Most humans in the world live in misery. People die left and right by the SECOND. Humanity is insanely chaotic. Here in Brazil we have more than 200 million people with like 70% being poor or worse. Yes, there is worse than poor.

Point is, we can barely care for ourselves, feed ourselves, save ourselves. If people dont care about others form their own species, I doubt they will care enough about dolphins...

Then again i could be wrong, because there are many PETS that live a LOT better than many humans.

So, who knows. I like dolphins and wish them well. I just dont know if they have a good chance of getting their acknowledgement as non-human persons.

Interesting news, btw. S&F

All life on the planet is and should be treated as sacred, all animals and creatures have feelings, they live in their own way, the way they have evolved to live, the way that usually best suits them.

but what do we do if they move in on our space? well we usually kill them, and that's a pretty good indication of what we will do when we meat other life forms from other worlds.

Dolphins are not just intelligent, i have a feeling they can show more intelligentsia than man some times, they live their lives in an almost perfect spiritual way unhindered by all the daily elements that hold us back. They even have their own form of medical treatment which has been show benefitial to man, with the sonic clicks and sounds they make, and to this day are used as therepy for some very sick people.

Above all they are loving and caring not only to their own kind, but to many others as well, they have shown protective behaviour towards man in times of need, prevented drownings etc.

I have a feeling that on some of the water worlds of Jupiter's moons we could very well find animals very similar to Dolphins, no one really knows.

They as do all animals and creatures on the earth, deserve respect and freedom to do as they would, just as we expect that from life.

In the words of one of the Star Treak movies, who says that humans are the main subject of interest to visitors from other worlds. we know Dolphins and some of the great whales communicate in a language that we dont understand, and because we dont understand it, we assume it is less important or inelegant than our own.

Men are the stupid ones.

I'm not buying it.
In my opinion, in order to really be considered intelligent dolphins have to show an awareness of their own mortality.
That's the true test of intelligence, self-awareness is one thing, awareness of your ultimate end as wormfood (or fishfood in this case) is the true test, only then, once this knowledge has rendered them as insane as us, will they be considered truly intelligent.

Actually, a lot of animals are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Elephants for example show compassion. Wolfs (and other dog-like animals) show perfect team-work and the basic principle of a tribe/civilization. Your dogs and cats at home are a lot smarter than given credit for. Look how many stories there are of dogs and cats saving their owners. In the end, we must treat all life with respect. If you think you are smarter than any other creature, and therefore have more right to live than any of those, the one who does not deserve this life is you. We can learn a lot from animals if we actually respected them and paid attention to them, instead of slaughtering them for no reason.

I always had this thought, that dolphins and maybe some other whales, were actually smarter than us, but, since they're not physically capable of building things, they live the way they do. Being smart is not measured by the amount of technology, but people seem to think otherwise..

I wonder how the evolution theory is going to explain dolphins being smarter than monkeys.. Which ancestor will they make appear out of thin air this time..?

The cool thing about humans is that we can mimick other animals and insects with near perfection. I'm not talkin just kung fu.

Animals are going to be getting smarter faster.

We developed as we are due to considerable mortal challenges to our survival over very brief periods of time. Consistent ongoing challenge to our adaptation.

What caused this for us was consistent climatic challenges coupled with morphology that really wasn't up to the task of survival. We are poorly adaptive to our niches. And therefore, we have no niche.

In the history of the planet, there are analogues. You can find dinosaur versions of giraffes, the big cats, the rhino and hippo, the mouse, etc. What you do not find is a human analogue, except in the most recent of times.

We ARE this challenge in the environment of other species now. We are a consistent mortal danger to most other potentially intelligent creatures on this planet. We challenge their adaptive processes, leaving few in the genetic record - only the most adaptable, or the ones with features we find useful or endearing.

We are the factor that will force other creatures to adapt or die. Some of those creatures already have intelligent adaptive behaviours and those ones will by necessity become the basis of further generations. War. Team Work. Tool Use. Violence.

The main points mostly unused by the majority of the members of these species are agriculture and animal husbandry. And you can find individual members or colonies that do both of those to limited extent.

