Re: Whale wars?? Eco Pirates!!
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tim K</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: COURAGEWOLF</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I find it interesting how easily people justify the inhumane killing of things with the capability of intelligence rivalling that of elementary school children.
<span style="color: #FF6666">I'll put my 2 year old up against any whale in any test for intelligence you can devise, and I'm pretty sure she'll kick some whale booty. Bring it!</span>
From an ethical standpoint it just shows a person's inability to feel compassion, which realistically is one of the only reasons your life should have any value to another human being.
I'm guessing most that feel this way are well beyond understanding the moral argument and will simply write it off as "communist hippy bullshit though".
Three cheers to you brave free thinkers.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-whales-smarter-than-we-are
<span style="color: #FF6666">Did you actually read the article you linked? The authors opening example of how smart whales are is from a work of fiction! If you read the rest of that article closely, you'll find exactly no conclusions about which species is smartest. What you will find is lots of data, much of it seemingly contradictory. I'm open to the idea that whales are really intelligent, but I could neither confirm nor deny that from the article. </span>
It should be worth noting that although whales and dolphins both have larger brains than humans, and neurobiologists highly debate the difference in how they work comparitively to human brains that neither species has hands to write or build with.
It is surprising that in all of our intelligence, and all of our supposed mastery of our domain we still haven't managed to decode the language of the whales and have a conversation with them. We do however know that they communicate on a level that far surpasses any other animal.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8886--whale-song-reveals-sophisticated-language-skills.html
Just another perspective.
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Yes, I read both articles in their entirety. The fictional novel the author quotes has nothing to do with the research he's just trying to write an interesting article by posing a question with Moby Dick. I'm guessing you're intelligent enough to recognize that this opening sequence of the article has nothing to do with the dependability of the research contained.
You go ahead and send your 2 year old on a 6000 mile sea journey and let me know when it shows back up on your doorstep wise ass.
I didn't say "conclusively whales are smarter than humans" did I? I said that their brains are larger, and they posess a complexity of language and grammar that WE as humans despite our intelligence have not yet decoded.
There is no question that in nearly any complex task a whale or dolphin would outperform your 2 year old, outside of rapidly learning a language. Obviously there are significant differences in the types of brains we have in our skulls, as according to the articles posted.
This draws down to the definition of "intelligence". Perhaps there are tasks the whale brain can perform which humans cannot. I don't think anyone knows that currently.
