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Goldfish Smarter Than Dolphins
flergum writes "While dolphins may have big brains, laboratory rats and goldfish can outwit them. It appears that the large brains are a function of their environment rather than intelligence. From the article: 'Dolphins have a superabundance of glia and very few neurons... The dolphin's brain is not made for information processing it is designed to counter the thermal challenges of being a mammal in water.' I guess this means that the Navy will start recruiting and training goldfish for those mine search and destroy missions."
You know what really disturbs me? The number of people I've met who actually believe that idiotic myth. We really live in a pathetic state of education when this type of nonsense is accepted without question.
"You put an animal in a box, even a lab rat or gerbil, and the first thing it wants to do is climb out of it. If you don't put a lid on top of the bowl a goldfish it will eventually jump out to enlarge the environment it is living in," he said. "But a dolphin will never do that. In the marine parks, the dividers to keep the dolphins apart are only a foot or two above the water between the different pools," he said. Manger says the thought to jump over would simply not cross their unsophisticated minds.
So because the dolphin isn't brainless enough to jump out of its tank and beach itself and die in the process, that makes them stupid? I suppose by comparison the child that plays away from road isn't as smart as the kid that plays in traffic, you know, the one that's seeking to "enlarge his environment" by becoming road pizza.
I'm not anything close to the people who think dolphins are really really intelligent (though Douglas Adams makes a pretty good case), but IRTFA and I can not see how this is a serious article.
It ends: "Manger also points to the tuna industry, which under consumer pressure has gone to great lengths to prevent dolphins from being caught and killed by accident in nets.
"If they were really intelligent, they would just jump over the net because it doesn't come out of the water," he said."
Umm, yea, they would if they ware smart? *sigh* - how did this make *any* news at all. Even assuming that the gist of the article is true (about the different types of brain material) the rest is crap - was it "peer reviewed" (as the article points out) by other idiots? Maybe it is all a Rovian plot to discredit Aljazeera.net? I can not take the article and it's contents with any real sense of belief - it is so idiotic that I can not trust the rest of it. That's not to say they are incorrect - just that this individual article is is pure crap and one should not use it to base any belief on.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
In a goldfish's behavior when you approach it for feeding. Believe me, they remember what your behavior indicates is about to happen.
KFG
While it is obvious and quite dated knowledge that the sheer size of a brain is no indicator for "intelligence" (let us avoid the discussion what intelligence is in the first place for the moment), it is provably wrong that dolphins just do what they are "conditioned" to do. There have been many experiments that show that dolphins are capable to do a lot more than just demonstrate conditioned reflexes, including understand a several-word sign language and coming up with what could be called creative solutions.
Nothing of that sort has been demonstrated for goldfish yet, but that does not mean it cannot be done, just that we simply do not know yet.
It has been shown for other species that they show surprisingly intelligent behaviour when trained and it is probably impossible to defined what "more intelligent" should mean for non-humans (it is already quite arbitrarily defined for humans). So the bottom line is - more animals are more intelligent than most people think. And dolphins have shown a quite surprising range of abilities that was not observed in any other marine animal yet.
I disagree that jumping out of ones environment is a smart move, especially if you don't know what's on the other side. I disagree that dolphins are dumb because they get caught in nets because: a) how do you jump over a net if you find your self in the absolute center? b) maybe most do 'just jump over' and the ones caught are the dumb few. c) if a dolphin doesn't jump over a net it will become sushi, a dolphin probably doesn't know that it should jump over a net unless it knows it's dangerous, if a dolphin knows the net is dangerous - it's probably already been caught (see sushi statement). d) nets (i think) are designed to be fairly invisible, dolphins aren't known for having excellent eyesight and I don't know if their echo location is good enough to spot a net... Let's have a fish off and stick a dolphin and a goldfish in a tank and see who wins... actually to make it fair lets stick quite a few goldfish in there...
What is really disturbing about this story is not how wrong it is, but how it spread like wildfire through the echo chamber that is the web pages of the "respectable" news media. There seems to be zero interest in vetting stories anymore. Anything that sounds like a sensation and be linked to some other news page somewhere, is worth publishing, without a critical word added.
Back on topic, did you know that as far as we know, only three animals understand the concept of 'pointing at something'? These three are humans, chimpanzees and dolphins. Try it with your cat or dog. It will continue to look at your hand, not where you want it look, until the cows come home. Understanding symbols that stand for vectors in space require a greal deal of abstract thinking.
The burden of proof lies with the individual making the claim. 'Prove me wrong' is not a valid substitute for evidence.
Placing the burden of proof on the individual making the claim is scientific.