Why don’t we think plants are smart?

semi-related: Jellies are not opportunistic feeders but are ‘deliberately fishing’: How a box jellyfish catches fish - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The first feeding study of tropical Australia's Irukandji box jellyfish has found that they actively fish. They attract larval fish by twitching their extended tentacles, highlighting their nematocyst clusters (stinging structures) and using them as lures.,,, "This species is small, less than two centimeters (three-quarters of an inch) across the bell, they're 96% water, they lack a defined brain or central nervous system, and yet they're using their tentacles and nematocyst clusters like experienced fishers use their lines and lures," lead author Robert Courtney said. "They're not opportunistically grazing - they're deliberately fishing. They're targeting and catching fish that are at times as big as they are, and are far more complex animals. This is a really neat animal that is displaying a surprisingly complex prey capture strategy." http://phys.org/news/2015-06-jellyfish-fish.html ++++++++++++ as well, Jellyfish Sense Their Environment for Controlled Migration - January 27, 2015 Excerpt: Jellyfish are not exactly the quarterbacks (or leatherbacks) of the animal kingdom, but they have surprised researchers with their ability to swim against the tide, just like baby leatherback turtles do. Scientists even think they may be able to sense the earth's magnetic field, as do turtles, salmon, birds, and other long-distance migrators.,,, "Jellyfish are not just bags of jelly drifting passively in the oceans," he adds. "They are incredibly advanced in their orientation abilities." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/jellyfish_sense093031.html Did Neurons Evolve Twice? - The comb jelly, a primitive marine creature, is forcing scientists to rethink how animals got their start. - March 25, 2015 Excerpt: According to traditional evolutionary biology, neurons evolved just once, hundreds of millions of years ago, likely after sea sponges branched off the evolutionary tree. But Moroz thinks it happened twice — once in ancestors of comb jellies, which split off at around the same time as sea sponges, and once in the animals that gave rise to jellyfish and all subsequent animals, including us. He cites as evidence the fact that comb jellies have a relatively alien neural system, employing different chemicals and architecture from our own. “When we look at the genome and other information, we see not only different grammar but a different alphabet,” Moroz said. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150325-did-neurons-evolve-twice/ Amazing Jellies - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pimIbTqJLZcbornagain77

June 4, 2015

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Intelligence is everywhere in nature, and manifests itself in different ways.

Agreed. Some use that idea to minimize the qualities of human intelligence or to claim evidence of evolutionary ancestry (bacteria are intelligent, therefore humans). But once you minimize the capabilities and qualities of human intelligence, you also minimize the significance of this:

They are subtle, aware, strategic beings whose lives involve an environmental sensitivity very distant from the simple flower and seed factories of popular imagination.

Probably the best materialist argument remains as a form of spontaneous generation and a sort of animism: "Sub-atomic particles are a form of intelligent life. They are self-directed, aware, subtle, sensitive and possess indeterminate free will (revealed as quantum effects)." With that, materialists can get rid of Darwin and move right to self-organization and the "intelligent" properties of molecules to generate DNA code.Silver Asiatic

June 3, 2015

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