IUBio

Dolphin brain

Michael C. Cheney cheney at ucla.edu
Sun Jan 31 23:11:43 EST 1999


In article <X8Ts2.265$mo2.902 at news9.ispnews.com>, "Tim Tillman"
<tillman at ithink.net> wrote:

| >| Natural selection does not appear to favor humans or dolphins of extreme
| >| intelligence...at least there is no evidence that the mean has shifted
| one
| >| way or the other.  It is only sufficient that animals possess sufficient
| >
| >What is your basis for this statement?  Are you saying that there is no
| >evidence that the average human intelligence has changed throughout
| >evolutionary history?  What time scale are you thinking of, and what
| >evidence is there that it hasn't changed?
| 
| I think that we as a species are egotistical to think that our
| "intelligence" has greatly changed over time, particularly with the rise of
| Homo sapiens and and H. neanderthalensis.  What we may see as the
| "intelligence" of our species, is IMHO nothing more than an accumulation of
| historical fact, amounting to a common memory.  It is from this common
| memory that each generation builds.

It sounds like you're trying to discredit the opinion that humans have
evolved an increasing intellegence throughout recorded history.  I think
that if you want to talk about whether higher intellegence is selected
for, you have to compare H. Sapiens to chimps (or any species that you
think humans evolved from).  It certainly does appear to me that extreme
intelligence is favored by natural selection, if you assume we evolved
from chimps.

| 
| Dolphins may possess a primitive language, this is debatable.  But, they are
| not capable of remembering how to avoid the fish nets, a clear danger to the
| individual and a selective vector.  I say that for this reason, it can be
| believed that dolphins are not truely intelligent.  A child can tell another
| child that a stove is hot.  A group of chimps in a room with knowledge of a
| particular threat, can warn a newcomer.  The dolphin gets caught in the net,
| undoubtably taking an easy meal.  Not intelligent.

I think you are saying that an individual dolphin will _repeatedly_ get
caught by the same sort of net, in the same mannor.  Is there evidence for
this?  I was under the impression (mistaken perhaps) that if a dolphin was
caught in a net, and then set free, that the dolphin would avoid the area
where it was first caught.  Also, are you saying that communication is a
prerequisite to your definition of intellegence?

 -mike

-- 
Michael Cheney                                        cheney at ucla.edu

http://www.seas.ucla.edu/~cheney



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