I was unaware that the issue of cetaceans had been decided. They're certainly intelligent, but are they more intelligent than chimps? This is very hard to evaluate, given that we humans really don't know how to test for intelligence in animals other than fellow primates.
Faroese Whaling Controversy
- Thread starter Arctic Daishi
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I don't think anything concerning animal intelligence is 'decided' because study is ongoing but the accumulation of study on cetaceans indicates they may be indeed smarter than other primates.
However, behavioral and anatomical study of cetaceans has led scientists to claim they are indeed more intelligent than other primates.
This includes the size and complexity of the brain, the neocortex and cerebral cortex in particular and spindle neurons, demonstration of self-awareness, learned behavior passed down from one generation to the next, complex vocalizations including identifying individuals by a unique sound (like a name), tool use, and more...
I really like that you've followed the OP around to various forums copy pasting your responses. I saw you give the same exact response on MMO-Champion and almost responded to you there with this.
What you're saying is like saying primates are the smartest creatures on the planet. It's true in one sense: humans are; but it's also completely untrue in the wider sense: lemurs are not. Comparing pilot whales to bottlenose dolphins is dubious at best.
Lemurs aren't primates. But otherwise, I don't disagree.
Ah, so they are. Apparently my high-school textbooks made the same mistake the very first paragraph of this Wiki page mentions as being common. Those books classified lemurs as branching from the primate evolutionary tree prior to primates actually evolving.No, they are primates
Go, Australian education system. Another victory!
I'm not 'claiming' anything.
Scientists that study cetaceans have made the claim that cetaceans are the second smartest animals on the planet and in some cases argued that cetaceans should be granted special rights as 'non-human persons' due to the level of intelligence observed and inferred from research.
So regardless of your attempts to water that down by making arbitrary distinctions between bottlenosed dolphins and pilot whales, there is scientific evidence to indicate whales are more intelligent than most other animals.
Some could care less whether they're smarter than chimps or dumber than rocks. However, the science refutes previous comparisons between whales and pigs.
I think contre makes an excellent point. Cetaceans aren't a monolithic group; some of them are doubtless smarter than others. contre has already offered the example of primates as an order which has vastly varying degrees of intelligence. One most people would be familar with is dogs, a considerably narrower classification than cetaceans; my grandmother's border collie is considerably and obviously more intelligent than her idiot chihuaha, whose primary skill seems to be eating its own crap and hiding from the cat in hard-to-reach places.
Cetaceans have a great deal of variety, and so there is certainly reason to make distinctions between them. Those distinctions aren't arbitrary, or at least no more so than any of our current classification systems.
However, the initial comment was not identifying the potential variation of intelligence from one species of whale or dolphin or porpoise to another.
It was a blanket assumption, that 'pilot whales aren't any smarter than pigs', made without any supporting evidence, in order to justify cruel slaughter of pilot whales, because other animals, completely unrelated to the slaughter of pilot whales, are also killed in horrible ways.
Having looked back on the initial comment, it doesn't specifically mention pilot whales and was aimed at Valka's comments about the morality of eating certain animals. It also seems to be discussing the previous posts about how the cruelty of hunting pilot whales compares to the cruelty of factory-farming. I would certainly think that factory-farming is much crueler than the hunting of pilot whales, but I don't believe cruelty is as much of a factor in the argument as health concerns and sapience.
I'm not sure you understand what you're arguing. No scientist would claim cetaceans are the the second smartest animals on the planet. Perhaps individual species (this is debateable but not unreasonable for some species). Or perhaps they would claim that cetaceans are the second smartest order of animals. But they'd not confuse claiming an order of animals nearly as diverse as the order of animals we're in (primates) is anything beyond the characteristics the order shares. Because of the confusion you've displayed, I'm going to request you cite the paper you were referencing so I can perhaps get to the bottom if what you meant.
By all means, if pilot whales were shown to be as smart as bottlenoses, I'd be there with seasheparard trying to stop the hunts. As it is, I see no reason to view them as anything more than sea cattle and their hunting in limited sustainable numbers isn't a horrible thing.
First, you're asking me to take decades of research and create one specific paper or study which is not possible.
Second...
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/05/scientists-dolphins-treated-non-human-persons/
Among the multiple studies...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...hould-be-recognised-as-non-human-persons.html
Hang on, those studies specifically state dolphins, not cetaceans as a whole, while also making the mistake of not even mentioning which dolphins they're talking about. You seem to be arguing against yourself there.
Despite the name, pilot whales, along with killer whales and melon-headed whales, are actually dolphins, members of the taxonomic family Delphinidae.
I am aware that some "whales" are actually dolphins, but that orcas are surprises me. Still cetaceans = dolphins is not the case. Nor, as I mentioned above, do those sources adequately distinguish between different dolphins. I don't think anyone will argue that killer whales aren't extremely intelligent killing machines, but then again, to continue with the previously offered example, humans are clearly smarter than gorillas, which are smarter than lemurs.
Ah, the personal attack. And here we'd managed to argue for so long without it.
And still no evidence supprting the statement:
More a lack of satisfaction with willful ignorance of presented evidence.
Why would I provide evidence supporting someone else's statement?
I don't give a hoot about the intelligence of the pilot whale, my issue is with the methodology of your argument itself. You cannot claim that "dolphins" or "cetaceans" are intelligent, when neither one is a species, but rather taxonomic classifications some levels above that. None of the "evidence" you've presented - and I would hardly classify scientific articles from Fox News and the Daily Telegraph as legitimate evidence, you'd do better to link to the studies themselves - is enough to support your obviously spurious claim.
At least "dolphin" is less inclusive than "cetaceans," so we're making progress of a sort.
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