Slashdot Mirror
A Dolphin By Any Other Name
SloppyElvis writes "CNN is reporting that scientists have proven that Dolphins can communicate with each other by name. From the article: 'researchers synthesized signature whistles with the caller's voice features removed and played them to dolphins through an underwater speaker' to which the mammals responded. This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world." Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs.
they all call each other Flipper!
-Sj53
fp?
He tells me he never did like that name, but then he thanked me for all the fish and quickly left.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Squeek-Whistle, disagrees.
Since it says "Dolphins" and not "dolphins" (or "porpoises", even) can we assume that this is in reference to the Miami Dolphins? Truly astounding if true...
Baby Dolphin goes downstairs and sits on her little seashell at the table. She looks into her little bowl. It is empty.
"Who's been eating my sardines?!!" she squeaks.
Daddy Dolphin arrives at the table and sits on his big seashell. He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty.
"Who's been eating my sardines?!!" he roars.
Mummy Dolphin puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells
"How many times do we have to go through this with you idiots? It was Mummy Dolphin who got up first, it was Mummy Dolphin who woke everyone in the house, it was Mummy Dolphin who made the coffee, it was Mummy Dolphin who unloaded the dishwasher from last night, and put everything away, it was Mummy Dolphin who went out in the cold early morning water to fetch the newspaper, it was Mummy Dolphin who set the damn table, it was Mummy Dolphin who put the friggin catfish out, cleaned the litter box and filled the catfish's water and food dish, and now that you've decided to drag your sorry dolphin-asses downstairs and grace Mummy Dolphin's kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, cause I'm only going to say this one more time...
I HAVEN'T MADE THE DAMN SARDINES YET !!"
All hold hands for the traditional singing of the theme from Flipper.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
.. what their equivalent of a "Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan" is?
Flipper
Flippy
Flip
Willy
Squeeky
Seaquill
Bob
CmdrTaco
That disappeared in favor of dolphins. Why?
So with regard to this story, would you say that scientists have disproved that dolphins don't communicate with each other by name? I'm confused. OK, nothing can be proven, but it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Personally, I find it far more likely that the dolphins are referring to each other by their slashdot IDs.
how do they say "so long and thanks for all the fish?"
how can we be sure that the dolphins didn't just learn this over the last couple of decades or so? maybe they are pressured by the worsening environmental conditions to evolve into, i don't know, aquatic overlords of some kind?
Jesus said to his disciples: "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" - Luke 22:36
1) They'd kill us all if they had thumbs
2) They love NASCAR
This
This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world ... except for the hundreds of thousands of parrot owners througout the world. My african greys call each other by name when asking for anything.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
But that's just because they're in the water.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
On a related note, what the heck does "clinically proven" mean?
It usually means that a randomized clinical trial was performed and the null hypothesis was rejected. If you haven't had any statistics yet, that means that you hypothesize two treatments have the same effect and run a trial. If the results observed would be highly improbable under the equal effect hypothesis (and this probability is very clearly defined), then you have 'clinically proven' treatment A superior, for instance. Statistical hypothesis testing is basically applying the same principle as a reductio ad absurdum from logic. In general, you usually don't 'prove' things in science like you do in math, but that's another topic.
After reading the title, I thought Nintendo was going to scrap the Wii name and go back to their N64 project name (Dolphin.) This would have been a great title for such a press release.
I saw this said on discovery 5+ years ago. I really wonder how this is just now making it out to the mass media. I suppose that now it's more "conclusive". As far as I'm concerned we know this for "Fact" just as much as we did back then.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
Squeak squeak click squeak click click squeak ee-oo ee-oo click
Translation: I for one welcome our dolphin overlords.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
...it can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
"reasonable doubt" is a legal term, not a scientific one.
:wq
Well science can't prove anything, because it is a method. But scientists, of course, can prove things. And you can prove things using science.
It is just that any scientific valid theory must be falsifiable. Maybe that is what you mean?
