
Why dolphins are deep thinkers - chaostheory
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jul/03/research.science/print
======
jhancock
Here's a story I was told by a dolphin researcher about 20 years ago. They had
a man pretend to be drowning in the open ocean near some dolphins. A dolphin
came to rescue the drowning man. They repeated the experiment. After the third
or so repetition, the dolphin, instead of saving the man, smacked him around
and bruised him up pretty good.

~~~
xenophanes
And then they did a repeatable, controlled experiment to confirm that dolphins
can learn about humans faking drowning. Then they published it. Cite?

Or they didn't. If it's real, why not prove if it's real?

~~~
jhancock
Well, I did start my narrative by saying I was told this story 20 years ago. I
was told this by the researcher that was part of the experiment. I had no
reason to doubt his words.

~~~
xenophanes
Science works by doubting everything, and doing repeatable experiments to make
sure no one made a mistake. Mistakes are common and steps must be taken to
suppress them.

If it was part of an experiment published 20 years ago, and it was conclusive
that dolphins can think, presumably we would have heard of it by now.

~~~
gord
upvote, with the disclaimer that science also acknowledges that some
experiments are non-repeatable either in theory or practice.

~~~
xenophanes
If dolphins are intelligent, surely some repeatable experiment can be designed
to show this.

And btw, while I'll accept the point in theory, do you have any realistic
examples of unrepeatable experiments in mind? Besides ones involving people, I
guess.

~~~
gord
the big bang.

~~~
Shamiq
maybe the opposite of the big bang -- destroying everything. When
exists==nothing....

~~~
gord
the possibility exists that : 1) its impossible to annihilate everything
without also recreating a universe in the process 2) that logic itself [as the
refinement of inter-cusp physical experience] is not applicable to the start
and end of universes.

~~~
techiferous
The possibility also exists that possibility, reality and other existence-
based terms as we use them are not applicable to the start and end of
universes.

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theblackbox
Found this really interesting, although I was never really in much doubt at
the "intelligence" of these increadible animals. Wendroid is right to point
out the magpie example of self awareness, although I would like to know the
relative brain mass index of these birds. I have heard of very similar things
with that whole family, with Miner birds being notorious for having mastered a
small vocabulary.

Had a quick look around for some info on this topic and came accros a great
resource : <http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/geopedia/Animal_Minds>

I was looking for the study conducted on elephants (Payne, Katherine. National
Geographic: "Elephant Talk." National Geographic: USA. August 1989) where they
studied the infrasound communications of wild elephant herds. This one always
struck me as significant, because it whispers to us of a vast and efficient
network that would have spanned large areas of the African continent. I always
thought of it like whale song, although being propogated through a denser
medium it would travel faster and further (?). So maybe at some point during
their ancient past, the elephant herds were in constant communication,
following signs of water and congregating on grazing grounds and to
mate/socialise.... I think this (like the dolphin superpods that have only
recently been described in any great detail) shows of a formidable
intelligence.

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jackchristopher
Dolphins are supposedly known to gang rape, but I can't find a good source.

Best articles on dolphin intelligence:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_intelligence>

And analysis:
[http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2009/04/cetacea...](http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.com/2009/04/cetacean-
consciousness.html)

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spoiledtechie
Extremely interesting article. I would hope maybe one day, true communication
could happen with another creature on this earth.

Its interesting to see that we try to use our language to communicate. Have we
tried to understand their language or hear their sounds compared to what our
words are? I could only imagine a dolphin language could/might be made....

~~~
gord
Do dolphins try to mimic our language?

~~~
gord
op anecdote :

"Not only do the dolphins understand the meaning of individual words, they
also understand the significance of word order in a sentence. ... learned a
vocabulary of more than 60 words and can understand more than 2,000 sentences"

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gord
Assuming for a moment that psychology is pap, not science...

And assuming EQ is based on some objective anatomical comparison of the
brain...

Then Dolphins are 5.6/7.4 as smart as Man.

A rational society would be bound to protect the dolphins '75% human'-rights.

~~~
gord
With anonymous downvoting comes an ethical responsibility : clarify your
position with counter argument.

My position is that psychology is not [yet] a science.

Falling back on what we actually objectively know about dolphin anatomy [and
subjective behaviour which does not contradict that] you would have to admit
dolphins are possibly 75% as intelligent as humans, accounting for the huge
difference in environment.

Does it not follow that they should have some form of protection under law as
semi-intelligent beings?

~~~
colanderman
I think the downvote (not mine) came from your implicit suggestion that less-
intelligent humans should be afforded fewer rights. Unless you're being
satirical, which isn't entirely clear without more context.

~~~
gord
No, I didnt mean to imply that, not least because we have no good way of
measuring intelligence.

One reasonable way to get a ballpark is to look at brain fold anatomy - I
assume that's what EQ quotient in the OP is roughly equivalent to.

Rather than reduce human rights, I'm suggesting we act responsibly to all
intelligent species.

If a reasonable physical measure of dolphin IQ puts it within an order of
magnitude of a humans, we should probably not be killing such a species, for
example.

------
gord
related [ previous post? ] : dolphins blowing bubble rings -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMCf7SNUb-Q>

------
wendroid
From the (2003) article

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jul/03/research.scien...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jul/03/research.science)

"The ability to recognise themselves [dolphins] in the mirror suggests self-
awareness, a quality previously only seen in people and great apes."

Fast forward to 2008

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818220557.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818220557.htm)

The researchers subjected the magpies to a mark test, wherein a mark is placed
on the subject's body in such a way that it can only be seen in a mirror. When
the magpies engaged in activity that was directed towards the mark (e.g.
scratching at it), the researchers were able to conclude that these birds
recognized the image in the mirror as themselves, and not another animal.

------
_ck_
So given this acknowledgment, when will there be a formal protest by
governments to Japan to stop their dolphin slaughters? Shouldn't killing
dolphins be an international crime?

~~~
techiferous
The same argument could be made for cows. They're not as smart as dolphins,
but they're smart enough to feel pain, have emotions, and have social
relationships.

