(y) Only man thinks and plans; animals are incapable of having a 

 mental life. 



(8) Philosophy and contemplative and analytic thought are character- 

 istic only of man, not of any animal. 



All of these statements stem from ignorance and anthropo- 

 centricity. For example, who are we to say that whales, dolphins, 

 and porpoises are to be included as "dumb beasts" ? It would be 

 far more objective and humble to tell the truth — we don't know 

 about these animals because we haven't "been there yet." We 

 have not lived in the sea, naked and alone, or even in mobile 

 groups, without steel containers to keep out the sea itself. For 

 purposes of discussion let us make the following assumptions 

 which push counter to the current of bias running deep among 

 us: 



(i) Man has not yet been willing to investigate the possibility of an- 

 other intelligent species. 



(2) Whales, dolphins, and porpoises are assumed to be "dumb beasts" 

 with litde or no evidence for this presumption. 



(3) We do not yet know very much about these animals — their neces- 

 sities, their intelligences, their lives, the possibility of their communica- 

 tions. 



(4) It is possible for man to investigate these matters objectively with 

 courage and perseverance. 



(5) To properly evaluate whales, dolphins, porpoises, we must use 

 everything we have intellectually, all available knowledge, humanistic as 

 well as scientific. 



Our best knowledge of ourselves as a species, as humans, is in 

 the humanities and in the budding, growing sciences of man. 

 In pursuit of understanding of the whales, dolphins, and por- 

 poises, we need, at least at the beginning, a large view which 

 is in the human sciences and in the humanities. The sciences of 

 animals are necessarily restrictive in their view, and hence not 

 yet apphcable to our problems. 



The history of the animal sciences shows that they have had 

 grave difficulties with the fact that the observers are present and 



