Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

http://current.com/news/91825903_scientists-say-dolphins-should-be-treated-as-non-human-persons.htm

by riffraff • 16 years ago

94 106 16 years ago

alanh4• 16 years ago

Hell, yes they should. We’ve known they can identify themselves in a mirror for years. They are even known to sexually pleasure each other outside of procreation.

(If I recall the study correctly, the scientists introduced the dolphins to a mirror, and then placed an object on the dolphin’s back, out of its sight, with suction cups; the dolphin swam to the mirror and contorted to view the object.)

We should really stop poisoning their habitat. It didn’t use to be the case that most fish had such high levels of mercury.

Edit Wow, this comment just went from +7 to +4 in a minute… I guess some people feel very threatened by the idea that humans are overly dismissive of other species.

mike_esspe• 16 years ago

I think the problem with mirror test is that elephants and magpies pass it too.

snth• 16 years ago

What's the problem with that? Maybe elephants and magpies are smart.

LaGrange5• 16 years ago

Humans pass it as well.

Maybe we tend to underestimate even more species.

soiz2• 16 years ago

As humans had previously been defined as "tool-makers", when Goodall telegraphed [Louis] Leakey to report that the chimps were modifying twigs in order to "fish" termites out of holes in rock-solid termite mounds, it provoked the now famous response: "We must redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human."

Zaak• 16 years ago

There are few animals that pass the test. The great apes, bottlenose dolphins, magpies, and asian elephants for example.

All of these animals have a large brain-to-body-size ratio, complex social interactions, problem solving ability, and a relatively long period of parental care for their young.

lowglow• 16 years ago

What about an art test: What other species makes art for the sake of art?

alanh4• 16 years ago

Is your goal to create a test that only humans pass because we already know humans are the only worthwhile species? Sort of begging the question, isn’t it? (Edit: I don’t mean any offense — just suspicious of human heuristics.)

jpwagner5• 16 years ago

Not sure what "for the sake of art" means, but these guys pass or come close:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA

msbarnett• 16 years ago

This pre-supposes we would recognize another species' art when we saw it.

kragen• 16 years ago

Do bubble rings count?

docgnome• 16 years ago

What about Elephants? I guess it depends on how you define art for art's sake. http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/splash.php

LiveTheDream• 16 years ago

> Edit Wow, this comment just went from +7 to +4 in a minute… I guess some people feel very threatened by the idea that humans are overly dismissive of other species.

This adds nothing to the discussion. Stop worrying about a tiny, short-term karma swing. As I write this response, the parent has 12 points. /rant

russellallen• 16 years ago

Although science can help us know the facts before we make our decision, how we should treat dolphins is not a scientific question but an ethical and moral one.

jamesbritt• 16 years ago

" how we should treat dolphins is not a scientific question but an ethical and moral one."

How did you decide that science and the scientific process should be excluded from ethics and morality?

zackattack• 16 years ago

because science is about objective facts. facts are objective because they can be verified by different minds if they use the same processes.

ethics and morality are EMOTIONAL, vary widely between individuals, and must be arbitrarily decided upon by an entity representing tribal leadership.

joeyo2• 16 years ago

I've always been a little uneasy with the idea that we should assign rights (or personhood, or whatever) to animals in a graded way in proportion to their intelligence. It implies that humans should be deprived of those same rights when their intelligence doesn't meet some similar threshold.

jpwagner5• 16 years ago

Isn't a threshold defined by one line? I guess you are arguing that implementing a threshold later evolves into a continuous gradient. I disagree.

alanh4• 16 years ago

Emotional capacity is another axis that matters a lot.

But we do deprive people of rights if they are really lacking, mentally. We put crazies in madhouses (are bad at doing so accurately). We deny minors most rights of self-determination (more than strictly based on intelligence, but the idea’s the same).

Heck, to sign your will, you have to represent that your noggin isn’t fried.

Edit (response to pyre): I never said we treat unintelligent people the same way we do animals. Psychologically we don’t even like to disrespect dead people (intelligence: 0). I’m just saying that intelligence does affect the rights we afford other humans.

pyre2• 16 years ago

So, if you are deemed unfit to make decisions for yourself, can we send you to the slaughterhouse to end up in a shrink-wrapped package at a supermarket?

Taking away your ability to sign a will is a lot different than the way we treat animals/non-humans.

joeyo2• 16 years ago

I absolutely agree that emotional processing is an important component of intelligence. But I'm still not convinced that it's a good way of ascribing rights.