"Clinically proven" typically means that in a scientific clinical study a drug has been proven to work (or proven to work at least significantly better than a placebo).
My parents own a pet store, and move a pair of African Grey Parrots between work and home every day, along with two dogs. The birds not only recognize their own names, but they appropriatly name the dogs when they encounter them. In addition, they can tell them to sit by name and even will give the dogs bits of food in exchange for treats - they appear to do this appropriatly when they want to either cause mischief or gain obedience from the dogs when the dogs are frightening them. The birds also use eachother's names appropriatly - and at the pet store seem to know the difference between these specific dogs and the other similar dogs that they encounter.
Intelligence and symbol identification/use definitely seems to me to be a general phenomenon larger than mammalian life.
It would be interesting to repeat similar experiments with intelligent species of wild birds to see if they generate unique sound identification that they may use to identify third-"persons" non-visually in some way. Most likely birds would use such ability to immitate eachother for social manipulation - but the conclusions of the use of such symbolic proto-language would still be meaningful.
Ryan Fenton
Arr. It begins. The dolphins are upon us. And only this old sea dog knows how to stop -[Carrier lost]
Who knew?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Yes, and it's one that I think is useful here. I can't "prove" that the Sun will shine tomorrow, but I can prove it beyond reasonable doubt, by referring to the previous 4 billion years of sunshine. To doubt my assertion would be unreasonable.
Squeek shrrrrp Skwiiiik clik clik, squeeeek hik schk?
Wii! skik skik sqweeeek!!!.
wik wik,
Flipper.
The worst part is that AP covered this story at least 2-3 days ago. Slashdot has turned into "ads for nerds, news that is picked up off the AP wire a couple days late."
Please help metamoderate.
Apparently, the Dolphins only managed to respond to their name 9 out of 14 times.
paintball
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!
Everyone loves the king of the sea,
Ever so kind and gentle is he,
Tricks he will do when children appear,
And how they laugh when he's near!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning,
No-one you see, is smarter than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of wonder,
Flying there-under, under the sea!
So that's what they mean when they say:
"Metho-Trimspa-Pseudo-Phedrine 5000 is clinically proven to work great!!!"?
I've often wondered what they meant by statements like that...
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
"reasonable doubt" is a legal term, not a scientific one.
Very true, but also proofs are for math, not science.
Did we see this on American Dad this last sunday?
Snake oil vendors, charlatans, and stockbrokers use that same line. What's the old aphorism about "...by the company he keeps"?
"Look, those stupid pink animals with the low voices are finally learning how to talk!"
...would still smell as sweet???
When will I learn never to click on a link with my sound turned up.
Would be called "Gamecube"
...is a porpoise.
Empires grow and crumble, and the Turtle Moves. Gods come and go, and still the Turtle Moves. The Turtle Moves.
Thanks a lot, big brain.
In other words, your dogs have accepted their African Grey Parrot overlords.
Gary Larson would proud of them all.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Thank You I'm here all week. Tip your servers.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
4 out of 5 dentists said clinical trials showed dolphins love Dentine!
At least before they choked on the gum and floated away.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
On a related note, what the hack does "clinically proven" mean?
It means "clinically tested". For more information, consult the nearest dictionary.
Although it is still improper to state 'proven'.
.05). American Psychologist, 49, 997-1003 [Cohen is recognized as a fairly statistically savvy person in psychology circles]), which essentially make it impossible to state that you have 'proven' a theory or even a specific hypothesis. I won't go into the details, but essentially most hypothesis testing accepts p .05 as the necessary alpha level for rejection of the null hypothesis, which is essentially stating "I am going to say that this hypothesis is correct, but there is a 5% chance that my results are due to random error and variance in my sample, and not really a repeatable phenomenom."
