Look human history.. its frigging dull just for hundreds of thousand years untill something happened. Whales dont have hands nor can they make fire in water.. just think about it, they cant make tools or use them efficiently. If brain size doesnt matter your denying another science fact. It might not be all there is but still.. dont think you are scientists and come here making your imaginary facts.
I was doing my normal research when areas of knowledge suddenly started coming together and I realized that I am not the smartest animal on my planet, some animals are smarter.
Its all abut the Orca dude....they are much smarter than any other whale species.....their language, organization, hunting techniques and kindness towards humans(they love people out in the wild) proves they are the apex creature in the sea....that we know of at least...alot of ocean we have yet to explore...
Really? Lol, some commenters here are dumber than rocks! Size is utterly irrelevant. Its like saying a 1950s room size cray computer would be smarter than a modern desktop PC. Its about wiring and function efficiency, along with programming. The programs and systematic function processes is what makes us incredibly more intelligent than whales, while they may have stronger, idk...navigational processes. Its all evidence of specific design. Lol, arguing size or shape primarily determines IQ, dumb
@trakkaton how would you explain the giant dinosaurs --the giant sauropods which which could weight 100 tons -14 times that of an adult elephant, but had tiny brains --not in relative terms, but in absolute terms.
I think this whole EQ stuff stems mainly from humans' great reluctance to admit that there may be other creatures on Earth that are more intelligent.
Imo, the reason that larger animals tend to have larger brains is merely due to the fact that larger brains are "cheaper" for them.
1. The dinosaurs had a very low sensoric and motoric density. An elephant has enough sensomotoric density to paint a picture, a dinosaur surely hasn't. But a high sensomotoric density doesn't make you smart. It's like claiming that the bigger the car is, the faster it is. It is a statement showing absolute ignorance about the structure and qualities of a car.
2. You make a claim without any proof. And are you really talking about the EQ, not the IQ?
@trakkaton I would say the Encephalization Quotient is a claim that isn't supported. Whales don't have the sensomotoric density that elephants have, yet they have huge brains.
Also, true, the elephant has more muscles in its trunk than a human has in his entire body, but I doubt it requires a brain 3 times the size of a human just to operate it.
As for 3, I don't think I contradicted myself. The larger an animal is, the more likely it is to have a brain larger than that of a pygmy marmoset.
1. I don't have a simplistic view. I didn't claim that the sensomotoric density is THE ONLY reason why larger animals have larger brains.
2. The >unfounded claim< you are making is your psychologizing allegation. I can claim all sort of crap with that method. Like that you only want animals to be intelligent because of the color books of your childhood that had them, and your primary narcicissm.
3. No, and no. An animal has the brainsize that gives a net advantage.
Imagine you are a whale - you re in water all your life, vision is limited, no way of form perception because your tactile sensors are also crippled, no flat surfaces where you could lay things, and - gravitation is not working good enough! And you develop a huge nose and ears, you memorize everything at a first perception, because no way to give it a second glance, you may develop a kind of intelligence, but very, very different from human.
The level of intelligence is not very tightly correlated with brain mass. The brain organization plays bigger role.
We are more intelligent than any living thing around because we can build abstract models like no other species. We have developed this thanks to being primates - social, using tools and, finally, speech.
Then why the whales have brains so huge? If they just store their songs, they are the biggest mp3 players ever. But I think they maybe memorize very well - far better than us.
The brain to body weight theory is dated. If you'll notice, larger brains are always found in large bodies, but larger bodies don't always house large brains. The larger the brain, the more protection it needs.
In any event the cetacean brain is larger in the areas that count.
"It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it." Is the old saying, and this is proven in BRAIN SIZE. Sperm whales may have a bigger brain, but Body/Brain ratio proves HUMANS HAVE A LARGER BRAIN IN COMPARASSON. They have a larger brain than even Dolphins. Praise be to the B/B/R!
Now, another point: whales swim underwater but have to go to the surface for Air... Humans are superior, hell, fish are superior. They specialize in something and don't have to waste half an hour breathing.
Well, we could measure accomplishments... Whales have been around longer than humans... But, they don't have America, oxygen tanks, submarines, boats, ect. Humans also kill thousands of whales each day, bad yes, but if the whales had any common sense they would ram the ships, yes they would risk their lives, but hell, humans die in wars everyday. Fighting back is better than allowing ones self to be slaughtered.
