Then show me the scientific evidence of pain in mammals. What pattern of neurons must fire to show a pain response? And no, simply asking someone for a number does <i></i>not<i></i> count.<p>And for the article which I assume you didn&#x27;t read:  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pri.org&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2014-01-09&#x2F;new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pri.org&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2014-01-09&#x2F;new-research-plant-int...</a><p>&quot;So what about pain? Do plants feel? Pollan says they do respond to anesthetics. &quot;You can put a plant out with a human anesthetic. ... And not only that, plants produce their own compounds that are anesthetic to us.&quot; But scientists are reluctant to go as far as to say they are responding to pain.&quot;<p>And only a bit further down the page, is an example of plants learning:<p>&quot;Mimosa is a plant, which looks something like a fern, that collapses its leaves temporarily when it is disturbed. So Gagliano set up a contraption that would drop the mimosa plant, without hurting it. When the plant dropped, as expected, its leaves collapsed. She kept dropping the plants every five to six seconds.<p>&quot;After five or six drops, the plants would stop responding, as if they&#x27;d learned to tune out the stimulus as irrelevent,&quot; Pollan says. &quot;This is a very important part of learning — to learn what you can safely ignore in your environment.&quot; &quot;<p>Let me see:<p>Living? Check.
Reproducing? Check.
Responds to stimuli? Check.
Language for expression (chemical vs voice)? Check.
Doesn&#x27;t respond when subject to anesthetic? Check.<p>I ask again: what makes plant life &#x27;less than&#x27; animal life as you defend? I argue that they are equal.<p>&gt; You are baseless if you think your pandering to plants makes torturing animals any more righteous.<p>It&#x27;s not &quot;pandering&quot;: They respond to pain, they communicate, and they live. Same with humans, birds, mammals, bacteria, yeasts..  And nor do I advocate torturing animals, which you seem to think I am eager to do. I eat, knowing that whatever I ate gave its life so that I may continue to live.<p>So, what is your minimum level of lifeform that you consider to have the rights of &quot;animal&quot;? What is your criteria