Whales: Their Emerging Right to Life

Abstract

Writers of science fiction have often speculated about what it would be like to discover, on a planet in outer space, a much higher form of intelligence. How would we react to those creatures? Would we be so fearful of them that we would try to kill them? Or would we welcome the opportunity to attempt to understand their language and culture? Stranger than fiction is the fact that there already exists a species of animal life on earth that scientists speculate has higher than human intelligence. The whale has a brain that in some instances is six times bigger than the human brain and its neocortex is more convoluted. Discussing the creative processes of whales, Dr. John Lilly says that a researcher “is struck with the fact that one’s current basic assumptions and even one’s current expectations determine, within certain limits, the results attained with a particular animal at that particular time.” Whales speak to other whales in a language that appears to include abstruse mathematical poetry. They have also developed interspecies communication with dolphins. Whales are the most specialized of all mammals.