I found the underlying assumption that this purported nutrient exchange is a form of "sharing" humorous. Why would these be good communist trees "To each according to its need, from each according to its abilities" i a sharing-the-means-of-production situation? It's not even a capitalist scheme where one tree offers the lowest price. The Douglas Fir is bullying the White Birch when it is stronger, demanding carbon. When it is weaker and in the shade, the birch raids the root village and takes back what it can. Mother trees are tribalist, even strictly clannish, giving resources only to their own offspring. What have they got against immigrant trees? This seems a terrible example for the children to be teaching them in school.
This is a great episode because the tree communication thing is like common knowledge at this point… I just heard it on the radio. I had never looked into it and assumed it was true!
I've picked up and skimmed the book in shops a few times, but never ended up buying it, possibly because of that hippy woo mystical vibe. That being said, the idea that fungi enable trees to "communicate" sounded fine to me as a metaphor. Kind of like how Dawkins never meant that genes are consciously selfish. But obviously, if the underlying scientific claims are wrong in the first place, that's a whole other problem!
I think it would be 100% fine to say that trees "communicate" if one sends signals to another which make the other change their behaviour! We say bees "communicate" by doing those little waggle dances or whatever, or computers "communicate" by sending electrical signals, and we know it's not the literally the same as a human conversing with another human, but it does involve the flow of information from one agent to another agent.
But the trouble is that we don't seem to have much evidence that they do send signals or change their behaviour. Or that it's a particularly useful framework to model trees as agents at all tbh.
Yeah. I think I'd heard some of the book's claims about signals and so forth, and been surprised, but hadn't really given it too much thought. I definitely wasn't aware of some of the more outlandish claims until I listened to this. Really interesting. And all the more surprising that Dawkins is such a fan!
This feels like a conspiracy built and disseminated by old trees to keep them safe from being cut down.
Big Tree
This has become required listening. Thank you.
Ents?
Hooom, hmmmm, let's not be too hasty
I found the underlying assumption that this purported nutrient exchange is a form of "sharing" humorous. Why would these be good communist trees "To each according to its need, from each according to its abilities" i a sharing-the-means-of-production situation? It's not even a capitalist scheme where one tree offers the lowest price. The Douglas Fir is bullying the White Birch when it is stronger, demanding carbon. When it is weaker and in the shade, the birch raids the root village and takes back what it can. Mother trees are tribalist, even strictly clannish, giving resources only to their own offspring. What have they got against immigrant trees? This seems a terrible example for the children to be teaching them in school.
This is a great episode because the tree communication thing is like common knowledge at this point… I just heard it on the radio. I had never looked into it and assumed it was true!
Guys, could you turn down the grievance mongering? It is essentially the whole episode....
I thought they handled it humorously
I've picked up and skimmed the book in shops a few times, but never ended up buying it, possibly because of that hippy woo mystical vibe. That being said, the idea that fungi enable trees to "communicate" sounded fine to me as a metaphor. Kind of like how Dawkins never meant that genes are consciously selfish. But obviously, if the underlying scientific claims are wrong in the first place, that's a whole other problem!
I think it would be 100% fine to say that trees "communicate" if one sends signals to another which make the other change their behaviour! We say bees "communicate" by doing those little waggle dances or whatever, or computers "communicate" by sending electrical signals, and we know it's not the literally the same as a human conversing with another human, but it does involve the flow of information from one agent to another agent.
But the trouble is that we don't seem to have much evidence that they do send signals or change their behaviour. Or that it's a particularly useful framework to model trees as agents at all tbh.
Yeah. I think I'd heard some of the book's claims about signals and so forth, and been surprised, but hadn't really given it too much thought. I definitely wasn't aware of some of the more outlandish claims until I listened to this. Really interesting. And all the more surprising that Dawkins is such a fan!