Pain is probably one of the original sensations. I doubt you could find any creature on Earth that doesn't feel it. It is extremely useful for staying alive. I bet we will find out plants even feel some form of pain if we haven't already.
I've seen videos of single cell organisms, and even they look like they feel pain when stabbed or eaten.
On the contrary I've seen one where one cell passes straight through another cell, making a hole. The cell that was passed through did not react at all and kept about its business afterwards, even regaining shape. Wild.
There's been several studies that say they might, but nothing entirely conclusive. Some say that the smell of freshly cut grass might be the grass screaming in pain and warning the rest.
It's not to warn the rest, it's even way cooler.
The smell attracts carnivores, and tells them "Hey there's some tasty herbivores over here" so they take care of the problem. The grass is snitching on the sheep.
Presumably that's why we like the smell of freshly mown grass, too (but such statements are impossible to prove in evolutionary biology).
I see, that's why sometimes we have to touch grass, so we can high five it for being a bro.
It depends on how you define "creature" and "pain". There's surely some single cell life that doesn't. Are those creatures? Also, for plants, there's growing evidence that many do release chemicals when hurt, which other plants and animals react to. Is that pain? I'd answer yes to both of those, but both are not hard definitions. They can be argued either way.
For plants it wouldn't make much sense since they can't really run away or otherwise stop the pain
Also worth saying that for animals, when someone nibbles off your arm, that's a serious injury which can strongly affect your survival chances. For plants, that's just a regular workday.
Kind of been my hardest lesson in keeping houseplants, too. Seemingly most plants need to be nibbled on (or ya know, get cut back), otherwise they will try to grow towards the sky and hurt themselves in the process.
I've killed two basil plants, because you look away for one second and they just grow half a meter tall. To support the weight, they become woody at the base. And eventually, they can't sustain the leaves at the top anymore, but when you cut them down to the woody part, they can't grow leaves on that anymore, so RIP... 🫠
because you look away for one second and they just grow half a meter tall.
Were they bolting? Bolting occurs when the plant is getting ready to flower, usually in response to high temperatures.
If you see your basil plant beginning to bolt, give it a trim. Otherwise it'll turn bitter. The link provided has more information about when and how to trim it to keep bolting under wraps.
Obviously advanced life forms will feel pain, why did we think otherwise?
Weirdly, it seems like "yes" for a large chunk of people. A lot of people seem to think only humans have a large gambit of emotions. Others think it's just mammals. It leads to a weird number of people who seem to think a lot of animals don't really feel anything
But, feeling is such an efficient and proven manner of influencing behavior of complex systems. Make it feel hungry, then it looks for food. It’s phenomenal. Why would we assume simpler beings rely on anything different?
Some people don't even believe in evolution, do there it is.
And besides that, some people want to believe their food don't have feelings.
It makes sense all organisms feel some sort of pain because it's related to self preservation, but not all of them have an ability to communicate about the pain. And even less number of them communicate pain in a way we could understand, and even less that we actually care to listen.
I'm not going to say they make sense, I'm just listing the beliefs I've come across.
Dude what is this news? Of COURSE insects feel pain? A child can see this clearly, as I did when I was a young'un. They twitch and scurry when injured or burned. Don't ask. Anyway.
Why would they be different from animals and FISH that was apparently news as well, that they feel pain and anxiety when caught and killed. Oh and crayfish and lobster when boiled alive 😂😂😂 why wouldn't they feel pain? It just seems so stupid to me to assume they wouldn't.
Here I thought we already knew this and did it anyway because... We gotta eat, right? Animals kill and eat barely-even-dead prey all the time, it's just nature, right??
But I grew up and learned humans don't think other animals feel pain whatsoever. Like bruh wuuuut???? Whatchu think was going on?!
Ok, now do sponges. Is it obvious sponges feel pain? How can you tell it's obvious?
People claim fish don't feel pain to feel better about torturing and eating them. So that is not ahocking at all to me
When I was in med school assisting in circumcisions (didn't want to, had to) the doctor said that the baby screaming was not proof that he felt pain, and demonstrated it by poking the baby and showing that he cried as a response to that. Absolutely nonsensical for a supposedly intelligent person to say. The cry was vastly different from the circ and a poke. It was an excuse not to use local anesthesia or justify the whole process I guess.
