Talk:Cetacean intelligence
From Academic Kids
This page was created amid great chaos. One user created an nonsense article that was slowly but fantastically converted into a reasonable article by several users. The talk that made that happen is now archived at Talk:Dolphin_intelligence/archive1. The page was in a respectable condition by the end of November 2003.
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Suicidal dolphins?
Are dolphins intentionally causing their own death, (via mass strandings as in recent and not so recent news or otherwise)?
- "Mass suicide of the whales" (http://www.encounter.co.za/article/24.html) (actually delphinidae)
- "In situations of great stress in captivity they have been known to commit suicide by starvation, battering against walls, or drowning." ([1] (http://www.answers.com/topic/dolphin) and also [2] (http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/sci/A0857792.html))
How can this behaviour be interpreted? Are they aware that cessation of life would mean cessation of physical (or existential) pain? Does it imply a consciousness level comparable to ours?
It seems very unlikely (from an evolutionary standpoint) that this behaviour could be genetically induced, and I know of no other animal capable of contraddicting so directly the survival instinct. --Michele Bini 21:15, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
converting subjective "seems to" into objective fact
The article currently claims
- "... no other species seems to compare so favourably with humans across the indicators of ..."
I don't understand what "favourably" means here. If I replaced that phrase with
- "... cetaceans score higher than any other species on these indicators of intelligence: ..."
, would the paragraph be true to the facts ?
-- DavidCary 19:37, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The sleep article claims "Seals and dolphins "sleep" with alternate hemispheres of their brains asleep and the other awake. ... need to do this so they can breathe above water while sleeping." If you know anything about how this fact was discovered, please add it to the article. (Or is this just one of those urban legends like "ostriches put their head in the sand" ?) --DavidCary 04:11, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
http://whale.wheelock.edu/whalenet-stuff/sleeppage/
mentions
"While sleeping, the bottlenose dolphin shuts down only half of its brain, along with the opposite eye. The other half of the brain ... watch[es] for predators, obstacles and ... signals when to rise to the surface for a fresh breath of air. After approximately two hours, the animal will reverse this process, resting the active side of the brain and awaking the rested half. This pattern is often called cat-napping."
Non-Sequitor
"However, though [Dolphins learning to perform their own novel and original tricks] impressed researchers at the time, experiments by Neuringer(1992) and others have shown that other animals like pigeons and rats can likewise be trained for variability of response, which given time can result in apparently original behaviour. Whether there is a clear case for dolphins showing real creativity in this experiment is therefore questionable."
I hate to nit-pick, but this really needs to be elaborated on. It seems what is being said is:
"Dolphins have shown themselves to be capable of original behavior. Other animals like rats and pigeons have shown themselves to be capable of original behavior as well. Therefore, it is questionable if dolphins are capable of original behavior."
This doesn't make a lot of sense. I realize that the reader is probably supposed to assume that rats and pigeons are not capable of "real creativity", but without explaining this, the paragraph in question doesn't flow logically. Secondarily, why is there the assumption that rats and pigeons are not capable of "real creativity"? Why would correlations in creative ability between dolphins and rats indicate that dolphins are not creative, as opposed to indicating that rats are creative?
I know that this is an encyclopedic entry and not an essay, and by no means am I attempting to make a case for rat or pigeon creativity (although people who've owned pet rats and trained pigeons might be inclined to make such a case). But a statement which essentially says "dolphins appeared to be creative, until pigeons and rats were shown to also be creative, so now it's somewhat doubtful if dolphins are creative" just doesn't make any logical sense. It's as if the article were to say "Tom is smart. Dick once seemed to be almost as smart as Tom. Now we know Harry also seems almost as smart as Tom. Therefore, it is doubtful if Dick is nearly as smart as Tom."
This will leave many readers asking: "How the heck do you draw that conclusion?" It needs to be explained why Harry appearing to be smart makes Dick less intelligent. --Corvun 02:46, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ocean Energy?
Is the claim that dolphins can harness 'ocean energy' through cavitation-induced cold fusion akin to the claim that there is an invisible green man standing in the corner of the room. I can't see him, but I have it on excellent authority that he is there.
A claim as wild as this needs a convincing citation, surely? Compared to the cold fusion claim, the suggestion that dolphins have a 'higher level of consciousness' (with a link to...quantum mechanics????) seems merely excentric.
