A review by marc129
Loistavat kasvit - Mitä tiedämme kasveista ja niiden älykkyydestä? by Stefano Mancuso, Alessandra Viola

3.0

In 2019, I visited the exhibition “Nous les arbres” (we, the trees) in Paris at the famous Fondation Cartier. In the small park surrounding the glass building by Jean Nouvel, 2 trees were connected with wires to instruments that recorded all kinds of data. It was my first introduction to the Italian biologist Stefano Mancuso (University of Florence). He wanted to determine whether and how the trees involved respond to challenges and threats. I do not know the outcome of the investigation, but 6 years earlier Mancuso had already published this booklet, together with journalist Alessandra Viola. And its baseline is quite simple: plants are an undervalued species in our culture, we still have difficulty attributing 'intelligence' or 'sensibility' to them, while, measured by their problem-solving capacity, they are among the top of life on earth. Mancuso and Viola pull out all the stops to explain what they mean by that and they try to substantiate it as much as possible. In this they succeed quite well, although at certain times they have to admit that there is no hard scientific evidence for some of their claims. Fortunately they do not go as far as the German forester Peter Wohlleben ([b:The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World|28256439|The Hidden Life of Trees What They Feel, How They Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World|Peter Wohlleben|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1464281905l/28256439._SX50_.jpg|48295241]), who shamelessly attributes anthropomorphic behavior to trees, such as friendship and mourning, and who clearly ventures outside the scientific domain. What he and Mancuso and Viola do have in common is their boundless admiration for the miraculous life of plants, and their plea to take their intelligence and sensitivity seriously. And I can completely agree with that.