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Post by Bill Thompson on Oct 17, 2006 14:17:31 GMT -4
I like whales and dolphins - I've seen both in the wild - but I am unconvinced that they are any more intelligent than an ape or chimp at best. I am unconvinced they are not. There is a very good PBS or Discovery Channel (or less likely Animal Planet) video with Robin Williams about Dolphins. You might like it. Animal Planet had a good 10 ten most extreme intelligent animals. Dolphins have coordinated hunting of fish with human beings in Brazil. They help us drive fish to fishermen's nets and in exchange we reward them with the best of the batch. The dolphins started this system, not us. The dolphins trained the fishermen to do this for them, not the other way around. If one species trains another to do a trick, that is a good indication which species is the smarter one. So I think you are incorrect.
Also, I learned from Sea World up near Orinda that the Killer Whales and the Dolphins are not "trained" by the divers. Instead, games come about by them just basically playing with them and if there is a trick that the Killer Whales come up with that THEY enjoy doing, then it is included in a routine that the animals are rewarded for doing. The trick where the Killer Whale pushes a diver by the feet with their nose up out of the water is one trick that the Killer Whale came up with, people did not train them to do that. It came about as they were playing and swimming with them. Since we have the food, we call the shots. But we have the food just because we are the ones with the hands. They are the ones with the ideas and the brains.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Oct 17, 2006 15:40:11 GMT -4
Scientific testing with dolphins where they conducted a series of progressively more challenging problems to solve have shown that dolphins are about as intelligent as a 5-year old human.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Oct 17, 2006 16:57:07 GMT -4
Anthropomorphism leads us to associate the domed forehead of the bottlenose dolphin with high intelligence. Actually, it's just for their sonar...
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Oct 17, 2006 17:44:49 GMT -4
I think our humanocentric thinking limits our understanding of animal intelligence. Plus modern people spend almost no time actually observing animals in their natural habitat.
Consider the folk-tales told in Africa or by Native Americans. The animals around are portrayed as equivalent to the humans in intelligence and complexity of behavior. Now, I'm not suggesting that people who observe the animals observe them to engage in human-like intelligent behaviour, I'm just suggesting that "modern" scientific thinking threw out the baby with the bathwater when eliminating "anthropomorphism" from descriptions of animal behavior.
Then Leakey sent his three most famous students (Goodall, Fossey and Galdika) out to live in the woods and study primates deeply. Goodall used names to identify the subjects, somewhat blurring the lines, but Fossey and Galdika were discouraged from doing so. The potential for anthropomorphism made it more difficult to convince skeptical scientist of the validity of their observations.
Watching a baby grow up, you can see them reach the intelligence of a cat at about 12 to 18 months (depending on the human and cat being compared) and then surpass the cat shortly after.
What is intelligence, after all? Is it just one thing? Or is it a complex of things?
Problem solving, mentioned above, is only one element of intelligence. All animals are going to have some degree of problem solving. Even earthworms can be trained to solve a simple T-shaped maze.
Abstract thought, the use of symbols to represent ideas, is thought to be the "pinnacle" of intelligence. The fossil record contains no proven examples of symbolic, abstract thought prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens sapiens. Do whale and dolphin sounds represent actions, objects or emotions?
But even these two things are only part of the spectrum.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Oct 17, 2006 20:45:35 GMT -4
Anthropomorphism leads us to associate the domed forehead of the bottlenose dolphin with high intelligence. Actually, it's just for their sonar... I was never close to them. I saw a couple at a park once and I was impressed at how far they could jump. Robin Williams seems to think they are pretty bright. There are more than just the bottlenosed ones. The Spinner Dolphins seem even more intelligent (and notice they do not allow themselves to get caught). A rich uncle of mine swam with them in Hawaii once and he told me that they were a lot like big friendly dogs. If they have the personality of canines then I think that bumps them up on The Respectability Chart since I think if dogs were in charge and had to take care of humans, there would be no Kill Centrer Pounds.
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Post by Bill Thompson on Oct 17, 2006 20:47:44 GMT -4
Scientific testing with dolphins where they conducted a series of progressively more challenging problems to solve have shown that dolphins are about as intelligent as a 5-year old human. Who? What? Where? When? and How? And since humans are conducting the test, I think the results would be naturaly biased to what we define as intellgent. :PIf Flipper and Zipper conducted a test to see how intellgent humans are, it might be discovered that, to them, an adult human has the "intelligence" of a 3 year old dolphin.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Oct 17, 2006 21:45:37 GMT -4
Who? What? Where? When? and How?
I'd link to it, but it was a doco. They run a series of test with a dolphin,seeing how long it took to solve a problem to get a fish. It learned first to press a button for a fish, then press it three times for the fish, then to go and get a stick to push the fish from the opening when it wouldn't drop out, but it started failing when it had to go and get the stick first because the opening was timed to close again so if it opened the container, by the time it got the stick the slide had closed again.
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Post by turbonium on Oct 22, 2006 4:37:54 GMT -4
We are much smarter than Neanderthals were, although they'd kick the stuffing out of us in a fight! The more interesting question is: Would we have let them compete in the Olympics and other sports with us? I highly doubt it, except for a few select events, such as the marathon (I think we could outrun them). We'd lose every time in weightlifting, wrestling, and the shot put. Boxing? I think their lack of speed and co-ordination would be more than offset by other factors. First, you'd never faze them with your punches. And when you tired out, they'd just need to tag you with one or two haymakers and it's "lights out, chump!". Personally, I'm quite happy that they became extinct so that we don't have to deal with these goons!
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Post by twinstead on Oct 22, 2006 16:40:56 GMT -4
Personally, I'm quite happy that they became extinct so that we don't have to deal with these goons! But at least we wouldn't have to worry about our women falling for them
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reynoldbot
Jupiter
A paper-white mask of evil.
Posts: 790
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Post by reynoldbot on Oct 22, 2006 21:03:19 GMT -4
Personally, I'm quite happy that they became extinct so that we don't have to deal with these goons! But at least we wouldn't have to worry about our women falling for them I don't know about that. Have you seen the meatheads most women are attracted to? I know in high school that was pretty evident.
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Post by gillianren on Oct 22, 2006 23:17:32 GMT -4
Not in my circle of friends, thank you.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Oct 23, 2006 7:48:42 GMT -4
Actually, there's precious little evidence that "we" are much, or indeed any smarter than Neanderthals (spelling it with an "h" is correct: the modern spelling would be 'Neandertal', but Homo neanderthalensis was named in the 1870s, some time before German spelling was reformed in 1899). Neanderthals had a large cranial capacity than we do, and there is evidence that Neanderthals had tools and musical instruments. Those tools tended to stay very much the same throughout the lifespan of the species, but Cro-Magnon tools took up to 30,000 years to show improvements, which is hardly a dramatic burst of inventiveness...
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Post by turbonium on Oct 23, 2006 19:26:36 GMT -4
...there is evidence that Neanderthals had tools and musical instruments. Indeed - they most likely formed the very first "rock" bands!!
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Post by echnaton on Oct 23, 2006 21:20:05 GMT -4
...there is evidence that Neanderthals had tools and musical instruments. Indeed - they most likely formed the very first "rock" bands!! Do we really have to put up with this type of posting? ;D
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Post by turbonium on Oct 24, 2006 19:23:20 GMT -4
Do we really have to put up with this type of posting? ;D Sorry for that. I probably chased away dozens, if not hundreds, of potential new forum members.
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