Scientists say dolphins should be treated as non-human persons

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How do Christians explain this?

It seems that dolphins are Sentient.

http://84a.e89.myftpupload.com/wp-c.../5967cbd828e65442713062676d443f01-300x160.png

phys.org/news181981904.html

*(PhysOrg.com) – Scientists studying dolphin behavior have suggested they could be the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans, saying the size of their brains in relation to body size is larger than that of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, and their behaviors suggest complex intelligence. One scientist said they should therefore be treated as “non-human persons” and granted rights as individuals.

The behavioral studies showed dolphins (especially the bottlenose) have distinct personalities and self-awareness, and they can think about the future. The research also confirmed dolphins have complex social structures, with individuals co-operating to solve difficult problems or to round up shoals of fish to eat, and with new behaviors being passed from one dolphin to another.

Several examples of learning being passed on to other individuals have been observed. In one case a rescued dolphin in South Australia, taught to tail-walk during recuperation, in turn taught the trick to other wild dolphins in the Port Adelaide river estuary when she was released. According to marine biologist Mike Bossley it was “like watching a dance craze take off”, with the dolphins apparently learning the trick just for fun, since tail-walking has no natural function.*
 
How do Christians explain this?
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It seems that dolphins are Sentient.
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So??

All animals are sentient. That doesn’t make them persons. Persons have both body and immortal soul.
sen·tient adjective \ˈsen(t)-sh(ē-)ənt, ˈsen-tē-ənt
: able to feel, see, hear, smell, or taste
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(Websters)
 
As soon as dolphins ask to be treated as persons, preferably in writing, I’ll listen. Until then, nope.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
As soon as dolphins ask to be treated as persons, preferably in writing, I’ll listen. Until then, nope.

Peace

Tim
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I’m not altogether surprised. This is just the next step from Spain granting human rights to apes.

It’s all just part of the post-postmodern drive to cheapen human beings by glorifying animals, IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA.
 
There are credible estimates that more then two thirds of all life in the oceans has been killed through overfishing and pollution. It is also possible that the oceans will all be dead within 40-50 years. So, the discussion of animal rights in the sea are becoming more and more irrelevant, without wholesale commitment to change by every maritime and industrial country.

Blood mercury levels are hundreds of times higher than “safe” levels in most seagoing mammals. There are cases of baby whales now dying from drinking their mothers’ milk.

On a brighter note, my personal attorney chose to represent porpoises against the fishing industry. He prevailed as far as the 9th Federal Circuit Court, and the fishing industry, which was seeking legislative approval to kill more porpoises, backed off, choosing not to appeal to the US Supreme Court. He did this on his own dime, obviously. The porpoises were never presented with a bill for his services.

As has been said many times, a measure of our moral fiber is to what degree we protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
 
ChainBreaker said:
How do Christians explain this?

It seems that dolphins are Sentient.

http://84a.e89.myftpupload.com/wp-c.../5967cbd828e65442713062676d443f01-300x160.png

phys.org/news181981904.html

*(PhysOrg.com) – Scientists studying dolphin behavior have suggested they could be the most intelligent creatures on Earth after humans, saying the size of their brains in relation to body size is larger than that of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, and their behaviors suggest complex intelligence. One scientist said they should therefore be treated as “non-human persons” and granted rights as individuals.

The behavioral studies showed dolphins (especially the bottlenose) have distinct personalities and self-awareness, and they can think about the future. The research also confirmed dolphins have complex social structures, with individuals co-operating to solve difficult problems or to round up shoals of fish to eat, and with new behaviors being passed from one dolphin to another.

Several examples of learning being passed on to other individuals have been observed. In one case a rescued dolphin in South Australia, taught to tail-walk during recuperation, in turn taught the trick to other wild dolphins in the Port Adelaide river estuary when she was released. According to marine biologist Mike Bossley it was “like watching a dance craze take off”, with the dolphins apparently learning the trick just for fun, since tail-walking has no natural function.*
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Dolphins operate by instinct. Many animals can be taught to do things to entertain human beings. But, dolphins are not non-human persons. They cannot exceed their instincts even if they can imitate each other. This is a ridiculous idea.

