For this piece I talked to forest scientists about Suzanne Simard’s book, Finding the Mother Tree. Many of them are pretty fed up with her claims, in the book and in interviews and a TED talk, that there’s an underground communications network in forests that trees use to communicate with each other. They think the evidence doesn’t support it and she’s bringing science into disrepute. As you’ll find if you read my feature, she doesn’t agree.
One thing I realised as I read the interviews she’s given — we journalists can be so sycophantic and uncritical when it suits us. Her interviewers don’t challenge the basis for her claims. I guess they think she is a scientist so she must be right; what’s more she’s on the side of the angels (combatting the razing of old growth forest, championing indigenous people who’ve historically been ignored). Does that justify their failure to question her? Read it here.