The Spectacle Blog
The New Scientific Consensus
The latest pronouncement from scientific authority arrived over the weekend, via a report in the Times of London.
The latest pronouncement from scientific authority arrived over the weekend, via a report in the Times of London:
Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.
Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.
The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.
Again, I cannot emphasize enough that this is what scientific consensus has determined is absolute truth. If that is not good enough for you, then I present to you…video proof that dolphins are extremely bright to the point of embracing their own humanity:
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Franklin| 1.5.10 @ 12:05PM
Hey, don't disparage the dolphins! Didn't you read the "Hitchhikers Guide..."?
You know - "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish"!
I have a scientist friend who believed in global warming until Climategate. Even before then, she was disgusted with so-called scientists who claim to KNOW this or that. They pick up a fragment of pottery and claim that proves that this was a tribe of blue eyed sun worshipers who would dance in a circle every Tuesday that it rained.
We watched a National Geographic episode of something-or-other where a scientist said "We THINK this means..." and we almost fell out of our chairs! An honest scientist ... wow.
That's sad when we are shocked because of an honest scientist.
Pete| 1.5.10 @ 12:18PM
This makes me feel even more superior...I know I would avoid a giant net if I saw it coming towards me.
Pingback| 1.5.10 @ 12:23PM
My Dolphin is Smarter Than Your Honor Roll Student » First Thoughts | A First Things links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Patriot| 1.5.10 @ 1:26PM
The liberal mantra: Save the dolphins, abort the baby humans--they're just a mass of cells, right?
Liberals sicken me.
SqueePopPopFisp| 1.5.10 @ 6:34PM
Being very smart, us dolphins are of course Intergalactic Tories , and as such have been so saddened by the recent mass extinction of intelligent conservative life on Planet Gore and its TAS satellite that we have decided to move on and score one for the Flipper elsewhere.
Goodbye, and thanks for all the human caviar you've flushed into the hydrosphere over the years.
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pst314| 1.5.10 @ 9:38PM
The researchers who claim dolphins are so intelligent are almost universally people who went into dolphin research because they grew up filled with romantic notions about intelligent dolphins and wanted to prove them to be true. I would treat them with as much skepticism as a global-warming researcher who, from childhood, believed that industrialization was bad while organic food, hemp, and tie-dye were good.
pst314| 1.5.10 @ 9:44PM
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own"
A very dishonest statement. Any competent biologist will tell you that in this context absolute size means nothing. One needs to look at the ratio of brain mass to body mass, and by that measure dolphin brains are much smaller than human brains.
One of the disappointments of growing up was discovering how many scientists are willing to lie.
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