Ed
 
Dolphins are not human, but they should be treated humanely as all animals should be. The big difference is that we possess spiritual souls, the source of all our immanent activity (coming from within activity), we communicate intelligently with meaning which is something only understood by rational intelligence. Animals show acute instinct, but do not communicate with ration intelligence, they do intelligent things because they are programmed to do them, not because they planned them rationally, autonomously. They have what is called “a material soul” that is the source of their interior motion is strictly based on matter. A human’s source of motion, life, is based on a spiritual soul which matter can not destroy. That’s why it said that "we are like God, because we are part spirit, and part animal, union of physical body, with a spiritual soul, in other words, "we have the qualities of animality, and the qualities of spirituality. God is pure spirit in that quality we are like God.
 
Will they be afforded more rights than those that are legally non-person humans, as black slaves once were and the unborn still are?
 
The word person is used to distinguish humans from animals. Humans have personalities because they have individual rational souls with rational intelligence and wills which make up the individual.
 
ynotzap said:
The word person is used to distinguish humans from animals. Humans have personalities because they have individual rational souls with rational intelligence and wills which make up the individual.
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An of course the demarcation between animals and humans would be arbitrary if it were not for some good reason.

But the fact is as expressed in the OP, these dolphins, however limited in their capacity, have the power of rationalization. They can perform abstract thought. They have personalities. So many of those reasons for placing demarcation between human and animal at least in this case don’t appear to apply.
 
ChainBreaker said:
[An of course the demarcation between animals and humans would be arbitrary if it were not for some good reason.]

But the fact is as expressed in the OP, these dolphins, however limited in their capacity, have the power of rationalization. They can perform abstract thought. They have personalities. So many of those reasons for placing demarcation between human and animal at least in this case don’t appear to apply.
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The demarcation between animals and humans is exactly the fact that animals do not rationalize as human do. they respond to sense stimuli. Abstraction is a function of the intellect, not the brain which presents an imaginary image from sense impressions. One definite sign of rational intelligence is intelligent communication. Animals can respond to certain stimuli, like food, and they can be trained to do what appears to be intelligent things, and their instincts can do the same thing. Did anyone ever have an intelligent conversation with an animal. Animals do respond to sense impressions, this is how they are trained. How would you prove they can have abstract thought? Or have personalities as humans do? They can respond in different ways, does that prove they have personalities? They may show a uniqueness in their behavior compared to other animals of the same species if that is what you mean by personality. That is not the same for humans. Do dolphins or other animal show signs of being autonomous, having self-government, functioning independently without control by others? Do we with our intelligence control them, and do they respond to our control?
 
ynotzap said:
Did anyone ever have an intelligent conversation with an animal. Animals do respond to sense impressions, this is how they are trained. How would you prove they can have abstract thought? Or have personalities as humans do? They can respond in different ways, does that prove they have personalities? They may show a uniqueness in their behavior compared to other animals of the same species if that is what you mean by personality. That is not the same for humans. Do dolphins or other animal show signs of being autonomous, having self-government, functioning independently without control by others? Do we with our intelligence control them, and do they respond to our control?
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I Have not proven anything. I am simply responding to the article, and scientists are saying that dolphins (not all animals) are showing signs of what we would usually consider personal in nature. Abstract thinking is one sign.
 
ChainBreaker said:
I Have not proven anything. I am simply responding to the article, and scientists are saying that dolphins (not all animals) are showing signs of what we would usually consider personal in nature. Abstract thinking is one sign.
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I wouldn’t hold my breathe waiting for their proof of abstract thinking. When it comes to things spiritual they don’t even have an answer. Like I said in other posts, if it isn’t physical it doesn’t exist to them, this is their hang-up in their thinking.
 
When I was a kid, I wired up a couple of batteries, some switches and flashlight bulbs on a board on which one could play tic-tac-toe. No programming was involved but every possible move was accounted for in the wiring sequences. Clearly the rationality resided in the creator, who set it up so that it would win or draw. No one would imagine it to be a rational creature, although in it’s completely limited way, it mimicked rationality.

Animal souls appear to come in many varieties. It is anthropomorphizing to see them as having a spirit.

Now, a peahen may look at a peacock and instinctively be turned on by its colours. It does not see beauty.
That said, some people will argue that their reactions towards the opposite sex are no different than those of animals, and I will not disagree.

As smart as is any dog, cat, dolphin or monkey, if they were to enter into my library, they would have no clue as to what it is. Any human being, whatever the culture, can come to understand what are books, computers, globes, art, etc.
 
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