.05 (5%), but are occasionally set at .1, .01, or even .001. The .05 tradition is strong, however, and hails back to the days when statistics were being used in agriculture to develop varying pesticides and the like. Realistically, whatever the researcher is willing to live with is generally acceptable, but more than a few journals get a little tetchy about any probability higher than .05 (Journal of Applied Psychology being one, IIRC). The peer review process keeps this quite sane, but here's a sobering thought:
Generally it is considered bad form and logically incorrect. Statistical hypothesis testing has its own pitfalls (see Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round (p
It should be noted that the parent is correct, but that there are some alternative methods available (although these are rarely used), such as Bayesian Statistics and others. Bayesian Statistics is new to psychology, and I really don't have the background to evaluate it (read: I've never studied it), but I've heard good things about the concept.
FWIW, the probabilities stated by the parent are generally set at
In my master's thesis, I ran about 50 correlations on about 100 participants, each providing about 20 data points. I only had 5 'significant' (at p.05) correlations). THis means that half of my correlations could considered likely to be just chance--random variance. But, because of the nasty nature of statistics, I had no way of knowing which ones were due to chance and which ones were not--thus the whole study was considered as being unable to reject the null hypothesis (no relationships). Not particularly exciting, but informative nonetheless. Unfortunately, I also don't know what the probability of falsely accepting the null was (power), which means that I can't be certain that these are correct either.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Well it is highly dependend on what the drug is supposed to do. I work on heart failure trials, so a statement like "Drug A is clinically proven superior to Drug B" could mean something like the length of time for patients on drug A to have a heart attack was significantly longer than that on drug B. You'd have to look at the results of trials for a specific drug if you want to know precisely what was clinically proven. See www.clinicaltrials.gov for a start.
You watch this link, AND BE AMAZED!
http://gprime.net/video.php/einsteinthebird
To believe that we are the only intellegent species living on this planet is supreme stupidity. Its been known that Dolphins are very intellegent creatures and we are just now beginning to learn the truth that they could be our intellectual equals.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
Click Click Click Squeel Squeel Shreik Shreik Click Squeel Click Click. Thats dolphin for "Turn off that damn noisy speaker!".
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Eeek ack sque'ek ook kkkk'k squeek.
http://gprime.net/video.php/einsteinthebird
She is quite interesting to watch and hear, but I wonder how much of a showwoman her trainer is?
I think your main point is you have to be extremely careful and know what you're doing when using statistics, and I agree 100%! Being a statistician means never having to say you're certain. :)
This is worthwile research, but it seems well short of supporting the claim that dolphins are using names. My summary would be that each dolphin has a signature call, they react to the signature calls of friends/relations, and (the new bit in this research) they react to calls which are similar but not identical to the signature calls of friends/relations.
To support a claim of using names, I'd want evidence of dolphin Alice vocalizing dolphin Bob's signature call to gain Bob's attention.
I suppose it comes down to an argument about what constitutes a "name". But the small step from the reacting to signature calls to the reacting to sythesized signature calls seems a strange place to draw the line between "name" and "not name".
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
4 out of 5 dentists said clinical trials showed dolphins love Dentine!
At least before they choked on the gum and floated away.
The dolphins, or the dentists?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
If they are actually names or some kind of addressing like "Hey dolphin to my left by 5 meters..."
Computers have names via their Mac address and IP, but it hardly makes them self aware. The names are specifically environmental denotation. Its not self awareness.
I think we have become to lax in personifying animals and objects though our entertainment media that it seeps in to our perception of scientific data. It its a given that if we want to personalize dolphins, then we can manipulate our data to confirm this.
Saying dolphins have names implies they are self aware. If this is true, then much of our biological science is in error.
Nevertheless, the equation that dolphins make noise + response to that noise = names, then any animal that makes a noise to communicate to other like animals probably is using names.
"Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs"
It is interesting to note that whales/dophin have hand bone structure. These mammals evolved from those that were once land animals. As a result the flipper is actually a modified hand structure.
/
Why would a hivemind species have need for unique identifiers?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
And thanks for all the fish.....KABOOM
And man do they ever taste good, if you know how to cook 'em.
