Please answer fast!! Will give Brainliest!!!!
What evidence from the text supports the author’s claim about the intelligence of dolphins? Evaluate whether this evidence is sufficient to support the author’s claims.
What is it about dolphins? They have very, very big brains, and that makes us humans, whose brains are nothing to sniff at, nervous. We don’t know what to make of them.
The latest example: On May 17 in India, the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued an order to all Indian states banning dolphin amusement parks. No leaping out of pools to catch balls, no jumping through hoops. Forcing dolphins to entertain humans, the ministry said, was morally unacceptable.
“Cetaceans [dolphins, whales and porpoises] in general are highly intelligent and sensitive,” the Ministry said, “and various scientists who have researched dolphin behavior have suggested that [they have] unusually high intelligence... compared to other animals.”
This means the Indian ministry went on: “those dolphins should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their specific rights.” “Non-human persons” — what a pregnant phrase! People-like, but not like people.
India’s putting dolphins (and the other cetaceans) into a new legal category that classifies them as beings nearer to ourselves, with an emotional life that, if we could talk to them, or listen in to whatever they’re saying, we might find familiar. I’m thinking of the famous New Yorker cartoon that shows two dolphins swimming side-by-side, where one of them says to another, “If I could do only one thing before I died, it would be to swim with a middle-aged couple from Connecticut.” (Which you can see here.)
You may giggle, but the joke hurts. Big-brained animals almost certainly wouldn’t want to spend years lugging polyester-skinned mammals across shallow swimming pools six days a week, or juggling colorful balls with their rostrums (noses). Their brains suggest they’ve got better things to do. What, we’re not sure. All we know is, being a dolphin has to be very different from being a person, an experience we can only guess at.
And yet, because of those brains, it’s hard not to slip into thinking of them as if they were variants of us. This happened to me, instantly, last year, when I read that the U.S. Navy had decided to “retire” a group of mine-detecting dolphins, replacing them with robots.
Twenty-four dolphins, after years of service, were being “reassigned,” the story said so that sea drones or unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs, in Navy parlance) could take their place. The Navy had its reasons. The robots didn’t need constant feeding, medical attention, cages and rest. They didn’t need seven years of training. Robots could do the job on day one for less — much less. So the dolphins got sacked.
And I thought, what? And, instantly, each of those dolphins became a Norma Rae, fists (fins?) clenched, crying “UNFAIR!” After giving their whole careers to the Navy, sniffing for underwater mines to protect our ships and harbors, this is the thanks they get? That, of course, was my mind shouting; what the dolphins were thinking, if they even noticed the change, is anybody’s guess.
Which is the puzzle? The deep puzzle.
