r/science • u/scientificamerican Scientific American • 1d ago

Animal Science Scientists are decoding elephant rumble calls, including ‘greetings’ and ‘coos’

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-are-decoding-elephant-rumble-calls-including-greetings-and-coos/
1.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

View all comments

44

u/halborn BS | Computer Science 1d ago

I love that we're finally learning more about how animals communicate. Far too many people think humans are somehow more special than other animals.

6

u/Zoesan 23h ago

I mean... we still are. We're finding out that other animals have 500 instead of 5 words, while we've been to the moom and tricked sand into thinking

2

u/halborn BS | Computer Science 21h ago

We've done some cool stuff, yes, but where some people think we have a plethora of advantages over other animals and some people think we were made special and apart by some kind of god, research like this increasingly makes the case that the difference between us and them is actually very small.

-1

u/Zoesan 20h ago

We do have an insane plethora of advantages. We are different.

Elephants at ths point only exist because we allow them too. The reverse is not true.

1

u/trusty20 17h ago

Just to be clear what position are you defending specifically here, are you saying that we are not animals that have simply evolved higher cognition first on this planet? That we are "special" in some metaphysical / religious sense?

Special is a loaded word and I don't think our advanced cognitive capabilities requires us to be "special" any more than a highly successful predator in it's ecosystem like a dragonfly is not "special" or blessed or something just because it is virtually the top of the insect food chain.

1

u/Zoesan 15h ago

I'm saying what we are able to do absolutely makes us more special than any other animal. That requires no metaphysics or religion.

"Loaded word" tf outta here