Our sisters the plants, thinking the living in terms of kinship
Nos sœurs les plantes, penser le vivant en terme de parenté
Résumé
Before the upheaval brought about by phylogenetic classification, classical taxonomy separated the living into two distinct kingdoms, the animal (moving anima) and the plant (immobile). Contrary to other ontological spaces (animist or totemist), western science (strongly naturalist) has for a very long time built its theoretical apparatus on this dichotomy mostly based on the ancient aristotelician ideas. Nowadays, despite the adoption of the Darwinian paradigm that unifies biology as a kinship, the concept of the scale of beings unfortunately maintains as frame of reference in our view of living species. In this article, the aim is to combine the development of phylogeny, recent discoveries, and the renewed interest in plant agentivity with an interdisciplinary approach. We present the common evolutionary pathways of the tree of life, and we emphasize the lines at the origin of plant or animal lines have a common evolutionary history dating back to about 3.9 Ga separating only 1.6 Ga ago. Therefore, in a tree-thinking perspective of living species history Plants are our sisters. We further present some recent data highlighting specific features of plant sensitivity and communication related to the “plant neurobiology” hypothesis. By using these biological data our aim is to try to understand and discuss some socio-cultural obstacles, mainly in western naturalist countries, that have prevented the integration of living organisms as relatives, while suggesting a few avenues suggested by practices principally from other ontologies that could help overcome these obstacles.
Avant le bouleversement opéré par la classification phylogénétique, la taxonomie classique séparait les vivants en deux règnes distincts, l'animal (anima qui bouge) et le végétal (immobile). Contrairement à d'autres espaces ontologiques (animistes ou totémistes), la science occidentale (fortement naturaliste) a pendant très longtemps construit son appareillage théorique sur cette dichotomie. Dans cet article, il s'agit, avec une approche interdisciplinaire, d'associer le développement de la phylogénie et des récentes découvertes autours du végétal, de présenter les parcours évolutifs communs entre l'animal et le végétal ainsi que de comprendre les freins socioculturels qui ont empêché l'intégration du vivant comme une parentèle tout en évoquant quelques pistes qui permettraient de lever ces blocages.
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