A spermwhale is measured to be about as intelligent as a cow. That is the scientific fact.
If they were 10% as intelligent as imagine - they would have found ways to communicate with us a long time before we even thought about the concept of communicating with them.
"What if the subset of cetacean intelligence researchers who believe cetaceans have general intelligence comparable to, or greater than, human intelligence ... are actually correct? (Which is my suspicion.)"
Finally, there is another possible explanation for large whale brains. Humans largely live in a 2.5 dimensional world (on land), whereas whales live in a completely 3 dimensional world (in the sea), and need to be able to navigate in three dimensions, whereas humans only navigate in 2 dimensions. Our mental maps are flat. Whale mental maps are likely volumetric. This may account for their relatively large brains. Navigation is simply much more important for them.
*Our* cerebral cortex is general purpose. The architecture of human cortex is different than that of whales. We have different arrangements of cells, and different sensory inputs, and different bodies. It may be that whales are stuck in a biological modality which does not allow them to express fully general purpose intelligence on the scale of humans.
My point to Tim is simply that he has not shown conclusively that he's right, and there are alternative explanations which need to be ruled out.
I didn't say it's less flexible, I said the architectures are different. It is up to Tim (or you, if you support Tim's position) to show evidence that whale cortices *are* as flexible as human. That is my entire point. The case that whales are more intelligent than humans has not been sufficiently made, and there are good reasons to doubt it.
And humans have undergone rapid expansion of brain size since that divergence. There is no evidence of such rapid expansion in whales, which was a point I made in an earlier comment to Tim.
Whales haven't mastered fire either, so what's your point about chimps? My point is that chimps have fairly big brains too, but we don't claim they are as intelligent as humans. The case for whale intelligence is just as weak.
Argh, you continually misread what I write. I am not pro-whale-stupidity. I am only skeptical of Tim's claim that whales are *smarter* than humans.
Do you understand the concept of 'burden of proof'? Tim (or you) need to provide evidence that whales are *indeed* smarter than humans. You cannot simply say, "Well the case for whale stupidity is weak, therefore whales are smarter than humans." That's a retarded argument, I hope you can see. You need to provide actual evidence that they are smarter.
I don't see any good reason why the "burden of proof" should lie with those who think sperm whales are smarter than humans any more than it lies with those who think that humans are smarter than sperm whales.
I tend to agree with: "generally arguments about where the burden of proof lies are unproductive. It is more reasonable to suppose that such questions are best left to courts of law where they have suitable application."
The burden of proof lies with he who claims. You made the claim that whales are smarter than humans, hence the burden of proof rests with you. I'm holding the null hypothesis, which is standard practice in science. I am skeptical of your claim.
I am actually sympathetic to the idea that whales are smarter than people give them credit for. It is the specific claim that they are smarter than humans that I doubt.
One solid piece of evidence that bouys my doubt is the lack of rapid brain expansion in whale species. Humans went through a long period of co-evolutionary arms racing in bigger and bigger brains, which is evident in our ancestors. Whales show no such signs. This would seem to throw doubt on the idea that intelligence plays as crucial a role for whales as it does for humans.
By the way, your article about brain-body ratio talks about primate species. It does not claim to apply to all species.
Data: "We provide the first description [...] of the pattern of change in brain size relative to body size in cetaceans over 47 million years. We show that brain size increased significantly in two critical phases in the evolution of odontocetes. The first increase occurred with the origin of odontocetes from the ancestral group Archaeoceti near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary and was accompanied by a decrease in body size. The second occurred in the origin of Delphinoidea only by 15 [M.Y.A.]."
Human brain expansion took only 5 million years. That's what I mean by rapid expansion. It shows that intelligence is far more important for fitness for humans than for dolphins.
I googled your source, and found this interesting tidbit that you did not include: "dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size .... In humans, ... seven times larger"
That would seem to favour the hypothesis that dolphins are more intelligent than other animals, but not as intelligent as humans.
"What figure are you comparing 5 million years to?"
To either 47 million or 15 million, which are the figures you quoted.
