We humans have a habit of anthropomorphizing the world around us. We like to give animals human attributes or overthink their capabilities to fit our idea of them, rather than the reality.
So, with that in mind, are dolphins really as smart as we give them credit for?
The dolphin brain is one of the largest of any mammal with regards to the ratio of brain vs. body size. As far as we know, their brain is organized in much the same way as primates. They are credited with having high intelligence, but lack many of the skills we regard as intelligent.
Many scientists believe that much of the dolphin brain is taken up by auditory processes and echolocation. There is no doubt that dolphins are very accomplished communicators, using sound to hunt and socialize, but their use of language is under doubt. They may have an established language we cannot even begin to comprehend, but they also may not.
Proving whether another species is smart or not is difficult as we only have our own standards to judge them on. However a story from the Marine World Africa USA park may help in that regard. They trained their dolphins to clean up their swimming area by being rewarded for presenting trash to the trainer.
Using positive reinforcement, the trainer would reward a dolphin for bring a piece of trash to him. One particular dolphin kept bringing items of trash even when the pool was known to be clean. Curious, the trainer asked an assistant to monitor the dolphin to see what he was doing.
The assistant saw that the dolphin had a stash underwater, hidden in a bag. When it came to cleaning time, he would go into the bag and retrieve something from it to get the reward. Not only was he doing that, he was also dividing the trash he had into pieces to maximize the treats.
If that isn’t evidence of intelligence I don’t know what is. Not only did the dolphin learn the trick to receiving reward, he also knew how to plan ahead. He also knew that by maximizing the trash, he could get more rewards.
This demonstrated he could think to the future, but most importantly, it showed he could overcome the instinct to have multiple treats at once, but to draw them out over time. It also showed cunning, as he figured out that a small piece of trash got him the same reward as a large one, which is why he portioned his stash out so carefully.
So scientists can study all they like, the dolphins themselves seem quite able to demonstrate their intelligence. Simple observation is able to determine that dolphins are very smart creatures indeed. It’s more likely that we simply cannot understand how smart, rather than they aren’t smart at all.
Any animal that can display the ability to comprehend human behavior and work it to their advantage is intelligent no matter how they are judged.
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