Regarding your examples: we certainly do act in the interests of the insane, mentally disabled and children. But that is not because they have fewer rights or have less personhood. We act for them because and in defense of their rights. We do this because they are unable to protect themselves and need guardians to defend them from abuses to their dignity, bodily integrity, etc.

LaGrange5• 16 years ago

I think the real problem is that once you start looking at animals as intelligent (in some capacity) and capable of suffering (in some capacity) every decision similar to "ok, now lets eat it" start to seem horrendous. But we still need to eat them, because not everyone can be a vegetarian.

The "intelligence threshold" or "emotional threshold" are imperfect, but they're the best we came up until now. They have clear imperfections and consequences that we don't want, but if we keep in mind that those are stop gaps and not real solutions, we shouldn't try to follow "logical consequences" that seem insane.

We should try to find better solutions. I'm all for vat-grown meat. I'd never eat an animal again.

DavidAdams• 16 years ago

I watched the excellent documentary "The Cove" a few weeks ago, and I highly recommend watching it. Though the film did fill me with dread and outrage (as intended), ironically, the portrayal of the brutal slaughter of dolphins by Japanese fishermen convinced me that dolphins are not nearly as smart as many people would like to convince us of.

Here's why: Imagine there were one particular mountain valley tucked away in some corner of the world, and while human beings could range all over the vastness of this earth unharmed, if they ventured into that valley they would be killed. In that valley there was a race of essentially invincible beings that would herd any wayward human beings into a side canyon and spear them to death.

How would the human race react to that? Let's assume that mounting a military attack and killing the invincible beings weren't possible. Well, first of all, we'd put up signs and fences and maybe even sentries to warn people not to go into that valley. We'd tell our children about the danger, and pass the knowledge of the invincible murderous monsters on, generation to generation. If people did go in there and got killed we'd cover the event in detail on TV, as a warning to others (like Shark Week). Even really stupid people would know not to go into the "valley of the stabby monsters."

Well, if Dolphins are so smart, and they have such good communication and advanced social structure, then why haven't the many dolphins that have personally witnessed the slaughter at "The Cove" and escaped (the movie shows dolphins escaping) managed to warn other dolphins not to go there?

Honestly, if dolphins were anywhere near as smart as humans and were anywhere near as ruthless, they not only would have prevented the slaughter, but would have mounted a commando raid wherein expert jumping dolphins would have trained to jump out of the water, knock the fishermen out of their little boats, then beaten and dragged them down into the cove until they were drowned. And I'm being serious about this. Human beings wouldn't put up with that shit.

Other observed dolphin behavior, such as dolphins killing each other and attacking sharks to defend swimming humans does prove that they have the wherewithal to act in both self-preservation, and in the defense of others, even to violence. But they still get speared in the cove. That tells me they're not that smart.

ck22• 16 years ago

Lack of collective memory does diminish an intelligence rating.

Humans didn't have recorded history for tens of thousands of years (maybe a million depending what science you follow, frontal lobes and all that) and were doomed to repeat the same mistakes (heck we still do the same massive mistakes with lots of recorded history).

kiba• 16 years ago

Dolphins don't have hands to write with. Nor did we invent a communication system by which dolphins and humans can communicate ideas.

chc3• 16 years ago

Do I need to list all the harm people do to themselves and their environment every second of every day? Humans most certainly do not always do what is best for them, and we have a lot more cultural support these days than dolphins do to help us make the right choices. If dolphins had technology, maybe they'd look at us and say, "Look how many of these dumb beasts intentionally inhale poisonous smoke."

soiz2• 16 years ago

> That tells me they're not that smart.

The problem with your example is grouping all dolphins together.

This reminds me of some prominent speaker's example of space Aliens testing for human intelligence by beaming up 100 people and assigning them the task of building a computer.

You'd get very different results if you beamed up 100 random people from a shopping mall, vs. 100 random people from MIT.

How smart would YOU look if you were raised by yourself in a zoo habitat? There's an enormous amount of "intelligence" which depends on cultural transmission of information at specific developmental periods. Language is one well-known example; IIRC, if a child is neglected linguistically around the age of 2-3, they can't make up for it later and will never quite acquire a "human" level of language.

What if the adults of your tribe were wiped out, and the children grew up and had a makeshift society afterward? This is effectively what has happened repeatedly with whale and dolphin pods.

Further, dolphins don't all know each other. So tribe X may not inform tribe Y of a dangerous location.

Dolphins who have knowledge of the slaughter may avoid it in the future. They may try to keep their pod away from it. Maybe the pod doesn't believe them, and the leaders "march" in blithely, as happens with humans all the time. Or maybe there are no survivors to warn others. Or maybe they are traumatized and become loners and don't talk to anyone after that.

