Fantastic Fungi is the documentary equivalent of the village idiot. This movie insists that mushrooms are intelligent — and they certainly appear to be so compared to the “experts” featured here. On the other hand, the narration, from the point of view of a mushroom (or all of them, unless, like the Dude, this particular one is using the royal we), doesn't make them seem like the sharpest knife in the kitchen; “You can't see us, but we bloom around you. Everywhere, in everything and even within you, whether you believe in us or not." Huh? Who exactly doesn't "believe" in mushrooms? Is there is such a thing as 'fungus denial'?
According to Fantastic Fungi, not only are fungi intelligent and capable of communication, but they are also at least partially responsible for human intelligence and language — or at least this is what the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis” proposes.
This theory, which has all the scientific basis of Jack and the Beanstalk of the story of Juanito, argues that Homo evolved from erectus to sapiens by virtue of eating psychedelic mushrooms found in cow shit. The only tangible conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that someone was definitely on drugs when they made this shit up.
But back to the supposed fungal communication, “Trees communicate using the mycelium as pathways … we are finding in our research that plants can recognize their own relatives. So these mother trees recognize their relatives through their mycorrhizal networks.”
I call bullshit. Plants are living beings with cellulose cell walls, which lack nervous or sensory organs. Animals do not have cellulose cell walls, but they do have nerve or sensory organs. Animals are sentient; plants are not.
That is, animals can experience pain, pleasure and various emotions. A brain and a nervous system are necessary for sentience; plants have no brain or nervous system. Plants react to physical and chemical stimuli, but there is no justification for claiming that plants are aware of these reactions, that they are self-conscious or conscious beings.
Plants have DNA and have evolved by natural and artificial selection. Some plant adaptations may seem "intelligent", but to call plants intelligent, or to claim that there is a "plant neurobiology", is speaking metaphorically and is little more than a gimmick intended to attract attention and perhaps get some grant.
Only a person completely ignorant of the science of plants and animals would make a quote-unquote documentary with as little scientific rigor as this one. It’s true that fungi are more animal than plant, but like plants, they have no brain or nervous system).
I honestly don't understand why mushroomheads can't just admit that they like getting high, and stop making smug excuses, like Fantastic Fungi, to justify their habit. Eating mushrooms doesn't make them low-lives, but it doesn't mean they're morally or intellectually superior to the rest of us recreational users, either.
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