Tree

Mainstream: It accounts for why trees compete for light and water, and why the transfers measured so far are small and may be incidental.

Alternative: It accounts for the observed carbon transfer between seedlings and neighbours, and for why shaded seedlings sometimes survive.

Mainstream: It would be wrong if controlled field studies showed mature trees sending net carbon or defence signals to kin through the network, and that this raised the survival of seedlings. Some seedling experiments show transfer, but the field evidence for kin-targeted benefit is still weak.

Alternative: It would be wrong if transfers proved too small to affect survival, or if they occurred equally without a network or to non-kin. Reviews have found much of the supporting data flawed and the kin-favouring claim unsupported, so this test has largely counted against it.

Mainstream: Few field experiments isolate the fungal network from soil and root contact, so the lack of evidence partly reflects how hard the test is.

Alternative: The claim jumps from measured nutrient movement to purpose, sentience and 'collective consciousness'. These added details explain nothing that simple nutrient flow does not, and the claim that transfers 'defy metabolic explanations' is not supported.

Mainstream: It accounts for the mineral composition, layered strata, and the hexagonal cracks that form as lava cools and contracts, which can be reproduced in lab and in other cooling materials.

Alternative: It accounts only for the visual resemblance between the formations and wood grain at a larger scale.

Mainstream: It would be wrong if the formations showed wood cell structure, growth rings or root systems. None have been found, and the columns' ages and rock types fit volcanic origin.

Alternative: It would be wrong if the formations lacked wood tissue, and they do lack it. The theory has not tested for this and does not accept that evidence against it.

Mainstream: Some individual formations have incomplete erosion histories, but this does not weaken the overall account.

Alternative: The 'prehistoric event' and 'advanced civilisation' were added to explain why no giant trees, fossils or tools survive. These details could be swapped for anything without changing what the theory predicts.

Mainstream: It accounts for why forests cool and moisten regions, and why they respond to drought and fire without regulating to a target.

Alternative: It accounts for the real links between forests, rainfall and temperature, and gives a picture of why forest loss matters.

Mainstream: It would be wrong if forests were shown to adjust their output in a coordinated way to hold global temperature steady against disturbance. Forests have shown tipping points and dieback under stress rather than steady regulation.

Alternative: It would be wrong if forests failed to restore global conditions after large disturbance. Past mass forest loss, and current dieback, have not been met with corrective regulation.

Mainstream: Feedbacks such as forest-driven rainfall show forests can stabilise regional climates, and the mainstream account is thin on how far these feedbacks add up to a global effect.

Alternative: 'Intentionality' is added to feedbacks that work without it, and the theory has no mechanism or selection process that would produce a planet-wide goal. The 'planetary lung' image also misleads, since much of the world's oxygen is balanced by decay.

Mainstream: It accounts for branching patterns, ring widths that match climate records, and the use of rings for dating.

Alternative: It accounts for the fractal look of branching and offers a reason for why the form is so elaborate.

Mainstream: It would be wrong if tree growth tracked magnetic or atmospheric electrical changes independently of weather and light. Tree-ring studies that control for climate have not found this.

Alternative: It would be wrong if the branching form were fully explained by light capture, water transport and mechanics, and if no field data could be read from it. The first is largely true and the second has not been shown.

Mainstream: Some trees do respond to weak electrical and magnetic fields in lab studies, and the mainstream account does not fully explain what these responses do in nature.

Alternative: Terms like 'planetary memory' and 'transducer' have no measurable prediction, so any growth pattern could be described as an encoded signal.