As for your "commando" example, there are countless counterexamples where humans DON'T join up to go on the offensive, because of personal risk.

And there are countless examples where humans keep doing something dangerous where there is a high probability of getting killed.

Children are highly intelligent, but innocence and lack of experience can make you an easy target for a predator. And there are institutions, like "tough love" camps where parents ship their kids, some of which have a horrendous history of child abuse, and yet they still operate.

Where are the commando raids on Catholic priests? Guess humans aren't too smart.

mturmon• 16 years ago

There are any number of self-destructive behaviors that humans are drawn to: haagen-dazs, cigarettes, wars.

It could be very hard to justify our stockpile of atomic weaponry to another intelligence.

DanI-S• 16 years ago

Humans do climb Mount Everest for fun...

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

Perhaps dolphins don't feel responsible for other dolphins - a sort of super-egalitarian independent-spirited ethic. Doesn't mean they aren't people.

But it WOULD mean we can freely not help them. If they don't bother to do it for themselves, we should certainly not be required to.

fleitz2• 16 years ago

Human beings expect other human beings to act with a similar moral code. There have been plenty of examples of groups herding other human beings into areas explicitly designed for slaughter. Humans warned each other, but the slaughter still persisted. Even foreign governments did not think the slaughter was extensive as claimed because of the inhumanity of it.

Human beings will put up with a lot of shit, it even says so in the declaration of independence.

"..all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

anigbrowl3• 16 years ago

This is a specious argument. We might just as easily argue that it shows dolphins have a predilection for suicidal thrill-seeking, or that ti's a dangerous initiation ritual that only the bravest and cleverest dolphins can survive or (insert bizarre human social practice here).

Incidentally, you'll be glad to know that dolphin slaughter is becoming increasingly unpopular in Japan due to both high mercury levels in meat (and in the residents of whaling communities), and an increasing sentiment among the Japanese public that dolphins are cuter than they are tasty. At this point they're keeping it up for appearance's sake and to placate an increasingly small nationalist fringe that's still arguing they could have won WW2.

zephyrfalcon• 16 years ago

According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cove_%28film%29], the dolphins are herded into the cove, so they don't go in there voluntarily. Also, apparently it happens only once a year, so 364 days out of 365 that cove would be a safe place.

lutorm2• 16 years ago

If they go into the cove and is killed, how would the others know that going into the cove is dangerous?

There are plenty of examples of human beings dying in their home and no one noticing because they aren't missed by anyone. The same would happen if an entire social group of dolphins just disappeared. I think you're being a bit unfair to the dolphins here.

antipaganda• 16 years ago

There is a HUGE flaw in your analogy here: "If people did go in there and got killed we'd cover the event in detail on TV, as a warning to others (like Shark Week). Even really stupid people would know not to go into the "valley of the stabby monsters."

Dolphins don't have TV. They have no technology, apart from using sponges to protect their noses.

Imagine that, back before the Stone Age, you were a primitive hunter-gatherer, and you had to warn the entire world population about the valley of stabby invincible guys, since you were the only survivor of the last massacre there. How the hell would you do it? Who would even believe you?

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

Science is all about how things work, not how we should act.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable...

See, this is what we get when we confuse science and activism. Should a "researcher" have any more weight with the public about what they consider "morally acceptable"?

I think there is some meat to this story: we need a more nuanced scale of what is morally acceptable or not that includes various forms of intelligence (without the same logic being used to treat disabled people poorly) I can't emphasize enough how important these issues are. Dolphins are obviously highly intelligent creatures. But such a discussion needs to happen from a neutral and reasonable standpoint. Asking folks who are deeply in love with their subject to tell us what's morally acceptable or not is whacked.

Doctors shouldn't treat themselves, lawyers shouldn't have themselves as clients, accountants shouldn't audit their own books, programmers shouldn't peer-review their own code -- and scientists shouldn't advocate on the topics they are deeply attached to. This is just common sense.

EDIT: Just to be clear, there are at least three problems with scientists-as-activist.

1) The public gets to make the decision on these issues. This means that any communication from scientists has to have as its goal informing the public, not persuading it. In an article like this, it is not clear to the public where the discussion of science ends and where the discussion of advocacy begins. This confusion, aside from being unethical in any profession, is a poor use of the public's resources.

