Dolphins: 'non-human persons'?!!

From the London Times:

Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

"The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing."

If the evolutionary assumptions that they use to conclude that dolphins are "persons" were true, then why would anything be "morally unacceptable?"  We would be nothing more than accidents of nature, mere complex chemical reactions.  How can a chemical reaction be "moral" or "immoral?"  If anything, killing simply would help the process of natural selection move a little faster, which should be a "good" thing to an evolutionist. 

"The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future."

And this makes them "persons?"  Why?  How do they know this?  I sense quite a bit of bias.

"It has also become clear that they are 'cultural' animals, meaning that new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another."

So, we redefine the term "cultural" to make dolphins sound more person-like.

Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at [a San Diego] conference. “The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.

First, dolphins are not "persons."  They were not created in the image of God.  Second, it is only because of evolutionary presuppositions that someone could come up with the hokey idea that because dolphins have rudimentary communication and intelligence that they are therefore "persons." Perhaps, since the dolphins are intelligent "persons," they should make the presentation at the conference themselves. ;-)

To call dolphins "persons" devalues personhood, and drags mankind down to the level of beasts, rather than being created in the image of almighty God.