Scientists Begin to Decode Whale Language

[n2doc]

Cetaceans are known to be among the most clever and intelligent of all mammals. They have brains that are roughly the same size as humans or larger, which are similarly or superiorly complex (although differently evolved in structure). This has led some marine biologists to speculate that whales, and other Cetaceans, could be as intelligent as humans, and may even have several unknown communicative abilities, that surpass our current understanding through sonar and other means.

Critics say that if cetaceans were as smart as us there’d be more evidence of it. But what type of evidence would suffice? The fact that Cetaceans are suffering from (rather than creating) the kind of environmental suicide that humans indulge in, is not necessarily proof of inferiority.

It is known that the prehistoric predecessors of Cetaceans were land animals who returned to the sea where there was relatively little fear of large predators and an abundant food supply. Dolphins and whales appear to have rich communicative powers among themselves and are very playful. It is also known that dolphins can use tools and teach their children how to use tools. Dolphins are one of the few animals other than humans known to mate for pleasure rather than strictly for reproduction. They form strong bonds with each other, which leads them to stay with their injured and sick. Dolphins also display protective behavior towards humans, by keeping them safe from sharks, for example.

Now Australian scientists studying humpback whales sounds say they have begun to decode the whale's mysterious communication system. They say they’ve already identified male “pick-up lines” as well as motherly warnings.

more:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/11/scientists-begi.html

[qazplm]

1. what is it

with the need to see other animals as smarter than us?

I don't get it. I understand valuing all creatures. I understand recognizing that many animals are smart.

[Sandrine for you]

2. So much people see animals like some stupid biological robots

It"s at the core of our judeochristian culture. So it"s normal that sometimes, some are thinking otherwise: to really remember that the difference is not so big.

Also, I think their is something like a existential solitude: we are a specie who need to think that we are not alone. For some it"s god...

[qazplm]

3. plenty of people

dont see animals as "stupid biological robots" but simply because some do does not mean we go off in the opposite direction too far.

The difference quite frankly is huge.

Now somewhere out there, there is probably a lifeform which makes us look like cockroaches to a certain extent.

But on this ball o' life, I think we are clearly the leading intelligence, for the good and bad that comes with that.

[Nihil]

7. The *potential* difference is huge ...

... but there are shitloads of "humans" who are simply LESS intelligent
than many animals.

No, there is no contest between the top 10% of humans and even the top 10%
of animals (from what's been determined so far) but there is plenty of
contest between the bottom 10% of humans (at least) and the top 10% of
animals.

The problem in discussing it is that, before long, people tend to pile
in with accusations of "discrimination" and even "eugenics" rather than
admit that there is a larger variation in human intelligence than the
difference in ranges between humans and the nearest (other) animals.

:shrug:

[qazplm]

8. no there isnt

and saying it doesnt make it so.

[Nihil]

21. Oh, qazplm has spoken so there is obviously no argument!

:eyes:

[qazplm]

22. I sure as heck haven't seen one

anyone arguing that 10 percent of humans are less intelligent than animals better actually have one of those things called an argument.

Saying it doesn't make it so and doesn't make it an argument.

So if you got something more than rolly eye smilies in your ammo fire away, but somehow I suspect that's all you are packing.

[Nihil]

23. Let me try again.

I was wrong with my "handwave" assignment of "10%" and apologise
for misleading your interpretation of what was meant to be a
purely indicative post rather than a quantitative one.

My original statement was

> there are shitloads of "humans" who are simply LESS intelligent
> than many animals.

I've added the emphasis this time but stand by the statement.
See below for clarification.


> No, there is no contest between the top 10% of humans and even
> the top 10% of animals (from what's been determined so far)

I see no disagreement from you with my handwave for the above opinion
but what I should have written was:
-> No, there is no contest between the top X% of humans and even
-> the top X% of animals (from what's been determined so far)

No, I am *not* trying to claim that all animals are superior to all
humans. Nor am I trying to claim that any animals are superior to the
top X% of humans. Maybe this makes it clearer?


Similarly, my previous post said:
> but there is plenty of contest between the bottom 10% of humans
> (at least) and the top 10% of animals.

This is the opinion that you disagree with (although not stated as
such in your first response). Again, this should have been written
in a generic form such as:
-> but there is plenty of contest between the bottom Y% of humans
-> (at least) and the top Y% of animals.