The idea is that both the rate and scale of the expansiion are related to the selective forces present. Without strong selection for intelligence, the brain would tend to shrink to the minimal size for survival. Brains are expensive.
Humans show much stronger selection for intelligence; dolphins only moderate selection. This favours the hypothesis that humans are smarter.
No. 47 million years is the duration the study ("Origin and evolution of large brains in toothed whales") dealt with. I documents apparent growth spurts in brain size in certain Odontoceti (37 MYA to 27 MYA) and certain Delphinoidea (18 MYA to 15 MYA).
It says "Results here show an increase in encephalization at the origin of Odontoceti that may be related to the emergence and elaboration of the ability to process high-frequency acoustic information associated with echolocation."
Human brains have only been growing for some 7 million years. Whale brains have been growing (intermittently) for some 50 million years. Think that extra time might count for something?
As the video points out, there is a lot of anatomical and social evidence that sperm whales are smarter than humans. There's no evidence that I'm aware of that they aren't.
If I had to decide whether or not whales were smarter than humans, I'd definitely say they were smarter.
That whales are not smarter than humans. The null hypothesis is chosen in contrast to the proposed hypothesis, as a kind of catch-all default. If your proposed hypothesis was that whales were stupider than humans, the null hypothesis would be that they are not stupider than humans.
Typically, you should list all reasonable hypotheses, and then add the null hypothesis as a fallback, in case the truth is that all the proposed hypotheses are false.
In this case, the reasonable alternative hypotheses include: Whales are stupider than other animals with the same brain/body ratio; whales are smarter than brain/body ratio, but not as smart as humans; whales are smarter in some ways, but lack the collective intelligence of humans; whales have a different neural architecture which skews the brain/body ratio measurement, etc.
The point is that you must compare all relevant hypotheses and see which one the evidence fits best.
If you choose a null hypothesis which is merely the opposite of some other hypothesis, you don't get to claim any sort of high ground by asserting it. These hypotheses are symmetrical - calling one of them "null" doesn't mean it is any more likely to be true. If one hypothesis was *simpler*, it would be a different matter.
Are you unfamiliar with the scientific method? It's your job to disprove the null hypothesis. It's not my job to defend it. See wikipedia Null_hypothesis.
*You* are the one asserting a hypothesis, namely that "Whales are much smarter than humans." You have not demonstrated this is the case by disproving the null hypothesis, which is that they are not.
You cannot dodge the onus of the burden of proof just by claiming you dislike the null, default hypothesis. It's the standard of falsification.
wonderist, while you seem to have different views from me on the cetacean brain capabilities, I don't think it adds anything to your position to claim that it represents the null hypothesis.
There are times when the null hypothesis really is favoured. For example, when it is favoured by Occam's razor. However, that doesn't seem to apply here.
I think some may be taking this video a bit differently to how I intended it.
I'm basically pointing out that cetacean brain capabilities are pretty impressive - and saying that we shouldn't dismiss their mental capabilities due to the lack of an opposable thumb.
This is a video - not a scientific paper. These are just my views on the topic.
I admit the subject is a controversial one, that different scientists may have different views. I don't pretend to have the final solution.
Another issue that you didn't address is that large brains (i.e. larger than needed just to support the body, i.e. more intelligent than necessary) are very expensive metabolically, and there needs to be a significant selective pressure for larger brains size for large brains to evolve. We see this rapid evolutionary expansion in humans, but not in whales. If there's not enough selective pressure for intelligence, then brain sizes would tend to stay at the minimum required to support the body.
Granted, whales have complex social lives, but so do chimps. In human evolution, there was intense competition, in terms of tribal conflict, for example, which spurred an evolutionary arms race for greater intelligence. Unless you can show that there's similar inter-whale-pod competition for greater intelligence, it seems unlikely to me that whales have the same degree of intelligence as we do.
Do you have a reference to the study which casts doubt on brain/body ratio? Another thing is the architecture of the neurons in the neo-cortex. Whale and human neural architecture are quite different. One last thing is the proportion of the brain which is the neocortex. Humans have a much larger proportion neocortex. Recent human evolution, corresponding with our increasing tool use, has shown rapid growth in the neocortex, lending weight to the idea that it is most important for intelligence.
