Whales have at least a rudimentary form of language. There is evidence for syntactic structure, even if the information density is an order of magnitude (or more) less dense than human speech.

Whales also teach each other new hunting techniques and have other complicated social behaviors.

Without a better understanding of whale language and cognition, I don't think you can safely say they don't engage in a form of scientific inquiry.

Right, so they are intelligent in a different way, which I would argue is going to be no different with the aliens we discover. Their language will be intractable. As for scientific inquiries, that’s kind of unknowable and dubious considering that whales can get quite inventive with their hunting techniques, involving experimentation and cunning in a way that’s pretty similar to the scientific method of inquiry with hypothesis testing. Technology, I will grant that’s an exception.

Whales have language. Most animals have some forms of language, even plants communicate with each other. Whales have a pretty complex one.

They’re biologically related to us, and yet we still can’t communicate with them. That should show how motivated or able we are to figure out language with other species.