dolphins not so smart after all
A recent study on dolphins suggested that dolphins were in fact not
as smart as we have been led to believe. I read about this by way
of a
CBC article but remained somewhat skeptical as dolphins have
been known to do some pretty amazing things. The whole thing did
remind me however of one of the funniest articles I have ever seen
on the
Onion
entitled
Study: Dolphins Not So
Intelligent On Land.
"Dolphins have a popular reputation for being excellent
communicators," Lindell said. "But our study group offered only
three types of response to every question we posed: a nonsensical,
labored wheezing, an earsplitting barrage of unintelligible
high-pitched shrieks, and in extreme cases, a shrill, distressed
scream." Even the dolphins' proven ability to navigate through a
form of sonar called echolocation was ineffective on land. "The
military has claimed great success in training these mammals,
utilizing their echolocation skills to detect mines that have been
placed underwater," said Lindell, who conducted a similar
experiment in a concrete parking lot. "We were unable to replicate
this finding ourselves." Lindell added: "In most cases, the
dolphins succeeded in finding land mines only when we placed them
directly on top of the mines."
he-he..