See the reference to: "Overall Brain Size, and Not Encephalization Quotient, Best Predicts Cognitive Ability across Non-Human Primates" - in the transcript, via the link on the right.
Look human history.. its frigging dull just for hundreds of thousand years untill something happened. Whales dont have hands nor can they make fire in water.. just think about it, they cant make tools or use them efficiently. If brain size doesnt matter your denying another science fact. It might not be all there is but still.. dont think you are scientists and come here making your imaginary facts.
ardeuz1 2 months ago
i completely agree with you! but man do you look like harry potter if he was 25 years older...
connor123987 3 months ago
I was doing my normal research when areas of knowledge suddenly started coming together and I realized that I am not the smartest animal on my planet, some animals are smarter.
truthseeker010101 4 months ago
Its all abut the Orca dude....they are much smarter than any other whale species.....their language, organization, hunting techniques and kindness towards humans(they love people out in the wild) proves they are the apex creature in the sea....that we know of at least...alot of ocean we have yet to explore...
63Bueno 5 months ago
Really? Lol, some commenters here are dumber than rocks! Size is utterly irrelevant. Its like saying a 1950s room size cray computer would be smarter than a modern desktop PC. Its about wiring and function efficiency, along with programming. The programs and systematic function processes is what makes us incredibly more intelligent than whales, while they may have stronger, idk...navigational processes. Its all evidence of specific design. Lol, arguing size or shape primarily determines IQ, dumb
tcgreen11 6 months ago
@tcgreen11 nice opinion, science disagrees
truthseeker010101 4 months ago
Attempts should be made to communicate with whales!
LyriMetacurl 7 months ago
@garsofwar5 I'm retarded? Whales don't even have wifi yet, their a bunch of fucking losers!
proofandevidence 8 months ago
I think self-realization and creativity is highly overlooked.
Sychonaut13 1 year ago
yeah but we invented the ps3
proofandevidence 1 year ago
Whales actually built the moon because they were bored.
Lystfiskerjens 1 year ago
Define "smart" first.
There is no correleation between the size of the brain in humans and their IQ.
The bigger the body, the bigger the brain has to be just in order to fulfill the motoric and sensoric/ sensible functions.
So - there are some problems with your claims.
Nonetheless John C. Lilly is quite interesting.
trakkaton 1 year ago
@trakkaton how would you explain the giant dinosaurs --the giant sauropods which which could weight 100 tons -14 times that of an adult elephant, but had tiny brains --not in relative terms, but in absolute terms.
I think this whole EQ stuff stems mainly from humans' great reluctance to admit that there may be other creatures on Earth that are more intelligent.
Imo, the reason that larger animals tend to have larger brains is merely due to the fact that larger brains are "cheaper" for them.
Dirtfire 11 months ago
@Dirtfire
1. The dinosaurs had a very low sensoric and motoric density. An elephant has enough sensomotoric density to paint a picture, a dinosaur surely hasn't. But a high sensomotoric density doesn't make you smart. It's like claiming that the bigger the car is, the faster it is. It is a statement showing absolute ignorance about the structure and qualities of a car.
2. You make a claim without any proof. And are you really talking about the EQ, not the IQ?
3. You contradicted yourself there.
trakkaton 11 months ago
@trakkaton I would say the Encephalization Quotient is a claim that isn't supported. Whales don't have the sensomotoric density that elephants have, yet they have huge brains.
Also, true, the elephant has more muscles in its trunk than a human has in his entire body, but I doubt it requires a brain 3 times the size of a human just to operate it.
As for 3, I don't think I contradicted myself. The larger an animal is, the more likely it is to have a brain larger than that of a pygmy marmoset.
Dirtfire 11 months ago
@Dirtfire I don't think the EQ theory is complete bunk, but I don't think it's as important a factor as it's made out to be.
Dirtfire 11 months ago
@Dirtfire
1. I don't have a simplistic view. I didn't claim that the sensomotoric density is THE ONLY reason why larger animals have larger brains.
2. The >unfounded claim< you are making is your psychologizing allegation. I can claim all sort of crap with that method. Like that you only want animals to be intelligent because of the color books of your childhood that had them, and your primary narcicissm.
3. No, and no. An animal has the brainsize that gives a net advantage.
trakkaton 11 months ago
The whales may very well live in a higher dimention than we do ...........
