From: sankar@hal.COM (Sankar Bandy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Meat eating....etc!
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:29:29 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: quality.hal.com

In article <1992Aug13.004624.17055@u.washington.edu> ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan) writes:
>In article <16c98bINNsop@quality.hal.COM> sankar@hal.COM (Sankar Bandy) writes:
>.
>.
>>So looks can be pretty deceptive. It has been proved by Acharya J. C.
>>Bose and others after him that plants have emotion and pain; only the
>>outward response is different from animals. Even if functionally plants
>>are more different than animals, internally at the cell level, they are
>>all the same(An excellent reference is Dr. Carl Sagan's Cosmos, book
>>and video both). We are much more similar to the plants than we ever
>>think of.
>
>	That plants respond to electrical impulses is a very different
>	statement from "plants have emotion and pain". Secondly, never
The whole thing depends on how you define emotion and pain. If you are
expecting an animalistic external reaction like a 'cry' or 'visible'
motion, then by that restrictive definition you can say that they don't 
have any. But the plants do react to exeternal stimuli(both beneficial
and harmful) in a much profounder way than we can 'see'. The experiments
done to plants does not involve only 'electrical impulses' but all kinds
of them including mechanical, optical, electro magnetic etc. It has been
seen through the appropiate instrument that the plant do generate a
'panic' reaction when presented with a threat stimuli. For instance they
have a 'shudder' like reaction that can be observed through the instruments.
Their hormone production rate, photo synthesis etc are all drastically 
affected by a sudden and violent external stimuli. I think before you 
make sweeping statements like that, try to get more broader perspective
of consciousness and subjectivity. Like I said Dr. Karl sagan's Cosmos
would give you a good scientific perspective of our close relationship
to plants as well as animals.

>	mind that plants and animals are NOT the same at the cellular
>	level, even if they were so what? By the same reasoning, does

I think you did not read my posting properly, I said that plants and
animals ARE very similar in design at the cell level although they
differ in external behaviour.
>	the fact that human excrement is mostly cellulose and bacteria 
>	make it any desirable as food? I must have seen more number of
>	dubious posts in this thread than in any other. Whether you are
What is your point here ? Are you saying plants are similar to human
excrement or that human excrements have life ? A classic case of 
'obfuscation' perhaps ? Yes, yours is one of the most dubious post
I have seen for a long time.

>	for or against meat-eating, leave science alone (except where it 
>	relates to health and environmental issues); moral issues cannot 
>	be debated from a scientific standpoint.

I differ from you there. Science is there precisely to reinterpret our
morality in the light of new findings. Morality **MUST** be debated
in terms of Scientific findings and where it is established to be 
harmful **MUST** be discarded. For instance the current findings of
science is that plants cannot supply the human body all the essential
vitamins and proteins that it needs for proper growth and development.
So the best diet is a balanced mixture of vegetarian and non-vegetarian
ingredients. In fact the WHO gives a recomended list of items and their
relative percentages that is considered to be a balanced supply of 
nourishment for the human body at different ages and for both sexes. One
is free to choose from the lists ingredients that suites one's palate.

Sankar




>
>	For those unaware, there is a newsgroup for the discussion of
>	vegetarian issues - rec.foog.veg  Give it a try, you may even find
>	some good recipes amidst all the cacophony.
>
>								- Nagarajan