sweat increases, the resistance to electric current decreases. Baxter is clearly a curious type. No one else would check how long it takes water to get from the root to the leaves in an office plant. And so began the era of plant investigations with real machines.
Baxter's claims were publicized and supported by a number of people with similar knowledge and expertise to his own. Journalist Peter Tompkins and horticulturist Christopher Bird wrote the book "The Secret Life of Plants" in 1989. The book presented the works of Baxter and other "scientists" who allegedly proved that plants have telepathic ability and have feelings, fear and love. Bird is also the author of Modern Vegetable Growing and Tompkins has several "secrets" books: Secrets of the Great Pyramid (1997), The Big Secret of Living in Nature: Living in Harmony with a Hidden World of Ghosts to Quarks (1997) and Secrets The land - new solutions for the restoration of our planet" (1998).
Despite the lack of scientific support for the theory of plant awareness, the idea is accepted by many not only as truth, but as one that has been confirmed in numerous studies. In fact the power of plants to understand human thoughts by reading our bioenergetic fields is a term known among parapsychologists as the Baxter effect.
It is clear that Baxter and his successors believe that they are doing basic and important scientific work. Why didn't he win the Nobel Prize? Why is almost the entire scientific community ignoring him? The answer should be self-evident. However, Baxter continues his work at the Baxter Research Center in San Diego, California, where he claims to be able to demonstrate that plants respond to his love and even quote the commands he transmits to them in thought.

Scientific support?
Although mainstream scientists have long refuted Baxter's claims about telepathy in plants and their awareness, a New Age/UFO site called Earthpulse.com, which sells books "from the front of science," quotes a botanist named Richard M. Klein from the University of Vermont who agreed to provide the content for the back cover of the book "The Secret Life of Plants". "If I can't penetrate a plant" or feel emotions" coming from a plant, and I don't know anyone who can, it doesn't mean that there can't be someone else who will have abilities that other people don't have."
Those are indeed silly words, and they are also true, but a search on the University of Vermont website did not turn up any member of the botany department or any other department named Richard M. Klein. Maybe Mr. Klein was abducted by aliens, or maybe he's working with Mr. Baxter on how to properly conduct a double-blind controlled experiment. After all, Baxter might find a better use for a polygraph.