WONDOCTORJ 1 year ago
@WONDOCTORJ
Everyone needs to listen to "I'm a Whale" (The Notwist, "Nook") more often, and they can, too.
trakkaton 1 year ago
Imagine you are a whale - you re in water all your life, vision is limited, no way of form perception because your tactile sensors are also crippled, no flat surfaces where you could lay things, and - gravitation is not working good enough! And you develop a huge nose and ears, you memorize everything at a first perception, because no way to give it a second glance, you may develop a kind of intelligence, but very, very different from human.
petkish 2 years ago
The level of intelligence is not very tightly correlated with brain mass. The brain organization plays bigger role.
We are more intelligent than any living thing around because we can build abstract models like no other species. We have developed this thanks to being primates - social, using tools and, finally, speech.
Then why the whales have brains so huge? If they just store their songs, they are the biggest mp3 players ever. But I think they maybe memorize very well - far better than us.
petkish 2 years ago 2
The brain to body weight theory is dated. If you'll notice, larger brains are always found in large bodies, but larger bodies don't always house large brains. The larger the brain, the more protection it needs.
In any event the cetacean brain is larger in the areas that count.
Adominae 2 years ago
"It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it." Is the old saying, and this is proven in BRAIN SIZE. Sperm whales may have a bigger brain, but Body/Brain ratio proves HUMANS HAVE A LARGER BRAIN IN COMPARASSON. They have a larger brain than even Dolphins. Praise be to the B/B/R!
Now, another point: whales swim underwater but have to go to the surface for Air... Humans are superior, hell, fish are superior. They specialize in something and don't have to waste half an hour breathing.
David0Schofield 2 years ago
Ants have the biggest brain-to-body ratio (6% brain). Then come small birds and rodents. It seems like a dubious way to measure smartness.
tmtyler 2 years ago 10
Well, we could measure accomplishments... Whales have been around longer than humans... But, they don't have America, oxygen tanks, submarines, boats, ect. Humans also kill thousands of whales each day, bad yes, but if the whales had any common sense they would ram the ships, yes they would risk their lives, but hell, humans die in wars everyday. Fighting back is better than allowing ones self to be slaughtered.
David0Schofield 2 years ago
@David0Schofield
You can make the arguement that whales are better and smarter than humans using exactly the same reasons
jnat8 2 years ago
@tmtyler I thought it was the tree-shrew that had the biggest brain-to-body ratio.
fackinglollig 2 weeks ago
He reminds me of a cross between Frank Zappa and John Lennon. I think thats pretty dead on honestly
Foxyslacker 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
.. i want to give you mad domes.
TLCHOT 2 years ago
A spermwhale is measured to be about as intelligent as a cow. That is the scientific fact.
If they were 10% as intelligent as imagine - they would have found ways to communicate with us a long time before we even thought about the concept of communicating with them.
toreibjo 2 years ago
Ben Goertzel on the topic, from his blog:
"What if the subset of cetacean intelligence researchers who believe cetaceans have general intelligence comparable to, or greater than, human intelligence ... are actually correct? (Which is my suspicion.)"
tmtyler 2 years ago
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gravelftw 2 years ago
Finally, there is another possible explanation for large whale brains. Humans largely live in a 2.5 dimensional world (on land), whereas whales live in a completely 3 dimensional world (in the sea), and need to be able to navigate in three dimensions, whereas humans only navigate in 2 dimensions. Our mental maps are flat. Whale mental maps are likely volumetric. This may account for their relatively large brains. Navigation is simply much more important for them.
wonderist 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
*Our* cerebral cortex is general purpose. The architecture of human cortex is different than that of whales. We have different arrangements of cells, and different sensory inputs, and different bodies. It may be that whales are stuck in a biological modality which does not allow them to express fully general purpose intelligence on the scale of humans.
My point to Tim is simply that he has not shown conclusively that he's right, and there are alternative explanations which need to be ruled out.
wonderist 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
I didn't say it's less flexible, I said the architectures are different. It is up to Tim (or you, if you support Tim's position) to show evidence that whale cortices *are* as flexible as human. That is my entire point. The case that whales are more intelligent than humans has not been sufficiently made, and there are good reasons to doubt it.
wonderist 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
So do chimps, as I said. No one is claiming that chimps are smarter than humans, though.
wonderist 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
And humans have undergone rapid expansion of brain size since that divergence. There is no evidence of such rapid expansion in whales, which was a point I made in an earlier comment to Tim.