2) The end result of such advocacy has a direct impact on the scientist's lives, creating a moral hazard. This is like when your chiropractor tells you that you have a bad back -- and need many more chiropractor visits. Maybe true, maybe not, but when a professional judgment can also be self-serving it creates mixed incentives and doubt, which is bad for any group of professionals

3) Morality is not science: you cannot add one and one and get "moral" or "immoral". When a conclusion like this is put forth by a scientist, it glosses over all sorts of other questions which other professionals are interested in, like when life begins, or what constitutes sentience. To make a statement about morality is -- at the very least -- to jump into areas for which you are not trained. As a professional, once again, it's your job to make it clear which things you speak about are part of your work and part of your opinions. The most important thing a scientist can say is "I don't know"

That's not even getting into the entire issue of just being too close to something to make a good call. Or -- if you think such behavior is okay -- the use of scientists as pawns to have proxy battles over other larger political causes.

These are not new standards. Other professions have been living inside of them for years. Ask your accounting consulting firm whether it's moral for you to invest in Indonesia and you'll get a very careful reply which will boil down to "I am not the person to ask that question of"

gort• 16 years ago

"we need a more nuanced scale of what is morally acceptable or not that includes various forms of intelligence (without the same logic being used to treat disabled people poorly)"

Explain the discrepancy.

kemayo• 16 years ago

I doubt there's any reasoning behind it beyond "but they're people!"

I find the comparison between the treatment of mentally handicapped people and smarter animals to be a very interesting moral issue. I've not seen an argument that doesn't essentially boil down to "but humans are better".

jat850• 16 years ago

Your final analogy unfortunately completely broke at the end. I think the only valid parallel conclusion you could have drawn would be something like, "Scientists should not review their own results before publication" or something to that effect.

Programmers advocate topics close to themselves all the time. Why can't scientists?

syllogism• 16 years ago

Scientists can't tell you how to define morality, but much of moral reasoning starts from a shared set of premises that establish an ethical framework, and from there it's about empirical questions.

In this case the moral axiom would be that it is bad to cause suffering and good to cause joy. The science here is telling us that dolphins are capable of a full range of experiences, just as we are. It's up to you to interpret that information in your moral framework, but I think it's reasonable to believe many people will share a basic set of axioms about what is moral that make the implications here clear.

ced4• 16 years ago

Doctors shouldn't treat themselves, lawyers shouldn't have themselves as clients

Why not? Is there a law against that? I'm genuinely curious.

and scientists shouldn't advocate on the topics they are deeply attached to

That's a non-sequitur analogy.

Besides, who do you propose to advocate a position if not those who have learned the most about it? Shall we forbid Dawkins from advocating evolution? Economists (it's a science!) from advocating economic policy?

Should we forbid programmers from advocating software patent reform because "it's a topic they are deeply attached to"?

electromagnetic6• 16 years ago

> Shall we forbid Dawkins from advocating evolution?

Yes, please, I'm begging you. Dawkins has made himself the WORST person to be advocating evolution because he's turned it from a rational scientific argument into the moron-capades by arguing about the existence of god.

To put it simply, he's trying to get his finger out of a Chinese-finger-trap by pulling, which makes him a moron because every 5-year old will tell you to give up and push your fingers together because its... you guessed it... POINTLESS, just like arguing about an unresolvable argument like whether god does or doesn't exist.

Does a tree falling in the forest make a noise? Yes, it's called science lets invite Dawkins to talk about it again.

Why shouldn't a doctor treat themselves? Because it's very hard to do open heart surgery on yourself!

Edit: > Should we forbid programmers from advocating software patent reform because "it's a topic they are deeply attached to"?

I thought the conventional wisdom with copyright reform was that the MPAA, RIAA, etc. should be forbidden from advocating because "it's a topic they are deeply attached to" ... you know all those hundred-dollar bills don't roll themselves up into big fat wads and slip into Congressmen's pockets for nothing.

LaGrange5• 16 years ago

It's a malformed version of a genuine research principle. Attachment to research objects is often cited as a deficiency of a publication. But it's not disqualifying by itself, and has nothing to do with advocacy.

lionhearted• 16 years ago

> Shall we forbid Economists (it's a science!) from advocating economic policy?

Yes!

msg• 16 years ago

Here is the real problem with moral statements by scientists as scientists. The task of science is, roughly, explaining observation in reference to proximate causes and systematizing those causes as completely and minimally as possible.

There is a divide between this task of explaining what is and proclaiming what should be. There is no way to make the leap with the tools of science (measuring, hypothesizing, testing, theorizing). Put another way, science does not have the meta makeup to look outside itself and say, "what is science good for?"