"Y" in this case is much less than 10% and I apologise for being
careless with my hand-waves. It is still however a positive percentage
that, when multiplied by total populations, results in a number easily
equivalenced to "shitloads" :-)

e.g.,
> Mental retardation stands as the single largest neuropsychiatric disorder
> in every civilized society. Its overall frequency cannot be stated
> precisely. Rough estimates are that in a group of children between
> 9 and 14 years of age, about 2 percent or slightly more will be unable
> to profit from public education or to adapt socially and, when fully
> grown up, to live independently. Using any one of a number of
> indices of social and psychologic failure, two somewhat overlapping
> groups are recognized: (1) the mildly impaired (IQ 45 to 70), and
> (2) the severely impaired, corresponding to an IQ below 45. The second
> group, also called the pathologic mentally retarded, makes up
> approximately 10 percent of the subnormal population.

i.e., about 2% of the population will be sufficiently retarded as to be
unable to live independently and 0.2% of the population will be in the
category of pathologically mentally retarded.

There is no question (in objective terms) that an intelligent animal that
can live independently is superior to an unintelligent animal that cannot.

If you cannot recognise this then you are not viewing the situation in an
objective manner. If you were merely disputing the figures ("10%") used in
my hand-waves then I apologise for being too flippant.

[qazplm]

24. well yes

if a human is so impaired as to have no capability for human level intelligence, then yes, they might be below the smartest of animals.

But that point requires a human who's so badly damaged either genetically or physically as to be, and I say this in the most gentlest terms for those with a loved one suffering from these conditions, well, certainly loved and certainly human in terms of being loved and requiring care, but not a representative sample for this discussion which makes it, well, yes flippant to argue.

It would be akin to arguing because a one day old infant can't really do much of anything while a 10 year old Crow is pretty darn smart, that some crows are smarter than some humans.

It's flippant and useless information.

[Nihil]

26. I agree with most of what you say ...

... (especially in the gentle way you address the feeling of other
readers) but disagree that it is flippant to include this section
of humanity in the earlier discussion.

There is a world of difference between this and your (flippant :-) )
comparison of a day old infant and a ten year old crow (as there is
between any infant and an adult of the same species).

A large part of my point was that as we treat such people with care
and kindness we should also treat those other animals with matching care
and kindness as the latter group are actually superior in intelligence
to the former. This isn't "useless information": it is a key issue
in how we relate (or rather, should relate) to the other animals on
this planet.

We can take care of that segment of the human population yet do little
to care for the numerically smaller (and thus at higher risk) population
of more intelligent creatures. This is the result of the "special case"
treatment instilled by many religions ("top of the heap" or "dominionist"
approach) and which is morally wrong when taken in any balanced manner.
Whilst you are right to view it as a minority of humanity, the sheer
numbers involved mean that it *is* a valid comparison.

[qazplm]

27. no

you take care of animals because you ARE superior.

The fact that we dont take care of other animals enough and I am not sure what you mean by that, are you advocating vegetarianism? better treatment in general?

That fact is not based on some special case by religions but the fact that we are flawed creatures and so we have some individuals who take very good care of other animals some who are just middling and some who abuse animals.

If religions didnt exist that fact would still remain.

We certainly shouldnt take care of other animals though because some of them are smarter then the most severely handicapped among us. So what if there were no handicapped folks around then our responsibility is somehow lifted?

[cyborg_jim]

14. Some people seem peole as "stupid biological robots"

No need to elevate ourselves to positions we just can't justify.

[qazplm]

20. no need to lower ourselves

to positions we just can't justify merely because one thinks others elevate us too high.

[girl gone mad]

4. We're better at manipulating our environment..

but whales have larger brains and could potentially evolve to be more intelligent than us at some point in time. We seem to be devolving, and in fact pre-historic humans appear to have opted for more prolific reproduction over a larger cranium and greater potential intelligence.

[jberryhill]

6. So... it's true what they said about too much sex making people dumber?

[qazplm]

9. devolving?

Let's look back 1 million years, 1,000 years and 100 years shall we?

1 million years:

Certainly more "evolved" now than then wouldn't you agree? We have varied food, shelter, warmth, education for everyone under 18, we live probably two to three times as long, infant mortality rate is a mere fraction, could go on and on.

1,000 years ago:

back then we had slavery, no real democracy (magna carta is still about 200 years away and while we did have the Greek experiment, it wasnt a true democracy, more like a democratic oligarchy), no woman's rights, most lived subsistence diets, no education, living conditions were poor, people didnt live as long, again we could go on and on

100 years ago:

no slavery but still separation, no women's rights really (just getting around to the right to vote), child labor, education is still spotty, so is health care, standard of living, democracy has taken hold somewhat but still not fully throughout the world, "total war" is still practiced with firebombings still to come that make the atomic bomb drops pale by death toll numbers, use of chemical weapons, some things are better, but which society would you rather live in?

I see no evidence that we are doing anything but evolving at least socially. Fast enough? Nope, not by a long shot. Is everything good? Nope, not by a long shot. But compared to the past, there is no time like the present.

Size of brains does not equal more intelligence. Could another animal evolve past us? I suppose anything is possible over millenia. But right now, we are it, for good or bad, at the top of the food/brain chain on this ball of life.