Whales haven't mastered fire either, so what's your point about chimps? My point is that chimps have fairly big brains too, but we don't claim they are as intelligent as humans. The case for whale intelligence is just as weak.
wonderist 2 years ago
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Dirtfire 2 years ago
Argh, you continually misread what I write. I am not pro-whale-stupidity. I am only skeptical of Tim's claim that whales are *smarter* than humans.
Do you understand the concept of 'burden of proof'? Tim (or you) need to provide evidence that whales are *indeed* smarter than humans. You cannot simply say, "Well the case for whale stupidity is weak, therefore whales are smarter than humans." That's a retarded argument, I hope you can see. You need to provide actual evidence that they are smarter.
wonderist 2 years ago
I don't see any good reason why the "burden of proof" should lie with those who think sperm whales are smarter than humans any more than it lies with those who think that humans are smarter than sperm whales.
I tend to agree with: "generally arguments about where the burden of proof lies are unproductive. It is more reasonable to suppose that such questions are best left to courts of law where they have suitable application."
tmtyler 2 years ago
The burden of proof lies with he who claims. You made the claim that whales are smarter than humans, hence the burden of proof rests with you. I'm holding the null hypothesis, which is standard practice in science. I am skeptical of your claim.
I am actually sympathetic to the idea that whales are smarter than people give them credit for. It is the specific claim that they are smarter than humans that I doubt.
wonderist 2 years ago
One solid piece of evidence that bouys my doubt is the lack of rapid brain expansion in whale species. Humans went through a long period of co-evolutionary arms racing in bigger and bigger brains, which is evident in our ancestors. Whales show no such signs. This would seem to throw doubt on the idea that intelligence plays as crucial a role for whales as it does for humans.
By the way, your article about brain-body ratio talks about primate species. It does not claim to apply to all species.
wonderist 2 years ago
Data: "We provide the first description [...] of the pattern of change in brain size relative to body size in cetaceans over 47 million years. We show that brain size increased significantly in two critical phases in the evolution of odontocetes. The first increase occurred with the origin of odontocetes from the ancestral group Archaeoceti near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary and was accompanied by a decrease in body size. The second occurred in the origin of Delphinoidea only by 15 [M.Y.A.]."
tmtyler 2 years ago
Human brain expansion took only 5 million years. That's what I mean by rapid expansion. It shows that intelligence is far more important for fitness for humans than for dolphins.
I googled your source, and found this interesting tidbit that you did not include: "dolphin brains are four to five times larger for their body size .... In humans, ... seven times larger"
That would seem to favour the hypothesis that dolphins are more intelligent than other animals, but not as intelligent as humans.
wonderist 2 years ago
What figure are you comparing 5 million years to?
You don't seem to have any data - so you don't seem to have a foundation for your conclusion.
The whole idea that the rate of expansion is related to the scale of the expansion doesn't make much sense in the first place.
tmtyler 2 years ago
"What figure are you comparing 5 million years to?"
To either 47 million or 15 million, which are the figures you quoted.
The idea is that both the rate and scale of the expansiion are related to the selective forces present. Without strong selection for intelligence, the brain would tend to shrink to the minimal size for survival. Brains are expensive.
Humans show much stronger selection for intelligence; dolphins only moderate selection. This favours the hypothesis that humans are smarter.
wonderist 2 years ago
No. 47 million years is the duration the study ("Origin and evolution of large brains in toothed whales") dealt with. I documents apparent growth spurts in brain size in certain Odontoceti (37 MYA to 27 MYA) and certain Delphinoidea (18 MYA to 15 MYA).
It says "Results here show an increase in encephalization at the origin of Odontoceti that may be related to the emergence and elaboration of the ability to process high-frequency acoustic information associated with echolocation."
tmtyler 2 years ago
Human brains have only been growing for some 7 million years. Whale brains have been growing (intermittently) for some 50 million years. Think that extra time might count for something?
tmtyler 2 years ago
As the video points out, there is a lot of anatomical and social evidence that sperm whales are smarter than humans. There's no evidence that I'm aware of that they aren't.
