Claim: Tomatoes Scream when picked or cut

Details

There was a scientific paper that showed that tomatoes scream when cut

Problems With This Argument

1. The paper never mentioned or uses the word "screaming"

It's a misrepresentation of the contents of the paper to suggest that there is any mention of plants "screaming". They never use the word; this is just journalistic sensationalization. What they specifically said is that you can gather information about the health and state of the tomato plants by gathering and examining the ultrasonic frequencies that plants emit when the cells cavitate where they have been picked. This is an interesting and useful discovery.

What is neither interesting nor useful is that my tea kettle emits a loud whistle when it's done boiling. Obviously, that doesn't mean that boiling water in an appliance is somehow unethical because it hurts the kettle's feelings. Tea kettles, like plants and even bacteria, have no central nervous system and therefore no subjective experience of the world. Even though they might undergo physical changes in response to outside stimuli, they do not share the salient characteristics of animals that makes animals unethical to consume.

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