Do Carrots Scream?
Communication is all around but we fail to “hear” it and vegetables may not be as silent as we think
“How do you know that carrots don’t scream when you pull them out of the ground?” The student in the biology lecture hall was now the object of disbelieving looks, shakes of the head, and twirling of fingers indicating she must be crazy.
The professor was no less dumbfounded as he stared in her direction. Words did not come to him quickly, and he fumbled for a response. What could he say?
He responded that, of course, vegetables did not have feelings, did not scream, as she indicated, and we should dismiss the subject entirely. After all, we were talking about simple, one-celled plants and their cytoplasm, not carrots, not vegetables of any type. If we had been talking about vegetables, would he have had a better response?
The professor wheeled on his heel, muttering to himself, and returned to sketching the outline of the one-celled plant on the blackboard. All of us, feeling she must be mortified, bent our…
