<story><title>Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/17/sperm-whales-in-19th-century-shared-ship-attack-information</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ramblerman</author><text>The idea of whale intelligence is super interesting and I hope we do more to understand it. But the unfortunate pseudo-scientific need for the author to push the culture&amp;#x2F;religion angle becomes almost political at times, and seems like a stretch.&lt;p&gt;We should be able to determine intelligence&amp;#x2F;communication first without antromorphizing the notion of culture.&lt;p&gt;Some quotes from this article, and another linked by the author [1]&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  Bound by communality, sperm-whale culture expresses a collective individuality: “We” and “us” may be more important than “I” and “me”. If that isn’t a lesson for their Homo sapiens cousins, I don’t know what is.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Whales and dolphins observe rituals of the dead and exhibit grief. Could they, then, express spiritual sentiment, founded on values and belief – even a sense of religion?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; As Whitehead observes, whale culture is many millions of years older than ours. Perhaps we need to learn from them as they learned from us.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Their culture is matrilinear, and information about the new dangers may have been passed on in the same way whale matriarchs share knowledge about feeding grounds&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;jan&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;cultural-lives-of-whales-and-dolphins-hal-whitehead-luke-rendell-review&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;jan&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;cultural-lives...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Whales in 19th century shared information about ship attacks</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/17/sperm-whales-in-19th-century-shared-ship-attack-information</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wombatmobile</author><text>&amp;gt; As Whitehead observes, whale culture is many millions of years older than ours.&lt;p&gt;Oh?  How old is our culture?&lt;p&gt;What were whales doing a million years ago that primates weren&amp;#x27;t that qualifies as culture?</text></comment>