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."

Comments

Bizzaro science

[Kawolski]

"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.

Re:Bizzaro science

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, okay, maybe they don't comprehend the concept of going over something out of water. But consider that they probably have no space-escape instinct. In other words, dolphins have no reason to have developed claustraphbia, because it would be a very rare case indeed where getting stuck in a small space would even come up for a dolphin. They just plain don't run into closed spaces much. Considering this we realise they that probably concieve of space in a completly different way from how we do. I mean, they move in 3D, and rarely have any restrictions, but with constant forces pushing them one way or another. So I think this tell us alot about how dolphins conceive of the concept of free space, paths, and obstacles. It could be that the concept of being "blocked" from something isn't very inate. So they are bad at solving one type of problem but it doesn't tell us that they are "dumb" in any general sense.

There is another issue at hand. Their brain is certainly different from ours, and they have followed a different evolutionary path, with a different set of problems. There is no telling what problems they might be GOOD at solving, evidence of one that they are bad at is not evidence that they are dumb. Consider many of the people in history who have been considered the most "intelligent". Many were schitzofrenic, which is fundamentally an inability to tell fact from fiction, and basically properly asses a situation in a rational way. The results of this can look extremly "stupid". Many have had social disorders as well, such that they did stupid things which caused them much pain in their lives... that's pretty "dumb". Still we consider them smart because they could solve problems no-one else could solve. There are many types of intelligence, and lack of one does not imply a low sum of them all.
Basically, we think of intelligence as someone who can solve a problem we can't. Often this implies they can't solve some problems that we can. The differences between humans and dolphins are much larger than within our species, it seems likely that they are good at a fairly disparate class of problems from what we're good at. It has oft been speculated by AI theorists that problems we consider hard are actually fairly easy compared to the problems we consider easy. The one's we consider easy are just the one's evolution needed to get 99.9% right, I.E. walking, learning language, etc. Consider abstract algebra. There are only a few axioms, and that's all there is to learn. From then on it's just a few theorems. learning Abstract math is really quite simple compared to learning natural language, with it's thousands rules and idioms, we're just not wired for it.

Uhmm. serious article?

[bm_luethke]

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.

Re:Smart is one thing...

[Jackmn]

Of course, you need evidence to dismiss a claim.

If the claims is unsubstantiated then you can safely dismiss it.

The burden of proof lies with the individual making the claim. 'Prove me wrong' is not a valid substitute for evidence.

It's unscientific thinking like yours

Placing the burden of proof on the individual making the claim is scientific.