I wouldn't deny cetaceans intelligence, at the very least. They clearly have language, and a fairly complex at that. Language is the main cognitive tool we use to reshape the world. Whales or dolphins don't build New York or Moscow of their own, they don't launch satellites or wage wars from a distance, but is this the reason to look at them with scorn and dismiss their intellectual potential? I think not. Their methods of reshaping the world may be moot to our comprehension, so what? Even today we know about depths of seas, where they dwell, much less than, say, about weather on Jupiter.

Each time I see an artifact of ages gone, made of whalebone, especially a thing that found a pretty stupid use, e.g., collar stiffener or corset stay, I'm struck with the same feeling as the one that surfaces after look at photos of the shoeheaps from Birkenau or Sednaya.