If I had to decide whether or not whales were smarter than humans, I'd definitely say they were smarter.
Dirtfire 2 years ago
What do you think the null hypothesis in this case - and why do you think that?
tmtyler 2 years ago
That whales are not smarter than humans. The null hypothesis is chosen in contrast to the proposed hypothesis, as a kind of catch-all default. If your proposed hypothesis was that whales were stupider than humans, the null hypothesis would be that they are not stupider than humans.
Typically, you should list all reasonable hypotheses, and then add the null hypothesis as a fallback, in case the truth is that all the proposed hypotheses are false.
wonderist 2 years ago
In this case, the reasonable alternative hypotheses include: Whales are stupider than other animals with the same brain/body ratio; whales are smarter than brain/body ratio, but not as smart as humans; whales are smarter in some ways, but lack the collective intelligence of humans; whales have a different neural architecture which skews the brain/body ratio measurement, etc.
The point is that you must compare all relevant hypotheses and see which one the evidence fits best.
wonderist 2 years ago
If you choose a null hypothesis which is merely the opposite of some other hypothesis, you don't get to claim any sort of high ground by asserting it. These hypotheses are symmetrical - calling one of them "null" doesn't mean it is any more likely to be true. If one hypothesis was *simpler*, it would be a different matter.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Are you unfamiliar with the scientific method? It's your job to disprove the null hypothesis. It's not my job to defend it. See wikipedia Null_hypothesis.
*You* are the one asserting a hypothesis, namely that "Whales are much smarter than humans." You have not demonstrated this is the case by disproving the null hypothesis, which is that they are not.
You cannot dodge the onus of the burden of proof just by claiming you dislike the null, default hypothesis. It's the standard of falsification.
wonderist 2 years ago
wonderist, while you seem to have different views from me on the cetacean brain capabilities, I don't think it adds anything to your position to claim that it represents the null hypothesis.
There are times when the null hypothesis really is favoured. For example, when it is favoured by Occam's razor. However, that doesn't seem to apply here.
tmtyler 2 years ago
I think some may be taking this video a bit differently to how I intended it.
I'm basically pointing out that cetacean brain capabilities are pretty impressive - and saying that we shouldn't dismiss their mental capabilities due to the lack of an opposable thumb.
This is a video - not a scientific paper. These are just my views on the topic.
I admit the subject is a controversial one, that different scientists may have different views. I don't pretend to have the final solution.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Another issue that you didn't address is that large brains (i.e. larger than needed just to support the body, i.e. more intelligent than necessary) are very expensive metabolically, and there needs to be a significant selective pressure for larger brains size for large brains to evolve. We see this rapid evolutionary expansion in humans, but not in whales. If there's not enough selective pressure for intelligence, then brain sizes would tend to stay at the minimum required to support the body.
wonderist 2 years ago
Granted, whales have complex social lives, but so do chimps. In human evolution, there was intense competition, in terms of tribal conflict, for example, which spurred an evolutionary arms race for greater intelligence. Unless you can show that there's similar inter-whale-pod competition for greater intelligence, it seems unlikely to me that whales have the same degree of intelligence as we do.
wonderist 2 years ago
Do you have a reference to the study which casts doubt on brain/body ratio? Another thing is the architecture of the neurons in the neo-cortex. Whale and human neural architecture are quite different. One last thing is the proportion of the brain which is the neocortex. Humans have a much larger proportion neocortex. Recent human evolution, corresponding with our increasing tool use, has shown rapid growth in the neocortex, lending weight to the idea that it is most important for intelligence.
wonderist 2 years ago
See the reference to: "Overall Brain Size, and Not Encephalization Quotient, Best Predicts Cognitive Ability across Non-Human Primates" - in the transcript, via the link on the right.
tmtyler 2 years ago
Maybe they are able to perceive other dimensions then we can and possibly they are more active in ways that we are just not able to perceive.
malakh777 2 years ago
Yeah, but utterly useless ways.
xXAkridXx 2 years ago
Interesting concept. Seems terrible to me however if they have intelligence but no means of really effecting anything like we do.
xXAkridXx 2 years ago