SOME CULTURED CONVERSATION FOR SCIENTIFIC ADVANCEMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010074-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 9, 2014
• Sequence Number: 74
• Publication Date: February 1, 1975
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2014/01/09:
CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010074-4
SCIENCE
Some Cultured Conversation
For Scientific Advancement
YOGURT, From Cl
Backster's e x periment?
titled "Evidence For Pri-
mary Perception in Plants"
?was given wide circula-
tion in the best-selling book,
now a paperback, "The
Secret Life of Plants."
After his initial, almost
accidental, discovery that
plants registered reactions
on a lie detector when they
were threatened, Backster
spent two years designing
an experiment that could
prove that plants feel emo-
tion, which they show
through electrical vibrations
that can be picked up by a
lie detector. Finally, he de-
cided to drop live brine
shrimp into boiling water
and measured the reaction
of philodendron plants with
a lie detector.
He found once again that
the plants reacted violently
to the death of the shrimp
and concluded that plants
have some form of primary
emotion.
But when three students
at Cornell University, along
with their professor, Edgar
L. Gasteiger, tried to repeat
the experiment, they got no
responses from 60 killings.
Oddly enough, Gasteiger
said, the students started as
believers in Backster's work
and received help from him.
Another believer, John M.
Kmetz, also failed to repeat
Backster's experiments at a
well-equipped laboratory in
San Antonio, Tex., called
Science Unlimited Research
Foundation that was set up
with a million dollar grant
to prove that plants can
communicate.
He was aided by Backster
in planning the experiment
and used more than 100
plants and more than 200
brine shrimp. In contrast,
Backster made only 13 at-
tempts at killing shrimp.
"There is no correlation
whatsoever between the kill-
ing of brine shrimp and get-
ting a reaction from a
plant," Kmetz said yester-
day.
Backster, though, insisted
that both Gasteiger and
and Kmetz?despite his ad-
-vice?varied from his exper-
imental design in ways that
made the difference be-
tween his success and their
failure.
"He comes to me and
gives suggestions on what I
should do," said Kmetz.
"When I do what he says
and don't get the results he
wants, he comes to you and
says I didn't do it right."
Backster faulted the Cor-
nell group for changing the
equipment. "This has been
one of the bugaboos as far
as replicating the experi-
ment," he said. Gasteiger,
however, insisted that Back-
ster had approved equip-
ment changes in advances
because they improved the
experiment.
"Our experiment," Gas-
teiger said, "was done more
carefully than the one that
Backster published."
The audience was divided
into two camps: the true
believers, who backed Back-
ster, despite the failure of
other scientists to repeat
his experiments, and scien-
tists in the field of plant
physiology, who never be-
lieved him anyway.
Galston, the Yale plant
physiologist who arranged
the program, said there is
ample evidence of voltage
differences between the t'p
and the base of a plant. This
electrical field that exis,s
in a normal, healthy plant
can be changed by adjusting
the salt concentration in the
plant or merely by tipping
the plant over, altering the
gravitational pull on it.
Galston said that half his
Yale students talk to their
houseplants and half of that
group believe it does some
good.
"They are rational people
who believe something about
the universe that most
scientists don't believe. It
probably does some good to
those people who talk to
plants."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2014/01/09:
;IA-RDP79-00999A000200010074-4