“Who’s the man now?”

This past Sunday top members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science debated whether dolphins, the animals found to be closest in intelligence to humans need to be given some more importance in this world – some are asking for them to be classified as “non human persons”.  According to scientist Thomas I. White, “Like humans, dolphins appear to be self-conscious, unique individuals with distinctive personalities, memories and a sense of self, who are vulnerable to a wide range of physical and emotional pain and harm, and who have the power to reflect upon and choose their actions.”  Lori Marino a animal behavior speicalist from Emory agrees, telling the results of some research tests she did:

“We marked them on different parts of their bodies with a magic marker. Each dolphin immediately raced to the mirror, “postured in front of the mirror and positioned itself in strange ways to expose the marked part of its body much the same way that you and I would if we passed a wall with wet paint on it. As soon as we get to the bathroom we would look in the mirror and turn around to see if we got any paint on us.”

Our only question is where does all this research lead us, will the dolphins have rights?  Will killing a dolphin get you a murder charge?  And what happened to chimps?  We do like dolphins though…..

Image: Club Animals

Tagged as: Association For the Advancement Of Science, Dolphins, Lori Marino, Non Person Humans, Science, Smartest Animals, Thomas I. White