I enjoyed the thought provoking subjects introduced in our first week of biology class. I felt there was a subtle theme showing how the human species perceives itself as the most intelligent and advanced of all on this planet. Does this perception exist because we make comparisons of other species with our human ways as the "gold" standard?
We saw that there is evidence that cetaceans are able to communicate in a very precise manner based the fact that their primary sense and primary means of communication are both auditory. They also have well developed auditory organs and nervous system support to allow them to convey and receive as much as 20 times the amount of information humans can. With the human species using texting and digital means of communication with increasing frequency are we conveying our messages thoughtfully and precisely? How many Facebook rants have escalated because of probable misunderstood intents? Are we really a more intelligent species or do we digress?
If you missed the link for the Nonhuman Rights Project in the whales and dolphins article, you should check it out. It looks like a good group of people advocating for animals rights.
We also saw that many birds, fish and amphibians have tetrachromatic vision while most humans have trichromatic vision. Since vision is the primary sense for humans, we may be missing a huge amount of information that exists in the color spectrum. Are we really the most advanced species or just more complex?
I believe that the human is the only animal who can solve all of his problems,in some cases like communication maybe we are not the smartest one and as you have mentioned it dolphins are better than us but do not forget that we have the ability to solve this problem by using digital communication tools, but I agree that sometimes could be difficult even by using digital tool for communication, I think that being smart it means to be able to adjust ourselves quickly with any situation.
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