Lori is Executive Director of The Kimmela Center and Founder & President of The Whale Sanctuary Project. She is a neuroscientist and expert in animal behavior and intelligence, formerly on the faculty of Emory University where she was also a faculty member at the Emory Center for Ethics. She is internationally known for her work on the evolution of the brain and intelligence in dolphins and whales and marine mammal welfare in captivity, as well as cognition in farmed animals through The Someone Project. In 2001 Lori co-authored a ground-breaking study with Diana Reiss offering the first conclusive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, after which she decided against conducting further research with animals held captive in zoos and aquariums.

Lori has published over 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, book chapters, and magazine articles on marine mammal biology and cognition, comparative brain anatomy, self-awareness in nonhuman animals, human-nonhuman animal relationships, and the evolution of intelligence. Lori has appeared in several films and television programs, including Blackfish; Unlocking the Cage; Long Gone Wild and the upcoming documentary about Corky, the orca held captive by SeaWorld since 1969.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

- Guest links e.g. Kathy Hessler https://youtu.be/R5eZebUAsQg

01:52 Lori's Intro

- A central question: "What is it like to be another animal?"

- "I ran into ethical issues that shaped how I conducted my career"

- Science then science-based advocacy "it's all based on facts"

04:12 What's Real?

- Raised Roman #Catholic as an Italian American in Brooklyn NY "Church on Sunday"

- "I started to question the whole proposition... that there's some sort of a god"

- Heaven, hell, sin "It's not light hearted... it's dark"

- Becoming a recovering Catholic

- "If there is a god, it's on vacation" & the #problemofevil 

- Becoming #atheist "that's what I am today... I don't see any reason to propose that there's anything supernatural out there"

- #agnostic "what does that even mean?... I'm atheist in the same way that I don't think that there are purple dinosaurs walking around in my room & talking to me... I'm not agnostic about that."

- "I didn't ever draw my ethics from religion"

- Catholic "#ethics but from a very weird point of view"

- The psychological needs motivating religious belief

- Teenage dabbling in #pseudoscience

20:45 What and Who Matters?

A Better Future!

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!