The funny part is that that when I was on OBGYN at a different hospital, and when I was at my home hospital on peds, the pediatricians did circumcisions. So I got twice as many circumcisions as my classmates. Some of them could have theoretically attended zero if their schedule was flipped and they were on peds at the OBGYN circumcising hospital and on OBGYN at the peds circumcising hospital.
I can't understand why someone would claim someone else doesn't feel pain. I wish we had a machine that could make someone feel for a second what you feel so that it stops being minimized or disbelieved.
I mean no offense, but some Dr's are wild. It's not just babies who are faking pain, but also women and POC. My husband was given the same pain meds/schedule for a cut on his thumb that I was for childbirth with a second degree tear. He was given even better pain meds the time we went in for a "mystery pain" in his chest that they could find no evidence of.
The very idea that others don't feel pain, when they're animals, just like we are is so fucking insane that I just don't can't deal with those people.
I lovr how there are a half dozen or so "well obviously duh' comments in here each with a half dozen or so replies all stating 'well not so obviously'
Well, since catch and release for insects is failboat, and managing an infestation of anything is a health hazard, bug spray ain't going anywhere, pain or not
Pain would cause an animal to flee. Why wouldn't every living thing have some sort of pain tolerance?
I seriously don't understand people's assumption that insects don't feel pain, or people who think bug spray is a painless option to kill. Seeing the bugs squirm for half an hour should probably clue you in. Personally it's my last resort.
Neurotoxins make them squirm but also woozy. I think this is a ok way to go.
Though only for vampire flies and gnats, in a closed room.
Wasps you can shoo away with a spray bottle and lavendel oil or another oil they hate, there are lists of plants online.
Over the many decades I've been alive, there have been regular articles saying "scientists discover that such-and-such an animal may feel pain." And then its forgotten and people continue to treat animals terribly, until a couple of years later a similar article comes out. I can't see where the thought would even come from in the first place that these animals wouldn't feel pain, except for religious dogma and a desire to continue abusing animals while telling yourself it's OK. There's no reason to even suspect most animals aren't feeling pain.
Why would you assume another organism can feel pain without any proof? Rationalism requires skepticism.
Also the fact that bug's are silently going extinct and nobody cares to notice, seriously stick your head out the window right now and listen, that is a silent apocalypse my friend.
"Feel" is something that requires consciousness and a sense of awareness that the pain being experienced is self-related. Consciousness requires complex systems and a nervous system which insects do not possess. Whilst reactive and reflexive actions are performed, whether they experience pain as a personal subjective phenomenon is something that isn't tested. Reaction isn't a proxy to consciousness.
Would a bacteria "feel" pain because it reacts to the environment?
I say this as someone that has almost a Buddhist approach to respecting living creatures. However, the science of consciousness and a physicalist approach inform my views.
Who thought they didn't?
Gotta join the chorus here. I'm not sure why anyone's surprised to find that something with functioning neurons can feel pain. Wild guess, because I'm not a neuroscientist, but that's gotta be one of the very first things they were ever responsible for conveying, right? "Ouch, don't" has pretty universal utility.
Why would any animated being run away from danger if it didn't feel pain? It should be assumed that animals feel pain. Pain keeps them away from danger, so they survive, and evolve with those pain genes. For plants however, whether they have pain genes or not doesn't matter for their survival so they evolve either way.
I don't think tending to damage is enough to prove pain.
Microbes detect and move away from danger. Plants detect danger and react to defend themselves. They also redirect resources to heal. Pain isn't necessary for this.
Pain is for learning, so you avoid what caused the pain. Beings that don't learn shouldn't feel pain, it would just be a waste of energy. That'd only happen in evolutionary quirks (ie loss of capacity to learn after gaining pain). Nature is cruel (grasshoppers get their heads eaten during mating) but not just for the sake of it.
And of course, there's humans that have a condition that makes them not feel pain. They still learn self preservation, and they have some reflexes too.
The article makes the comparison with a hurt dog. Dogs remember for life what hurt them. It's very obvious they learn from pain.
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
dart board;; science bs
rule #1: be kind