For the vegans, who think anybody who eats meat is an animal killer, I shouldn't have to remind them how the same farm equipment that is used to harvest the vegetables they eat, also sometimes accidentally kills cute little farm animals that run through the fields. This in turn makes eating vegetables no different than someone going up to that little creature and putting a bullet in it's head. Yes I don't want innocent animals to be killed, and yes I agree with some of PETA's stances, but whether you eat vegetables, or eat meat..either way, some poor defenseless animal runs the risk of being slaughtered or killed.
And they don't realize that vegetables are living, breathing things that they're killing for food. I don't think there's anything that's edible that hasn't resulted in some living thing dying.
Exactly, if plants can make themselves grow by photosynthesis, and if some plants have defense mechanisms against parasites it's safe to say they're living creatures. They think just because the plants 'have no brain' that they don't actually feel it when they die. Okay tell me why trees can't regrow after being chopped down then? Because you killed it you idiot. You can't kill something unless it's living.
I think a lot of vegans largest qualm is the inhumane treatment of animals leading up to their death in factory farms. Also, while plants are most definitely alive, they obviously can't suffer so they aren't really something we must take into our moral considerations innately.
How do you know they can't suffer? How do we know they can't feel pain, or distress? We're not plants, so we wouldn't know really. I seem to remember a study where certain chemicals were emitted when plants were cut or otherwise "injured". If I remember right, it was, in composition, somewhat similar to adrenaline.
Hmmm. I've always assumed that plants could feel some type of pain. They're kind of lucky too cause I don't much like eating them, Meat > Vegetables
Plants don't have nervous systems...they don't have pain receptors. Like, of course they still have signaling pathways and such in them, but they don't have an actual mind so they can't perceive pain or anything else...
I think the argument for plants is that there's no central nervous system like what's present in the animal kingdom.
At least not in the way we do. I'm very open minded about that kind of thing. My whole point on the matter is that you're still killing something when you take a plant out of the ground, or chop down a tree.
"There's something called being so open minded your brain falls out" There's no evidence for plants feeling pain. Sure it is possible, but any number of things are possible. Science works by believing what is proven, not just what hasn't been disproven. But yeah, you are obviously killing something. If any vegetarian argued against that they are extremely ignorant. Whether it is bacteria, plants, or animals something has to die for us to survive. It just so happens that only animals can actually suffer in the process, which I think is why some vegetarians see it as the morally superior choice to not eat them (especially the ones who are born in captivity, have hormones injected into them, have barely enough space to move, etc). I mean, morality is all about minimizing suffering so if we can survive while causing less harm I think it is innately more moral. I'm not a vegetarian myself as I really don't care about animals other than humans, but I think it is difficult to deny that it is still less moral to eat them.
To be fair, science hasn't proven plants can't feel pain. That's one of those unprovable elements of our world we'll never know about.
"Science works by believing what is proven, not just what hasn't been disproven." The null hypothesis is that they can't. Burden of proof is on the other side. Just because something is unprovable doesn't make all options equally likely.
How doesn't it? Say I've got an orb in my hand. I can't prove whether it's a baseball, a tennis ball or a shot-put. Because I can't prove what it is, that means it can't be any of those three things? That makes no sense.
No, it can. What I mean is this. In most scenarios you have a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis. The null is the "default". Like plants can feel pain unless you prove otherwise. Just as pigs can't fly until you prove otherwise. This don't mean plants CAN'T feel pain or pigs CAN'T fly, it just means we should believe they cannot as that is currently what is dictated by the evidence available to us.
I agree with Ross. Plants don't have nervous systems. Therefore, they don't feel things. I mean, it hasn't been proven, but really. They did something on Mythbusters about that. The plants didn't respond to physical or mental harm so...
My cousins A Vegetarian and she still will eat some Chicken but not much, Whenver we eat together for an event like Christmas or something the subject is NEVER brought up because we all KNOW she is and that is that. Nothing else to it. she grabs a salad, We grab a steak. Done