If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you
think liked dolphins the most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be
wrong, though. It's Hambone.
-Jack Handy
"If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter." -Terry Pratchet, on Popcorn.
It means that its thermogenic fat-blasting power can help you drop those pounds fast while purging toxins, straightening your hair, and whitening your teeth.
And also that they know a double-blind trial won't show the same thing, so they're throwing around BS terms to confuse suckers^Wcustomers.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The term you are looking for is 'falsifiable'.
Please don't read my sig.
I hate it when people criticize media for not getting it right don't get it right.
Hypothesis can't be proved, but only disproved.
SCIENCE is the progression of hypotheses getting more and more accurate as tests rule out the ones that are not the case. Saying "science can prove" or "science can't prove" totally misses what science is in the first place.
Incorrect. Science can prove everything...the only problem is that it comes up with something else after a few years to disprove it's earlier proof and establish a new one (which by the way will be disproved too and so on ad infinitum.....)
Life is about being a Phoenix!
"they all call each other Flipper!"
"G'day, Flipper... Hello Flipper... how are you, Flipper? Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce a chap from pommie land... Michael Baldwin - this is Flipper. Michael Baldwin - this is Flipper... and Michael Baldwin - this is Flipper."
"Is your name not Flipper, then?"
"No, it's Michael."
"That's going to cause a little confusion. Mind if we call you 'Flipper' to keep it clear?"
I hate it when people criticize media for not getting it right don't get it right.
Hypothesis can't be proved, but only disproved.
SCIENCE is the progression of hypotheses getting more and more accurate as tests rule out the ones that are not the case.
Ruling out all existing hypotheses except for one is not a sufficient condition to claim that the remaining hypothesis must be true. There may be other hypotheses that have not yet been formed.
Saying "science can prove" or "science can't prove" totally misses what science is in the first place.
I wasn't attempting to describe of the purpose of science, but rather what its limitations are and how those limitations are misrepresented by popular media.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
who needs thumbs when you can bend spoons with your mind?
there is no human.
While whale-watching in the North Pacific ocean around San Juan Island, the whale expert explained how whales make a unique sound before and after their other phrases, and that these sounds are often accompanied by a reply for a different whale. The unique sounds were most often unique to the whale that responded. As such, experts believed these to be used like names.
Such a conversation would go something like this:
To summarize that in plain English, an experiment was run (control group and all) that lets the researchers conclude that the results are extremely unlikely to have resulted from pure chance.
Incorrect. Science can prove everything...the only problem is that it comes up with something else after a few years to disprove it's earlier proof and establish a new one (which by the way will be disproved too and so on ad infinitum.....)
That doesn't make any sense. If something is proven then it must by definition be *the* true explanation for the behavior of a phenomena. You can't disprove anything that is unequivocably true.
The way I've always been told that it actually works is that many theories may be proposed to explain something, but the one that seems to fit best (based on things like experimentation) is generally considered to be the de facto explanation - until something better comes along.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The problem is that the claims of science that they have "proved" something, applies to a limited domain (which science forgets to mention). It doesn't apply universally. For example, cartesian geometry was known to be 'the' geometry, until it was proved that the shortest distance between 2 points is NOT a straight line in certain conditions. Science should understand that every proof found will definitely be applicable to only a limited domain and soon there will be a larger universe found where it may not be applicable. It is said, another example is Newtonian vs Einsteinian physics. Alas if science was a little more humble and conceded to the "fact" that the DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING...as the adage goes: "A wise man knows what he does not know...". The Mind is relative...
Life is about being a Phoenix!
Snorky. Speak. Man. (Simpsons reference)
Move. Sig.
Inductive proof - tsck.
The farmer comes and feeds the turkey every day so the turkey knows that when the farmer comes at thanksgiving it's going to get fed.