So when scientists make moral claims as scientists, they are dressing up a lay moral opinion in their lab jacket. Like Freud talking about linguistics or economists talking about love, we should only trust them as far as the limits of their expertise. And we should recognize that when scientists say that science proves an ought, they are committing a category error.

CapitalistCartr3• 16 years ago

" Economists (it's a science!) from advocating economic policy?"

Forbid them, no. But when an economist switches from telling us the facts, and his professional opinion, to advocacy, he has a moral obligation to make it clear when he switches. As an advocate, he's not acting as a scientist (economist), but as an activist citizen.

alanh4• 16 years ago

A lot of work has been done recently in psychology and neurobiology regarding the hows of not just thought, but emotion. Sociology has uncovered strange patterns in human “moral” behavior, such as how we donate more to one starving child than to a country of hungry millions. And the so-called “new atheists” have been talking about biological and evolutionary causes of morality for a few years now.

Science now includes morality.

Science is now about how things work and how we should act.

Addendum: With science we can determine which behaviors can maximize happiness. Isn't that prescriptive, not just descriptive?

ced4• 16 years ago

Science now includes morality.

Yes, but only in a descriptive fashion. Science can now explain why homo sapiens has evolved specific moral feelings and customs.

Science is now about how things work and how we should act.

This "science as a moral authority" is a different concept altogether. I'm all for including scientists in public debate, but let's not go too far.

randallsquared• 16 years ago

Science (and reason in general) can only tell you how you should act given a goal. It cannot tell you what goal you should have except by reference to some other goal, so there is ultimately no way to reason with someone about their morality unless you and they share (at least for the purpose of the argument) a high enough goal.

mattmcknight• 16 years ago

Very good points, and the subject of Sam Harris' recent book, "The Moral Landscape", which gets into that idea in some detail. This Q&A provides a good overview of the arguments:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-moral-landscape-...

grellas• 16 years ago

scientists shouldn't advocate on the topics they are deeply attached to

Very nicely put.

Along similar lines, quoting from a post I did a while back (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1140274):

"Activist groups have long looked for a hook by which to bring class actions against those whom they see as perpetrators of wrongs that they wish to stop. In this case, it is commercial tuna fishermen. However, the courts have denied them the right to sue on behalf of the dolphins (which are accidentally killed in the course of industrial tuna fishing) on grounds that dolphins aren't human beings and therefore do not have 'standing' to sue. This means that the activist groups also cannot bring class actions in the name of the dolphins. Of course, if the dolphins are 'self-aware,' then they arguably can be treated in a special way by the courts - as 'non-human humans' - and be given the right to sue. The research is being cast as disinterested science, but I believe it may be motivated by this extra-scientific goal and that is why it is routinely presented along with arguments for better ethical treatment of the dolphins. In essence, the bottom line will be this: better ethical treatment = enforceable legal rights (i.e., enforceable by activist groups suing tuna fisherman in federal court once a court recognizes their right to bring such suits on behalf of a 'self-aware' species that now should have 'standing' to sue)."

I am not trying to knock the science - just saying that, when cast as a moral imperative, it is as much advocacy as it is science and that its objectivity must be considered in that light. Perhaps it would be best for those who do these studies to stick to the facts and let others do the advocacy. It would give them a higher degree of credibility as scientists if they separated these roles.

ced4• 16 years ago

Perhaps it would be best for those who do these studies to stick to the facts and let others do the advocacy. It would give them a higher degree of credibility as scientists if they separated these roles.

That's a good point, but on the other hand, there are many issues that are unsexy, from which activists shy away. There's a passage in Russell and Norvig's AI book that relates how the US government once asked researchers to evaluate if we should ban a toxic paint component from being used in classrooms. The researchers did a proper utility calculation; they assigned a value (say 80000$) to a child's life, then evaluated the cost vs benefit (how many children lives could be saved vs. the cost of using another paint). It turned out that banning the paint component would be beneficial. The government was outraged, "How can you assign a monetary value to a child's life???"

So they rejected the report, and didn't ban the paint.

The moral was that "Refusing to assign a value to a human life leads to its being frequently undervalued"

There's no way that any activist group will ever march to support assigning value to children's lives. Yet, it may be the right thing to do, and it could happen if we had more scientific advocacy.

abeppu• 16 years ago

While I agree that science shouldn't try to give us declarations about what is and isn't moral, I disagree that researchers are necessarily unqualified to advocate with respect to their fields. You seem to have jumped to the conclusion that researchers are emotionally attached to their field in a way that prevents them from being objective. I don't see why this should be the case. If anything, competent researchers need to be able to be objective about their research. If a person can't be objective about dolphins, not only should that person not be in a discussion about whether dolphins are people, that person should not be doing research on dolphins.

