Are Dolphins Smarter than Humans?

  When my son was a child, I used to tell him that dolphins are as intelligent as humans, and would be equally as advanced if they possessed hands and opposeable thumbs. He would get pissed. Now I'm wondering if they aren't smarter than humans.

  I watched a progam on PBS recently on whales and dolphins. A segment was on how dolphins on the East coast of South America have trained humans to help them catch fish. Every morning the fishermen line the shore with their nets. Meanwhile, the dolphins drive the fish into the shallows, where they are, for the moment, safe from the dolphins. When the dolphins are ready, they signal the fishermen to cast their nets by slapping their tail fins on the surface of the water. When the nets are cast, the fish try to escape, right into the mouths of the waiting dolphins. The fishermen do not cast their nets until they receive the signal from the dolphins. This has been going on for over one hundred years.

  While searching for literature on this, I stumbled upon this http://juliecantrell.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/dolphin-trains-humans-in-mississippi/ , very interesting.

  Here's a link to the full PBS program, Ocean Giants: Voices of the Sea. The specific chapter is 5 of 6.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2204091519
PBS rocks... sometimes, great stuff.

I saw that on the TVs. It was very cool.

Just found this thread. (Not sure how I missed it but...)

The fishing story is amazing.  Was bummed to find that the PBS video has been removed.

Not contesting dolphin intelligence but I wouldn't call this mutually beneficial exercise training. Many animals have cycles in which they do something that helps another species and in return they receive a benefit. Though it is interesting that the dolphins signal. Something must have started that. Makes sense from the dolphins perspective: drive the fish, signal, eat fish! But what started the signaling? We'll probably never know.

The link posted above with the dolphin that learned to reduce on piece of trash into many pieces of trash to get more fish is much more interesting from an intellectual perspective because it could not have happened by accident or mutual cooperation. The mind of that dolphin specifically had to figure out that ripping a piece of paper into two meant doubling its fish reward. Though perhaps it happened by accident once and then the fish figured it out only after the accident? There is definitely a different in intelligence between thinking up a novel idea and extrapolating something from an unintended accident.

riverc0il wrote

Not contesting dolphin intelligence but I wouldn't call this mutually beneficial exercise training. Many animals have cycles in which they do something that helps another species and in return they receive a benefit. Though it is interesting that the dolphins signal. Something must have started that. Makes sense from the dolphins perspective: drive the fish, signal, eat fish! But what started the signaling? We'll probably never know.

The link posted above with the dolphin that learned to reduce on piece of trash into many pieces of trash to get more fish is much more interesting from an intellectual perspective because it could not have happened by accident or mutual cooperation. The mind of that dolphin specifically had to figure out that ripping a piece of paper into two meant doubling its fish reward. Though perhaps it happened by accident once and then the fish figured it out only after the accident? There is definitely a different in intelligence between thinking up a novel idea and extrapolating something from an unintended accident.

The fact the dolphins saved fish to "fish" for seagulls is pretty amazing also. They also taught other dolphins the behavior. The cooperation with the fishermen seems to me more of a case of the dolphins training the humans than vice versa. The fishermen don't throw their nets until they get the cue from the dolphins...who's a good human?, you're a good human, yes you are.

Sometimes I think squirrels are smarter than humans