A statistician could never really agree 100%. :-)
Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs.
no kidding... the last species to do so with any success made rather quick work of the planet...sigh
That's a valid point. However, the lack of theories that apply better to such a "limited domain" does not prove that a given theory is true/valid.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
So are you suggesting that the earth will stop rotating at some point in the next 24 hours? If you're not suggesting that (and you'd better be prepared with extraordinary proof), then you're engaging in mental masturbation. How very useless.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
In nine out of 14 cases, the dolphin would turn more often toward the speaker if it heard a whistle that sounded like a close relative's.
7 out of 14 would be expected if it were random...9 out of 14 is nothing more than a statistical fluke. They should have done more tests...this study sounds like nothing more than a coincidence.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
"Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs" Wait and see, they have the same plan as google. 1. Make ppl notice you + ???????? = world domination (minor adjustments of course, we all know googles step 2 is money.. just that dang 3rd step..)
So long, and thanks for all the fish!!
Was walking through a pet shop with a scarlet macaw and it wasn't a random utterance that struck me.
When this bird was invited onto someone's arm, it would climb toward the head, and then proclaim 'lookout!' before proceeding to preen. It obviously had learned this should be said by someone before clamping down on their hair and pulling.
But generally speaking, this behavior isn't quite the same as the parrots are not creating the names themselves, but rather recognizing the meaning of a word and imitating it in an intelligent fashion.
Though it seems possible that clacking and whistling in the wild may have significance simply not recognized. If they so readily recognize the concept of names and use them, they very well could use names humans just never pick up on.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My parent's african grey whistles the first few notes when it hears me in the vicinity. I obviously reply with the next few. It also shouts the dogs names when it can see they're outside. The eclectus parrots on the other hand screech, growl and attempt to rip off your fingers at the slightest opportunity.
Deleted
I read about this in a magazine article sometime in the early '90s.
This is FUNNY as hell!
"KWaaaaaa Kwa-kaaaaa-kaaaaa"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Oh? And here I can think of one example where the opposite is true. Life on Mars. Can you ever truly disprove its existance? No, but it's easy enough to prove it's existance, find some.
At the same time if you have a can of paint that says it's blue, it's equally easy to prove that it is or isn't blue.
Dolphins communicate by "speaking" their name before every communication, as a way of telling the recipient who said what. Every dolphin has their own name and researchers have known this for ages. I'm surprised that this is "news."
Dolphins can ALSO create rings using their blowhole. They create what is essentially a vortex with perfect buyoncy (sp?). They can be tossed around like toys without "popping" due to the physics of the rings. I've tried to do this with my nose, and I fail every time. This is not a conspiracy.
Dolphins are smart. That's why the Navy hires them.
Bubble ring link: http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html
I wonder if they could tell us the day that the world is going to end...
La la la... I'm not listing to reason today...
dolphins are evil. one day they will attack en mass and try to take over. i know you think im crazy, but it _WILL_ happen. porposes are just their lacky servants. whales can't be trusted either.
-.no
Most of what my macaw and my parents' african grey falls into this catagory. Obviously, they learned "Hello" and "good morning" because those things are said to them. It is even clear that their understanding of these sounds is different from the literal meaning; our birds will use these comments any time they want to greet you or initiate contact.
What is more interesting is the novel constructions and novel useage; i.e. the new uses they find for an existing word or phrase and the entirely new phrases make by combining words in new ways. Examples:
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
"Hmm, Bottlenose bruises. Blowhole burns. Flipper prints. This looks like the work of rowdy teens."
Much better - that's deductive proof . . . you're learning.
"This form of identification in language was previously only known to exist in the human world"
The dolphins knew it all along, but they didn't bother to tell us!
Yes, the phrase for scientific study is "statistically significant".
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
I think I read something of his once (Broca's Brain?) that said the dolphins would have evolved a lot further up the chain of intelligence if they had been able to discover fire.
Makes you wonder how many times they tried before they gave up.
And also why the chimps don't have it yet.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
So many people who call themselves scientists make a big deal out of ways in which non=human animals might be inferior to human animals (even sometimes to the point of pretending that humans are not animals) because we don't know whether (or just have not proven) a particular animal can do a particular thing.
