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It always amazes me how science has historically tripped over itself to avoid calling what is clearly some sort of culturally defined communication as “language
by JohnMakin 2y ago
It always amazes me how science has historically tripped over itself to avoid calling what is clearly some sort of culturally defined communication as “language” when it comes to cetaceans.
I think and suspect these animals are far more intelligent than we guessed, and the ethical ramifications of that reality would be difficult to swallow. Many species of toothed and baleen whales are under threat of extinction according to a lot of climate predictions.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoClimate isn’t the biggest risk to some species. Some orcas (which are technically dolphins) don’t have enough supply of the fish they eat. Issues like river and fishery management or dam removal or ocean overfishing don’t get enough attention, but would be important to fix even if climate wasn’t an issue.
- mikrotikker 2y agoMaybe that's why they started attacking boats... Hitting the competition
- micromacrofoot 2y agofishing net entanglement is still the biggest problem for some nearly extinct species like the right whale
- bullfightonmars 2y agoI think the whole point/perspective of science is that claims have to be provable with evidence. Scientists don’t make claims without evidence. I am sure that there were a lot of preconceived biases that blocked scientific research from occurring in this space, but it might also be that we didn’t have the tools to examine evidence until recently. Scientists are generally very curious, open to exploration, and absolutely want to prove the unproven or refute the previously proven with new evidence. It’s how they make their stamp in their field.
- stult 2y ago> I think the whole point/perspective of science is that claims have to be provable with evidence Really, the whole point of science is that claims have to be falsifiable with evidence, which is more or less the opposite of provable. Nothing is ever positively proven in science, hypotheses are only ever falsified, and only hypotheses susceptible to falsification with evidence are scientific. A failure to prove a hypothesis false is the closest we come to establishing a positive scientific truth.
- seventytwo 2y agoIt’s both.
- JohnMakin 2y agoPretty sure the reason stuff like this isn’t called language is because language is circularly defined as something only homo sapiens does.
- messe 2y agoYou're pretty sure? Well, that's convinced me. (/s) I'm not going to debate this topic here, but for what it's worth you're coming across as somebody who has chosen their stance and is cherry-picking their evidence and anecdotes to suit their biases. While I agree with your suspicion that a lot of animals are more intelligent than most give them credit for, you're not arguing for that viewpoint well. You might want to revisit how you make your points.
- JohnMakin 2y agoI mean wikipedia is free but yes this is how it is defined: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language https://www.britannica.com/topic/language https://www.britannica.com/topic/language I’ve never seen a definition of language in a scientific context that frames it in any other context other than something humans do. Please feel free to show me otherwise. Whether or not you are convinced isn’t really my concern - this is a well known scientific thing.
- Teever 2y agoNoone wants to admit that we brutly hunted down and genocided the nearest thing to an alien culture on our planet for some fucking lamp oil. Just like no one wants to admit that we cause untold suffering to billions of cows and pigs every year in our factory farm matrix. That's why we don't talk about animal intelligence and language the way that we should.
- Galatians4_16 2y agoUsed to be they were just hunted to near extinction, for their oil. It has since been replaced with a more whale-friendly alternative. "There are no solutions …only tradeoffs." —Thomas Sowell
- dotnet00 2y agoThe issue is that human language is visibly a tier above just "culturally defined communication". Lots of mammals have some sort of learned 'language' in that they associate sounds or actions with certain meanings, cats and dogs can even be taught to communicate with humans by pressing buttons that say human words. However it's obvious that human language has much more complexity than just that. Barring undeniable and extraordinary evidence of communication of similar complexity to humans, the claim that cetaceans have language in the human sense remains extraordinary.
- gweinberg 2y agoWell, of course some people do want to call it language, but so far it's not clear that it is. We might say it's so complex it's more like a symphony than birdsong, but a symphony doesn't necessarily have anything like semantic content. Given the way whale songs evolve over time, with wanna-be whales imitating the cool whales, it's quite possible that it's pretty much all showing off their talents rather than communicating ideas.
- NeuroCoder 2y agoI can't speak for others, but when I've discussed the work of peers or even my own work I try to be very careful about not overstating the results. It's far too easy for a lay audience to take such comparisons and run amok. As for your latter point, I doubt that most scientists studying animals are the ones against preventative measures in regards to extinction. There are plenty of ethical reasons to prevent extinction of a species without ascribing human characteristics.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThis is a nature article, not hard hitting scientific journalism - it is designed for a “lay audience” as you so condescendingly put it. It’s accepted that there are unique “dialects” and cultural artifacts amongst different pods of orcas, for instance. They’ve been observed engaging in highly clever and coordinated attacks on prey (that can differ drastically depending on culture). It’s not really “running amok” to make a conclusion that they’re probably not coordinating and passing along cultural artifacts/hunting techniques by telepathy, but I do acknowledge that we don’t know everything.
- quattrofan 2y ago[dead]
- dudinax 2y agoWhat's worse, a lay audience that thinks whales are talking amongst themselves or a lay audience that has no idea whales do anything other than mating songs and sonar clicks?
- hanniabu 2y agoThere's many that believe cats and dogs have no feelings. Until we can convince people if that, I have no hope of people caring about whales.