

Is a Dolphin a Person? - prat
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/is-a-dolphin-a-person.html?rss=1

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dc2k08
_Are dolphins as smart as people? And if so, shouldn't we be treating them a
bit better than we do now?_

Who decided the prerequisite for whether or not a species should treated well
depends on how close it comes to matching human intelligence? Sorry all the
rest of you creatures, come back in million years when your brains have
evolved a little further and we'll talk, until then you can stay in that cage.

~~~
frou_dh
I guess this also means the more mentally handicapped a human is, the more
acceptable it is to harm them.

~~~
die_sekte
I recommend Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics" in this context. It is not
exactly light reading, but discusses those issues at quite some length.

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hammmatt
A few of the conclusions of the article are misleading. Or rather, they have
not been put in proper context.

Dolphins brains are large, but they are made mostly of glial cells which
insulate the dolphins brain from the cold ocean water.

They shown many signs of intelligence, however, that is not as rare as people
think in the animal kingdom. For example, Donkeys can count better than
dolphins. Most of us have witnessed a dog or cat solving a problem in the
world around it. Vampire bats have a system of social 'accounting' keeping
track of which bats donate blood to the group and which don't. The examples
continue.

Their has been a 'movement' in human thinking for some time that dolphins are
our counterparts of the sea. There were many experiments by a Dr. Lily
(creator of the deprivation tank) to show the intelligence of dolphins. His
studies showed little evidence, but made bold claims. Ever since then I
believe there has been a 'buzz' around the intelligence of dolphins. Which is
substantial but over exaggerated.

The overall theme of the article, should humans take animal intelligence more
seriously is a valid claim. Intelligence is rampant in the animal kingdom and
it deserves an examination. A great book on the subject is, "Dragons of Eden"
by Carl Sagan, although he focuses on human development.

 _Douglas Adams_ (loosely paraphrased): Humans believed themselves to be the
most intelligent species on Earth because they developed machines of war and
New York City. Dolphins knew they were more intelligent because they did build
machines of war or New York City. All they did was eat fish and play all day.

~~~
inc
<http://67.55.50.201/lilly/janus00x.html>

~~~
hammmatt
Interesting website! I loved how the diagram of the hardware had an apple II
in it.

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ryanelkins
It will be interesting to see how these thoughts play out in the future,
specifically the idea of how we treat dolphins. The line between "person" and
"animal" doesn't seem to be as clearly defined as we had initially thought.

This article reminded me of when I was in elementary school and tried arguing
that fire met the characteristics of having life.

~~~
BigZaphod
I think this kind of discussion is a prerequisite to joining any large scale
interplanetary cultures that may or may not exist. Perhaps that's only scifi,
but we as a species need to become comfortable at accepting and working with
different sizes and shapes of intelligence before that even makes sense. We
have a long ways to go; we've only relatively recently accepted that other
kinds of _humans_ count as full people - and that isn't even a globally
accepted concept yet. :/

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Excellent comment. We are most likely dolphins compared to some other species.

But I don't think the scale is smooth. There are sharp divisions: the use of
tools, the understanding of death, the use of language, the use of language to
describe abstract concepts, the use of oral history, the use of written
history, the creation of artificial intelligence aides, etc.

I absolutely agree that having a bigger picture than just "people are special"
is a prerequisite for first contact, I just also think that going to the other
extreme, that all intelligences are mostly the same, is probably much worse
than just having a human-bias. Instead we'll need a graduated system with
different privileges and rights depending on where species appear on the
scale. Such a graduated system will be the basis to determine whether or not
we're being treated fairly by E.T., if/when they ever show up.

~~~
rue
I have always found this subtopic to be interesting. My perhaps optimistic
musing has been that a species sufficiently advanced to compare to humans as
humans compare to dolphins would also have some way of
measuring/estimating/scoring the level of consciousness (for want of a better
term) of a lower species, which seems close to your thinking.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
The interesting thing is that traditionally such distinctions have been
_religious_ , not scientific. That is, it was religion that eventually
persuaded western civilization that all humans deserve to be treated equally,
not some sort of logical or ethical argument.

If true, that leads me to think that we'll need some sort of version 2.0 of
some of the major religions that deal with varying levels of sentience. This
will probably happen _after_ contact and not before, so it should be a very
traumatic event for everybody concerned.

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bravura
I can't find a source for this, but I remember reading that dolphins are the
only other animals besides humans that _craft sex toys_. Monkey find little
sticks and use them, but dolphins will actually rub themselves against coral
to sand it into an appropriate shape.

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lurkerperpetual
By always framing such issues in this way (is a dolphin similar to us in some
ways) we keep maintaining the age-old attitude that we should only care about
those who are like us. If it has the tendency to run away if you try smacking
it with a baseball bat, person on not, it is more sensible leaving it alone if
possible.

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CoryMathews
Which country is it that has already given rights to some animals such as
gorillas, parrots, ect?

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sp332
Guerrillas in the mist? lol

(it's gorillas, not guerrillas)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare> vs.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla>

~~~
CoryMathews
heh spell check didn't underline so it got me. Oops

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anonjon
"..they may be Earth's second smartest creature (next to humans, of course)."

This should read 'next to lab mice'

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die_sekte
While most of us are familiar with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and
most of us enjoy making silly jokes, this comment fits better at reddit than
here.

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anonjon
Please don't do this.

I realize my comment was in wildly poor taste because Hacker News is an
Extremely Serious site where only very serious people talk about very serious
things. (For example, about how we are all going to get dollar-sign-lotto rich
by working 18 hour days for startups).

But talking down to me and pretending to explain why it is a bad comment ('it
fits better on reddit' doesn't tell me anything) will only cause me to become
incensed at how unjust it is that a website called 'hacker news' is completely
full of people with sticks shoved deeply up their asses.

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idleworx
no

~~~
theycallmemorty
Solid argument. I'm convinced.

