Vegetarians — the brutes …

If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them? - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The research findings of the team at the Blaustein Institute form yet another building block in the growing fields of plant intelligence studies and neurobotany that, at the very least, ought to prompt us to rethink our relation to plants. Is it morally permissible to submit to total instrumentalization living beings that, though they do not have a central nervous system, are capable of basic learning and communication? Should their swift response to stress leave us coldly indifferent, while animal suffering provokes intense feelings of pity and compassion?

Actually, this research seems to strengthen the proposition that intelligence, in one way, shape, form, or another, permeates being.