The line between species is pretty clear. Dolphins most recent
common ancestor with us is a long way down the line. But the
question of whether Dolphins are, in a rather philosophically
scientific way, people is a lot more complicated. Now, of
course, the ethics are confusing. What do we value about the
non-human world? What makes intelligence more important than
other attributes? Should all non-humans be treated equally well
(or poorly)? Etc. But if the question is one of intelligence,
then science has already started to answer those questions. Lori
Marino at Emory University is taking a scientific approach to
determining how human dolphis are. She's simply running them
through an MRI and measuring the complexity of their brains. The
result, unsurprisingly, is that dolphins are extremely smart.
Their brains, according to Emory, are more complex than any
other non-human brain, beating out Chimpanzees for the title. Of
course, we might not have needed MRIs to tell us this. Dolphins
have the largest non-human b