Blackfin

That's cool, and I think you're right. I just didn't think of Australia immediately. Africa came more readily as an example.

God knows I watched enough episodes about wildebeest and buffalo on Wild Discovery when I was a kid. :3

Interesting... Did you get that from a book? Which one?

It was a thought that crossed my mind before, but the only published viewpoint of it I've ever read is in Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton.

What do you think about "trained dolphins".

Have you ever read accounts by trainers on dolphin behaviour? Dolphins will learn new routines easily, and perform well, until they get bored. Then they demand newer, more complex behaviours, or make up stuff on their own. If you go to an oceanarium and watch a dolphin show several times in a row, you will see that captive trained dolphins never perform a routine by rote and will become difficult if they get bored with it.

But - do you think they "enjoy" the interaction, or do they feel imprisoned?

To be honest, I'm not a dolphin, so I don't know. I would think likely a mixture of both, though I have my own suspicions about the mental state of captive cetaceans... Esp. considering the comparisons of captive orcas' stunted vocabularies versus that of their wild counterparts, I can't help but wonder if being kept in captivity warps their mental state. There's some basis for this provided for in documentation of cetacean aggression towards trainers and each other in captivity, as well as cases of self abuse.

With all of our computer simulations, can we not make recordings of their language, interpret it, and build a computer that can "speak" to them in their own tongue?

John Lilly attempted this with his JANUS project in the early 1980's. In theory, yes, it's possible - if we had a proven mathematical theorem for the dynamics of language. I don't think we've got technology that advanced yet, however.

Did you ever read a novel called "Soundings" by Hank Searle?

No, I have not.

Please keep in mind I'm just a junior AP Bio student in high school. I've never listened to captive OR wild dolphins via a hydrophone, I've just read extensively on the subject and have formed my opinions similarly on the line with those of Mrs. Morton, because they make the most sense to me.

Or are the characteristics of a species merely a coincidence of circumstances like natural selection and environment?

I'm in AP right now, and in a lot of texts I've noticed the implication that species are actively evolving towards a certain end, usually in sentences like, "Despite a harsh environment, Species B has evolved a trait that allows it to combat it quite effectively..."

This implies a direct action by the species that's evolving - or, if you take a religious bent on it, a big metaphysical hand pulling the puppet strings of evolution. I like to think that species are merely the passive product of natural selection, and do not consciously evolve towards a certain end except through instinctive selection of mates. However, I have a feeling most species mate with another member of they're species because they think 'They're hot' (or the organism's equivalent), NOT because they're thinking 'This will make my species more genetically resistant to extinction.'

I know this is definitely splitting hairs in a gray area of biology, but it's only by splitting hairs and arguing over fine points any progress has ever been made in science. It's not just about the big concepts, it's also about the finer details.

So, ideas? I could very well be wrong.

I think the major factor that contributed to large species is simply the kind of biome they were living in. Grasslands predominated during the Pleistocence. Ever taken a look at the grasslands in Africa? The largest terrestial mammals live in them, and that's simply because a grassland supports a huge biomass of grazing species. Large animals live well in grasslands. And large predators evolved to fill the ecological niche left open by prey that grew too large to be caught by earlier predators. You couldn't have had a Cave lion without an aurochs and other similarly huge species. ~_^

Okay.... first question. What, exactly, does a gene do?

It codes for a protein. Enzymes and hormones included, because they're proteins. This affects your response to a stimulus, but does not create a behaviour or feeling (like happiness) all by itself, without any outside stimulus. Therefore, it would be more correct to say that genes influence the way you react to something, or rather, give you a tendency to react more happily and resist negative emotions than another person with a different genetic make up.

The gene itself doesn't make you happy.

-Prod- Just thought that was a differentiation that should be made.

There is one major problem with this entire debate:

Intelligence is not quantifiable.

The other problem is that most of you are rather uninformed on the subject.

Since marine mammalogy is something of a passion for me, let me nitpick a little.

Support for the fact that dolphins are sentient (i.e. self-aware):

1) They have a spoken language.

This is something that is still under intensive research, but the work of some scientists (namely Alexandra Morton in British Columbia with wild orcas) after recording the calls of wild orcas for 25 years has recorded a complexity of grammar, tone, and syntax comparable with human language. (I am taking the liberty of using the Delphinidae species I know the most about, Orcinus orca.) Also, after recording and analyzing the calls of captive orcas (Orky and Corky in MarineLand in San Diego during the 1980's), she found vast differences between the complexity of their "grammar" versus the "grammar" of the wild orca pods they probably came from, based on data about the time and location of their capture off the Canadian coast.

2) They understand & utilize the concept of names.

This was shown conclusively in a study done by John C. Lilly in 1965 (Yes, he was a druggie and threw his academic career down the toilet in the end, but some of his early work with captive dolphins is definitely worth a read.) Basically, he took a young woman named Margaret Howe and had her live on a raised platform in a tank she shared with a bottle-nosed dolphin named Peter. After several weeks in the tank, Peter learned to approximate a nasal version of Margaret's name. There've also been studies done where dolphins are shown responding to specific sequences of "name" whistles. It's fairly certain dolphins understand the concept of a name.

3) They have differing dialects.

Acoustics studies among wild orca pods show that pods from different areas and lifestyles (transient vs. resident) have drastically differently sounding calls. The best explanation for this is that orcas, like humans seperated by distance and circumstance, develop their own languages over time.

So, why won't dolphins ever speak English? One problem is that they don't have vocal chords. They make sounds by passing air through five air sacs in their throats. Another thing I have to ask is, why does the fact of dolphins being intelligent automatically mean that they would want to communicate with humans? I'm not sure that they would, to be honest. There's plenty of friendly dolphins, sure, but mostly dolphins are interested in eating fish and having sex with other dolphins. If you compare the ratio of wild dolphins that actively swim up to a beach to swim with people and the number of wild dolphins that just go about their daily business eating fish and having sex, you'll see the majority is definitely with the latter. Dolphins are aquatic creatures whose worlds are primarily painted out for them by sound, while we are terrestial creatures who live in a world of sight. Of course our motivations are going to be different.

Just my two cents. Or maybe fifty, considering the length of the post.

And one last thing. Has anyone brought up the idea that scientists might feel a tad threatened and lost a little objectivity when threatened by the possiblity of a creature whose intelligence rivals their own?

Isn't it arguable that we split hairs over Mammalians simply because we are mammals ourselves, and understanding other endothermic species is key to understanding our own phylogeny and morphology?