But the input from objective, rational experts, including dolphin researchers, is certainly valuable in a discussion on whether dolphins are people -- as is input from philosophers, animal psychology researchers, and potentially legal scholars. Similarly, I would have a hard time accepting a claim that doctors shouldn't be in a discussion on right-to-die legislation because they must be too emotionally attached to their patients, or that civil rights activists and scholars shouldn't be part of discussions surrounding rights of US held detainees at Guantanamo/Bagram/etc because surely those activists are too emotionally attached to an outcome to be rational.

lutorm2• 16 years ago

By inference, business people should not be allowed to advertise or argue for their own products... Or should the public already know not to trust business people?

grandalf• 16 years ago

While I agree with the gist of your argument, I'd make the following point:

It was science that disproved notions of human racial inferiority, phrenology, witchcraft, and other social conventions that led to conditions of horrible oppression.

So while one might argue that the scientist should only reason about facts and not about morality, there are cases when someone acting in any professional capacity might choose to speak out about a moral issue that their professional activities have given them insight into. For what constitutes a moral judgment on a complex issue but an average moral judgment applied to advanced knowledge of a subject?

The key difference (in my opinion) is not in the area of moral judgment but that some humans have the courage to apply moral judgment to issues that they are uniquely able to understand and others do not (I recall we debated wikileaks here a few months ago :)

So unlike your conclusion that moral activism is outside the professional boundaries of science and should thus be left to professional moralizers (clergy? politicians? the general public?) I'd argue that anyone who discovers a moral outrage in the course of his/her professional work should speak out about it, but should not overstretch his/her claim to authority, since that authority is narrow to his/her field and often the moral question is broader, etc.

CapitalistCartr3• 16 years ago

Absolutely. Anyone who discovers a moral outrage should speak up. As long as they make a clear distinction between their professional job and their advocating as a concerned citizen. They are wearing two different hats and should show that.

rue4• 16 years ago

> See, this is what we get when we confuse science and activism. Should a "researcher" have any more weight with the public about what they consider "morally acceptable"?

There is something to be said about a scientific approach to morality but for the purposes of this discussion, is it not sufficient to posit that the scientists are merely making a logical connection?

Given 1. Prevailing morality protects persons (humans as of writing); 2. Dolphins show a significant amount of person-like traits.

Therefore, by prevailing morality, dolphins should be protected.

It is obviously not quite as straightforward but neither does it require a great faith-based leap in logic.

…

As a sidenote, this is interesting to see on such an entrepeneurship-focused site:

> This is like when your chiropractor tells you that you have a bad back -- and need many more chiropractor visits.

Should "founders" not try to sell their product either?

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

Yet Ethics is a reasonable area of study, maybe not a science but certainly amenable to reasoned arguments.

Maybe you can't add 1 and 1 and get Moral, but you can certainly reason that people shouldn't be killed carelessly. And who better to know if dolphins are people, than the people spending their lives studying them?

narrator• 16 years ago

>The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable...

Science just tells you how things work not how they "ought" to work. The "ought" is the province of philosophers, and mystics. Unfortunately, atheists need someone to act as an authority for them on difficult moral questions, and so "Scientists" (with a capital S) are there preachers and prophets.

BTW, I'm an atheist and I find it funny how other atheists want to replace religion with something like a religion that's just dressed up in "Science".

anigbrowl3• 16 years ago

And journalism is all about getting eyeballs, even if that compromises accuracy in the process. What we have here is an abridgment Current.TV 'reprint' of a London Times article that doesn't cite any specific papers, and which contains a great deal more hand-waving than specifics. It's so poorly edited that the Current.TV version never identifies who this 'Marino' person is (the Times does: Lori Marino, a zoologist from Emory U., GA). So already you're forming conclusions based on significantly incomplete information.

Moving onto the Times article, it too fails to differentiate clearly between the findings of two scientists (Marino & Reiss), specializing in the study of dolphins, and a professor of ethics (White) offering a view on the implications of the scientific findings. Agree or disagree with his conclusion, offering opinions on ethical matters is the sort of thing ethicists are employed to do. What's not clear is the degree of advocacy taking place, or who is doing it.