As for pre historic humans. If our heads were any larger, we couldn't fit through our moms when we are born. It is not some desire to have more babies that is the problem, it is the physical limitations of being bipedal animals, you can only make the birth canal so wide and still have normal walking ability.

[laconicsax]

16. There's no such thing as 'more evolved.'

Evolution is a natural process with no end goal. It happens and that's it.

[qazplm]

17. sure there is

I think it fair to say that we are more evolved than an amoeba.

I didnt say there was an "end goal." Being more or less evolved has nothing to do with there being an end goal.

[laconicsax]

18. Nope, sorry.

From one standpoint, amoebas and humans have been evolving for the same amount of time.
From another, amoebas have been evolving for a much longer period of time with more generations going back to our last common ancestor.

From the first perspective, neither is 'more evolved,' from the second, amoebas are.

I think you might be confusing 'evolved' with complex or archaic. Humans are more complex than amoebas. Amoebas are more archaic, but only because archaic simply means that they more closely resemble an ancestral species.

The only way that a species can be 'more evolved' is if it has been evolving for longer, or has more ancestors than another species going back to the most recent common ancestor.

[qazplm]

19. you are playing with semantics

But if you want to use your definition, humans evolved from single celled creatures. We have in effect been evolving since the beginning. We have seen micro and macro evolution all along the way. Amoebas have seen precious little of the latter and I'm sure plenty of the former. They are yes simple and they've filled a niche and have little need to do any macro-evolving because as you've said there is no end state (although even that is something we've decided with precious little proof but I certainly have no evidence to suggest there is an end state so the logical inference at this point is either to say we dont know or that there isnt one). So if it's about having evolved for longer, then Id say it's us over something that is fundamentally not much different from what it was millions of years ago (and I use it knowing obviously there are many species of amoeba)

change is how we determine evolution and one way we notice change is differing complexity.

I think separating out evolution completely from complexity is not correct. I certainly understand that evolution can mean that niche filling means some organisms don't have to change a whole heckuva a lot over millenia, thus not a lot of evolving happens. Amoebas and other microorganisms fill this bill as they dont have to do a lot of big changes and are very similar to what they were millions of years ago. Nor do any of those changes have to be complex, or have intelligence.

I do think it interesting that as a roughly general rule, and I have no doubt there are exception, the more complex, the more intelligent a creature is. So there is some thought that evolution DOES favor intelligence at least with regards to complexity.

We and other yes more complex creatures have seen continual changes big and small over that same time frame, perhaps because our environments, our niches are more complex as well.

At any rate, you will note that I put the word "evolved" in quotes in response to post number 4s claim that we've "devolved"

I assumed she meant it more in a social context and thus used the quotes to show I was speaking in that context as well.

[cyborg_jim]

15. Evolution doesn't have a goal of complexity

If being less intelligent is more successful then it's still evolution.

Plenty of organisms do well out of not being intelligent at all.

[Posteritatis]

11. I see no mention in that article of such a "need"

Stuff like this is a bit more complex than "X is inferior, Y is superior, Z is not inferior therefore it must be superior." Evolution doesn't work that way, at least not on these sorts of terms.

[jberryhill]

5. Preliminary Results Show:

Decoded whale utterances break down as follows:

5% - "Whoa, did you see the fluke on that girl?"

20% - "I left Sea World for this?"

75% - "This krill tastes like shit. Why can't we be like the Orcas and get some seal?"

[lebkuchen]

10. Are they saying, "Tell the Navy to turn off its sonar so we don't beach ourselves?

??

[Odin2005]

12. Calling this "language" is a bit misleading.

Incredible as these whale songs are, they are basically elaborate versions of affective signals like laughing and crying in humans. For it to be language there needs to be something equivalent to grammatical morphology and syntax in human spoken and signed languages as well as a system of symbolic reference (non-human apes and cetaceans are thought to have a rudimentary abillity for symbolic reference, however). That doesn't mean the commonication is not complex, but calling it language risks falling for anthropomorphism and treating human language as the top of some Aristotlian "ladder of nature" that has humans on top.

[Duppers]

25. Ha! talk about anthropomorphizing

Can't be 'language' until it is something equivalent to human's.

Au contraire, whales do indeed use syntax and complex patterns. Have a listen:

Carl Sagan on Whale Communication:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaYoKWQ8e1s


But Wiki agrees with you:

"A language is a dynamic set of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Strictly speaking, language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language."





:hide:

Killing pregnant whales is 'good news', say whalers
July 25, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/03/28/whaling_narrowweb__300x377,0.jpg

Sarah Palin would be proud.

[Xipe Totec]

13. It's been done...

Speaking Whale (Finding Nemo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4SURhza6_s