Wandering Adventure Party

I wonder if the whales still tell each other stories about the whale oil boom years of the 19th century.

And hell, let’s say we can prove whales do have communication just as complex as ours. Suddenly their intelligence and sentience is as proven as our own. What rights do whales have? If they’re as intelligent as people, they’rd not just animals. They simply are people. An animal as intelligent as a person is simply a person. Full stop. We have to adjust our model of the world to be one where we just have people swimming around in the ocean. Let that really sink in to your world view. There are just people out there living amongst the waves. And like all people they have certain natural rights. What rights do they have? Can they sue us in our courts for polluting their waters? Do we owe these people reparations for what our ancestors did to them? Do we need to start negotiating treaties with them, the same as we would any other population of people?

My first thought on contemplating the idea of whales truly being as intelligent and aware as we are? I immediately think, “my god, what have we done?”

We’re talking on a casual forum. This isn’t an academic discussion. Blog posts are a lot more approachable than most journal articles. And blogs often contain references.

Not everything is a formal academic debate. Most things aren’t. Note, you didn’t reply to the parent commenter demanding that they provide journal articles for their point. You just saw something you didn’t like about my comment and decided to demand a journal article as a citation. Usually when people who aren’t participating come into a discussion to demand peer-reviewed sources, it’s done in bad faith. They demand high quality sources from one side while not extending the same requirement to the other.

Here’s another blog posts that address the original topic. You can look up the primary sources if you are so inclined.

So Your Brain Actually Isn’t “Fully Formed” at 25

Your brain keeps developing beyond 25! Neuroplasticity in your late 20s to 30s makes you adaptable, resilient, and primed for growth.

New Hope CG (www.newhopecg.net)

Or if you want to improve the quality of discussion, perhaps add your own sources instead of demanding others provide them.

And note, even you don’t provide academic sources for your claims. You claim you’re seeing blog posts linked everywhere, but where is your journal article defending this claim? Where is your paper performing a statistical analysis to prove that people are citing blog posts more frequently than in the past?

And I would argue that linking to a blog post is far from pointless. Blogs are less rigorous but far more approachable and digestible than journal articles. The real purpose of linking to them is so that a commenter doesn’t need to spend the time greatly elaborating a point that could be made simply by linking to a larger outside discussion. That has value. And a blog post certainly has more value than a random short Lemmy comment. At least if someone is taking the time to write a blog post dedicated to a single topic, it shows that they’ve put the time in to consider the subject.

Please stop posting comments offering nothing of value.

There is no age where the brain stops developing. The idea that the brain stops developing at age 25 is a myth. This myth comes brain studies that studied brain development…up to an age of 25. Pediatric studies of brain development don’t extend into far adulthood.

‘Your brain isn’t fully formed until you’re 25’: A neuroscientist demolishes the greatest mind myth | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Whether you are young or old, your brain is always changing.

BBC Science Focus Magazine (www.sciencefocus.com)