If Marino and Reiss simply offer their findings about the neurology and observable behavior of dolphins, and observe that this allows us to make some inferences about how intelligent they are in human terms using rigorous methods, that's not advocacy of the kind you object to: that'd just good old empiricism. To the extent that there's an agenda in the choice of subject, it's one of increasing scientific knowledge. No scientists needs permission for the curiosity. How about White? Perhaps his abridged quote about delphine moral qualifications is advocacy, or perhaps it's the conclusion he's drawn after evaluating the accuracy of the scientific findings and placing them in a formal ethical framework of the kind we use to explore other ethical questions and inform policy. One doesn't have to agree with an ethicist's conclusion, but we must at least admit that someone whose job it is to teach moral reasoning is entitled to apply their skills and form an opinion.

It seems to me that you've decided to take the headline literally and attribute the apparent conclusion of the ethics professor to the psychologist and zoologist, and then condemn them for unscientific irresponsibility.

There are two flaws with this approach. The obvious one is the inaccuracy of judging someone by the actions or statements of another. The less obvious one - even if the advocacy is expressed by the scientists themselves - is the assumption that they are claiming scientific authority for something they might advocate. It is not wrong for scientists to have opinions on non-scientific topics like ethics, or to express those opinions in public. It's only wrong for a scientist to assert a scientific basis for an unscientific opinion by leveraging their academic authority.

For example, a biologist can observe that a human breathing x amount of carbon monoxide is likely to be fatal; this we are willing to treat as a fact based on academic credibility. The same biologist might also opine that killing people by suffocating them with carbon monoxide is immoral; here, academic standing confers no more moral authority than you or I enjoy, but nor does it imply any less. Moral hazard is when the biologist says 'my expertise on the biological effects of carbon monoxide gives me superior powers of moral judgment.' That's flat-out dishonest, and if a scientist employs a technical journal as a platform for their moral beliefs, I quite agree that it's unscientific. But if they want to present their moral beliefs in the Journal of Moral Philosophy, that doesn't bother me at all because I can judge their argument from its proper perspective, and evaluate whether the moral reasoning they employ justifies the conclusions they draw. Nor would I have a problem with an ethicist submitting a paper to the Journal of Morally Neutral Psychology if it were presenting rigorous empirical observations and statistical methods that were strictly limited to describing people's behavior. In short, it is the context in which activism takes place that matters when judging its professionalism - if any activism has taken place at all.

So, I did some research into the background. It turns out that the context in which these academics talked about dolphins was (drumroll, please) at a symposium on titled 'Intelligence in Dolphins: Ethical and Policy Implications' during the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Marino presented anatomical findings about the anatomical evidence used to evaluate the intelligence and wellbeing of dolphins, and whether measurable declines in wellbeing could result from conditions of captivity. Reiss reviewed her work on the cognitive and social psychology of dolphins, and asked whether scientists can or should seek to export existing ethical practices governing scientific research and treatment of livestock in the US to other nations who are indifferent to such ethical standards. White examined the ethical implications of these and other questions, seemingly concluding that despite fundamental differences, the basis on which we accord moral standing to humans also seems to apply to dolphins.

I don't know the details of what they said; I'm going by the abstracts for the symposium listed on the conference schedule, which seems to be the entire basis for the Times article as well. These are available at http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2010/webprogram/Session1526.html

But what I do know, now, is that these three individuals were not attempting to persuade or even address the public, but were discussing the ethical quandaries encountered within their profession, in front of an audience of other scientists at a professional conference.

Is this OK, or you still have a problem with it? If so, could you explain how it differs from discussions of medical or legal ethics among members of those professions?

guelo• 16 years ago

B.S. This is the argument used by know-nothings to try to claim moral superiority. Exactly what gives a priest or a politician more right to advocate than a scientist? If those with the most knowledge on a subject aren't allowed to advocate then noone else should be either.

chocolatesnak• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but this comment is poorly thought out and poorly supported.

First the commenter sets up a straw man in which it is claimed that these particular scientists are "deeply attached" to the issue (which implies they are not objective). There is no evidence for this conclusion in the article, nor is one supported in any way by the commenter.

Then the commenter makes a really terrible analogy about doctors and lawyers working with themselves as clients. How exactly are scientists studying these dolphins analogous to a doctor swabbing her own throat and prescribing herself an antibiotic for her strep throat (which, by the way, is in no way unethical, and probably often done)?

Again, I'm sorry, but the commenter doesn't seem to understand word one about either science, or the role of science if he/she thinks scientists and science are supposed to be some glorified "information please" clerks who are there to provide whatever information you think you need to make a decision.