Here's a thought for you "scientists": Say what you know, acknowledge the stuff you don't know (don't assume anything and then pretend to know it) and spend your time trying to figure out the stuff you don't know instead of blathering out your baseless assumptions.
That way we don't have to be so surprized every time we figure out that some animal can do something that they need to do.
What does Khan have to do with this? Dolphins aren't afraid of Khan. They're too busy with the real job that they need names for:
Captain Dolphin: "Number One, fire your frickin' laser beam!"
Dolphin First Officer: "Direct hit captain! Khan's ship is disabled!"
So what is a "clinical trial"? An experiment in a "clinic"? I would expect most experiments to be done in a laboratory.
"Matthews . . . we're getting another one of those strange 'aw blah es span yol' sounds."
Seems like a constant barrage of discoveries across many species that always indicate animals are smarter than we give them credit for. At some point we'll start to question our ethical consideration towards non-human animals. It'll probably be a while though, since we're still battling people who don't believe in evolution.
For many drug trials, you need 1000s of patients. You sign hospitals up to participate in the trial, sometimes hundreds of them. They recruit patients for the trial, the patient gets randomized to either drug or placebo (or whatever the choice), and then they are observed every so often. So these experiments are definitely done in clinics around the world. Look it up.
Who needs opposable thumbs when you've got prehensile genitalia?
... looks just as sweet. Except if that name is "Maginot Line".
Furthermore, I'm not sure I know of any other social animal that acts like this: individuals called specifically as individuals by other members of the same species in the wild.
My mom used to say that another species does that, "humans" I think she called them. She also always told me to stay away from fishing nets.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
"Look, those stupid pink animals with the low voices are finally learning how to talk!" Most humans are not pink but brown.
for the fish!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N'kisi
This parrot has a claimed vocabulary of about 950 words. I work with people that would be jealous of that.
How the fuck would a double blind trial work on dolphins? It would immediately become apparent to the testers what you were trying to find, thereby introducing nonrandom bias into the experiment and negating the entire point of a double-blind study.
It is reported that they have also translated some of the dolphin's language. The most recent communication was, "So long and thanks for all the fish." They are not sure what this means, but I would recommend hitching a ride on the next Vogon crusier to pass by.
... that they are no good on land http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45360/
I love random hex numbers! Just like this one, 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Yeah nice, but who wants to communicate with dolphins? All they are interested in is philosophy and mackarel.
The first time I encountered dolphins in the wild - it sent shivers up my spine. I was out on a tour boat in Portsmouth NH, and a pod approached our boat, one of them came right up to the side, stuck its head out of the water and lookd me right in the eye - its was like a person looking at me, not an animal. Its hard to put into words...but its was sure nothing like when my cat or some dog on the street looks at you...more like when an ape in the zoo does (sorry never seen any of them in th wild) - but there was even more of that sense of conciousness when this dolphin looked at me. Wish I knew its name so I could squeek hello.
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
Actually, science is "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment".
To prove is "to demonstrate the truth or existence of (something) by evidence or argument".
"Science" can't "prove" that the shotgun blast I fired at you caused your head to explode and resulted in your death, but it can make a pretty convincing argument based on observation of the event.
That doesn't make any sense. If something is proven then it must by definition be *the* true explanation for the behavior of a phenomena. You can't disprove anything that is unequivocably true.
Prove to me you typed that.
Now disprove it.
Well, it is getting fed. To people.
Yes, because words which have a particular meaning in a certain field cannot be used outside of that field or that context, right?
What?
Straw Man.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Thankfully they still haven't evolved opposable thumbs.
If Sci-Fi anime is any indication of what's to come, apparently they won't need to evolve opposable thumbs.
(That's Poipoider from Kenran Butohsai: The Mars Daybreak.)
Does it matter?
I guess it would have been better if there were lawyer corpses floating away.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
The more, the merrier ;)
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
And that's why there are frequently two trials performed.