People say scientists are dolphins.
I find this actually an interesting example of how "scientists" is sort of miss-used in popular discussion. I think this should be titled "A group of scientists say dolphins are people". Often the term scientists is used as a shorthand for exactly this "a subset of scientists". This causes the problem that it makes things that aren't necessarily scientific facts appear to be scientific facts. It almost implies there is some sort of governing body of scientists that have decreed this.
Interesting idea. The classical literary statement of the personhood of other creatures is the little-read Part IV of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, titled "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms" Anyone who has had close contact with "Houyhnhnms" will understand that they are not just equal to, but superior to people in many ways. I'm sure the same may be true of dolphins
Read Existence by David Brin! A major aspect of the narrative deals with treating cetaceans as equals. It also involves a really interesting, unique, and some have said realistic take on first alien contact. Great read
If cetaceans are persons, though with non-human status should they then be subject to punitive measures for any crimes they may commit? I remember when the internet was going crazy about the idea of dolphin rape and dolphin rape caves. I don't know that the problem is as bad as they say, but there is certainly some disturbing behavior exhibited by various dolphin species including orcas, observed by scientists.
Well, it seems like they make a pretty good case for why cetaceans should at least be granted a higher legal status than other animals, but I don't understand when they say we should "end their use in entertainment"; if a killer whale can work alongside a fisherman, then a dolphin should be able to understand the concept of working for pay in the entertainment business.
I understand their sentiment and reasoning, but for goodness sakes we don't even treat certain minorities as people, and I'd rather give the "people" tag to great apes In other words, it seems weird to me
Yeah, we pull out punctuation. But, I have to say that I agree with these folk. I actually recently gave up eating octopus for the same reason, as much as I enjoy it. I believe that at some point you need to consider the intellect regardless of the form. In fact, I just read this today. It's pretty tough to eat or kill things that have names for ones they care about. And if that argument doesn't sway you:
IMO it's a matter of context. But some of their intelligence is obvious.
That video's making me a melancholy sort of happy, and I'm having strange far-fetched thoughts. I posit that dolphins are basically the perfect creatures: intelligent but peace-loving, fun, etc. Do dolphins ever fight each other? (If they do, lie to me; this has put me in a great mood and I don't want to spoil it.)
Yup, they will actually kill weak members of the pod or others they don't like, including infants and juveniles. They more commonly kill other types of dolphins and porpoises, but have also been documented killing within their same species. They also appear to kill for pleasure in some cases. Dolphins are jerks.... but so are some humans. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/bizarre/news-bottle-nos... There's video out there of them doing this, I saw it on a documentary once years ago, but youtube is coming up empty. Only found videos that really don't show them doing much. In the documentary I recall them breaching and ramming each other right in the mid section, and it was the whole pod doing it to one dolphin. It was sad. :(Do dolphins ever fight each other?
Dolphins engage in acts of aggression towards each other. The older a male dolphin is, the more likely his body is to be covered with bite scars. Male dolphins engage in such acts of aggression apparently for the same reasons as humans: disputes between companions and competition for females. Acts of aggression can become so intense that targeted dolphins sometimes go into exile as a result of losing a fight.
Male bottlenose dolphins have been known to engage in infanticide. Dolphins have also been known to kill porpoises for reasons which are not fully understood, as porpoises generally do not share the same diet as dolphins, and are therefore not competitors for food supplies.
there's also the phenomenon of blowhole sex
Now that I was unaware of and am now frightened enough to not look it up.
I checked the same sources as AlderaanDuran but also noticed your plea If they do, lie to me
and decided to respect it. Maybe it's a gender thing.