And you put forth a really muddled view of that constitutes ethical behavior. Are you really trying to advance the theory that physicians who advocate for healthy public policy are "unethical"? A pediatrician sees his community ravaged by whooping cough - you are trying to tell us he shouldn't get on the phone to his congressman and local newspaper and raise hell about vaccinations? A water scientist notes that local wells are contaminated by petroleum contaminants. You think she's wrong to pick up the phone and give an interview advocating investigation, cleanup, and prevention? You really think that people like Einstein and Bohr shouldn't have tried to influence policy as a matter of ethics and their professional duties?

Bullshit.

Part of the problem in this country is the lack of ability of "the public" to "make the decision on these issues". Science, physicians, and other professionals have a clear role in both informing AND persuading the public. We want the people who know the most about these issues speaking up the loudest...beyond politicians....and definitely beyond business people, who without a doubt are the ones who inevitably have the deepest conflicts of interest.

Thank God scientists ARE starting to speak out more, instead of the cacophony of "know nothing" we are hearing from certain anti-science segments of "the public". We just got done with eight years of an administration which put science on the back burner, while advocating the most irrational of policies.

The return of American "know-nothing-ism", exemplified by the commenter's little screed about the role of science, is a symptom of what has been going wrong with America over the last decade. We need more scientists speaking up and out.

Louder.

ugh• 16 years ago

Sorry, but who exactly should be allowed to talk about morality then? Politicians? Scientists are just as much part of the public as anybody else. They don’t get an extra vote, they still have to convince everybody else.

joshrule• 16 years ago

Part of almost every scientific paper is the 'discussion'. Here, the scientists discuss what the implications of their findings are. This portion of the paper is always up for further debate (hence the title 'discussion').

So, given some operational definition of 'persons', a statement like, "The scientific research ... suggests that dolphins are non-human persons..." may not be entirely out of order in a scientific paper. If dolphins are persons, it's not a big jump to say that they qualify as individuals worthy of moral consideration.

Now, whether their operational definition of person is good or not is a question up for debate. Science has debated the meaning and use of many terms and ideas throughout history. Questions about the relation of the planets and stars used to be primarily theological (harmony of the spheres and so on). Some of our most famous scientists worked to develop good tests and supporting mathematics which slowly created the science of astronomy. That process has been repeated for many, many things over history. Personhood may be another one of those debates, one which we have the opportunity to witness in these sorts of studies.

So, provided the philosophical statements were properly positioned in the paper, I don't think they were entirely misplaced. Sloppy journalism is another issue entirely, though, and a common malady of good science.

_b8r0• 16 years ago

This is solely my opinion, and I could be (and would love to be proven) completely wrong, but as I understand it we as a race are the most incredible predators on the planet. There is no animal on this earth that could survive a full onslaught by a group of humans. We win, put simply.

Now for dolphins to turn around and say so long and thanks for all the fish is a great thing. I like dolphins. There are people here who think eugenics is a good thing. What will dolphins do for them?

Sadly, the eugenics side will probably live. As long as what we produce is on the scale of Dr Julian Bashir I only have a minor problem. If we're producing Khan Noonien Singh then I have a major problem.

Going back to the problem, I believe that dolphins are great creatures but not on the same terms as us. I'm sorry if you view it differently. I think Dolphins are great in their own right, therefore don't need our help to become intelligent but should have a supporter definately.

Tyrant505• 16 years ago

Does intelligence somehow determine the significance and importance of pain? Is it less real?

JulianMorrison• 16 years ago

If you consider intelligence in terms of IQ tests, they're pretty smart. If you consider it in terms of optimizing power, the ability to shape the future to their goals, a quadriplegic low-IQ human with a eyeblink controlled typing screen obliterates them. I would consider them pre-people at most, ripe for uplift.

puredemo• 16 years ago

I wonder how brain-computer interfaces and neuroprosthetics might change this in the upcoming years.

Seaquest was right!

tremendo• 16 years ago

I'm all for the humane treatment of animals. Humans are animals. But doesn't "person" imply "human"? Does a human need to be intelligent to be a person? what about someone with extensive brain damage, wouldn't (s)he still be a person? Why muddle definitions?

fleitz2• 16 years ago

It's a very interesting philosophical question about what implies a person and if such a thing can be lost, and when personhood is gained. It was once very easy to lose personhood, for example being unable to pay your debts, or losing in combat. It seems that for the present personhood is gained at birth and is never lost.

For better or worse, corporations are also treated as persons.

known• 16 years ago

And give them voting rights.

waynecolvin• 16 years ago

If dolphins became legal persons then how would you take one to court? If one ever broke into your house or something.

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

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