The one serious point that actually makes us different is.....trade.

And there seems to my eyes to be a few animal species members who are showing a tendency towards understanding the concept of trade of service.

We may be the first to get to this point, but we will not be the last.

Originally posted by vasaga
Actually, a lot of animals are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Elephants for example show compassion. Wolfs (and other dog-like animals) show perfect team-work and the basic principle of a tribe/civilization. Your dogs and cats at home are a lot smarter than given credit for. Look how many stories there are of dogs and cats saving their owners. In the end, we must treat all life with respect. If you think you are smarter than any other creature, and therefore have more right to live than any of those, the one who does not deserve this life is you. We can learn a lot from animals if we actually respected them and paid attention to them, instead of slaughtering them for no reason.

I always had this thought, that dolphins and maybe some other whales, were actually smarter than us, but, since they're not physically capable of building things, they live the way they do. Being smart is not measured by the amount of technology, but people seem to think otherwise..

I wonder how the evolution theory is going to explain dolphins being smarter than monkeys.. Which ancestor will they make appear out of thin air this time..?

Sometimes I think my dog is smarter than I am. I have tried trainning her, but to no avail. Then one day i realised that she was the one who trained me!

I know when she wants to take a walk, when she wants to play, when she wants more food or water, when she wants to pee and to poop, when she wants to sit on my lap, when she is afraid of something, when she wants me to bring her bed to the TV Room and when she wants to be left alone.

I dont know how she did it, but she did it!

Great idea to treat other intelligent species as persons.

But "we" are a small section of the people of this planet. Many of whom are barely treated as persons themselves. There are dogs in our cultures treated better than millions of human women.

We do not have the breadth of authority to force nations and cultures who vastly outnumber us to accept treating HUMANS as people.

In our cultures and religions, women have been considered persons for less than a hundred years. The argument that women should not be in government was backed up by the fact that women were not persons. You'll find many religious people around the planet that still think that women are not people, and do not have souls but are only wombs to bring around more people - men.

What you want - we could do. But to make it stick, we'd need to have far more latitude in human cultures than we do right now. And most people who agree with this concept of recognizing personhood in other animals, are also completely unlikley to do anything to make it stick in anything but a very small segment of the World's population of humans.

[edit on 2010/1/4 by Aeons]

Yes, dolphins remind me a lot of people.
The murder, rape, kill, display racism, and many of our worst characteristics.
I remember reading a report on a biologist who witnessed dolphins drowning a young calf, then using the body as a play toy.

They are way more advanced in other ways.

They are perfectly suited for their environment. The naked ape needs to find/build shelter, make fire and clothes.

They have a smorgasbord of food and no need for tools to kill it. No need to prepare and or cook it.

They have a universal language, while the naked ape has thousands and can't speak to another non-local naked ape without out a lot of effort and even then there is a lot of mistranslation and misinterpretation.

When you think about it, humans really don't fit in like the other creatures we share the planet with.

This sounds to me as an admission by the scientific community that non human persons exist elsewhere as well.

I.E.; aliens.

Originally posted by mikelee
This sounds to me as an admission by the scientific community that non human persons exist elsewhere as well.

I.E.; aliens.

damn, you just poked my conspiratory bone with that one.

Ever read David Brins 'Startide rising"?

Great book where Dolphins have been "uplifted", lots of great moments and I wish it would be made into a movie.

Anyway I suspect that someday we will be called to account for the wholesale slaughter of creatures on this planet.

I think dolphins are worth alot more than at least 50% of all humans on this planet. yes I really believe this. and Dolphins will save humans, not another dolphin, but a HUMAN from a shark attack.

Dolphins are more altruistic than many people

Its simple guys

Arm the dolphins with some strap on rocket launchers then train them to protect themselves with it
Cus fins and teeth dont do well against harpoons

Actually , dolphins are better than humans.
I read somewhere that during the cold war, the US and the USSR, tried to train dolphins to kill swimmers but they gave up after finding out that dolphins refuse to obey after witnessing the pain they caused.
We have much to learn from them.