- Are dolfr, dulfrins?
- Are Durfrins smert?
- Smert?
(upbeat jazz music)
- Maya?
- Yes?
- Do you think dolphins are smart?
- I think they are very smart.
- Why do you think that?
- I don't know why, I think they
have a college degree in the ocean.
To survive in the ocean, you have
to be some sort of intelligent.
- I've got some thoughts and research also.
Dolphins, have the largest brains relative
to their body size second only to humans.
- I knew it.
- It's big and juicy and meaty and full of wrinkles.
Research claims that they can recognize
themselves in mirrors and can learn
to communicate using symbols.
There have been examples of dolphins
using tools to their advantage,
including a group of bottle-nosed dolphins
in Australia who put sponges on top
of their noses to protect them while
scouring the sea floor for food.
- That sounds like they are smart.
I wouldn't know what to do with a sponge like that.
- [Sara] They have incredible empathy for
their own species and others.
It's not uncommon for dolphins to
rescue drowning humans in the open water.
- Oh my God.
- I think that if I was swimming and I was
drowning and I saw a dolphin swimming
toward me, I would think it was a shark and poop my pants.
There is even an ongoing effort
to grant dolphins personhood.
To give them the same freedom a human has.
Where does it stop?
Your in line at sure, you know The Icing
getting some earrings and there's a
dolphin in front of you, getting dolphin earrings.
(giggling)
So they must be pretty smart.
Well, maybe not.
Many animals have been shown to
understand language, including apes
and a border collie named Chaser
who famously could understand about
1000 words, while dolphins can learn dozens.
Primates, crows, and other animals
have been known to build their
own tools to aid in their survival.
Additionally, chickens exhibit vocalization
capabilities and can learn socially just like dolphins.
As for recognizing themselves in the mirror,
the dolphins displayed similar behavior
when there was no mirror present.
- If it is true that they can
recognize themselves in the mirror,
I wonder if they have the same
insecurities we have when we look
in the mirror, like oh, my nose too big.
- My fin is too slender.
- [Sara] How did humans become
so obsessed with the idea of dolphin intelligence?
How did dolphins go from being cute
ocean mammals to icon of mystery and
otherworldly intelligence they are today?
Through out history, dolphins have
been revered in countless myths across the globe.
In Roman mythology, they transported the souls of the dead.
(screaming)
Amazon river dolphins were thought to
turn into handsome men at night in
order to seduce unsuspecting women.
(cymbal clash)
- Would I date a dolphin if he
turned into a handsome man?
- Well, you are at work all day.
- I am.
- So if your at work all day, your
boyfriend is a dolphin, you come home?
- But then again, I don't know what
he is doing during the day in the ocean.
If he is talking to other dolphin female friends.
- Ladies.
Like, and then you want to come
home to me at night as a handsome man?
- You know, there's a lot of fish in the sea.
That's good.
But in modern society, our dolphin
mania started with a man named Dr. john Lilly.
In the late 1950s, Lilly mapped
a dolphin's brain using electrodes.
He was convinced they had heightened
intelligence, their own language,
and were trying to communicate with humans.
He gained massive media attention,
which led to funding, which led
to, you guessed it, more experiments.
Most of which, aimed to teach dolphins English.
If a dolphin spoke English to me, my eyes
would fall out of my head and my teeth
would fall out of my mouth because I would be so scared.
- I feel like, we're not ready to
hear what they have to say, what they know.
- [Sara] In the 1960s, Lilly began administering
LSD to his dolphin subjects.
- Oh man.
- [Sara] He would also does himself with
the drug and float in an isolation tank for hours.
On his first experience taking the
drug, he said "I traveled through
"my brain watching the neurons and their activities."
But the drug didn't seem to have
any effect on the dolphins.
- So he just, got drugged up and partied with dolphins?
- For science.
- What did you do last night?
(giggling)
- I was doing LSD with my dolphin pals.
Can I ask what animal would you take LSD with?
- A starfish.
- [Sara] In perhaps the most famous
of Lilly's experiments, the doctor
half flooded a home in St. Thomas,
where another researcher, Margaret Lovatt
lived with a dolphin named Peter.
Which is a very boring name for a dolphin
- I kind of like it.
I would trust a Peter.
That's my dolphin, Peter.
There's my friend, Peter.
Not like, this is my friend Oceafina.
- I love it, Oceafina, that's a good dolphin name.
- Claimed.
- [Sara] The goal was to teach Peter
to speak English, so man and beast
could finally communicate.
Margaret ate, slept, and spent time with
Peter, like one might a human roommate.
Then things got weird.
Peter grew attached to his teacher
and began seeking sexual satisfaction.
- No, no, no, no.
I knew you were going to say that.
I don't want to hear that.
- [Sara] For a while, Margaret
transported Peter to a tank with
the female dolphins each time he acted out.
But as this became more and more
frequent and continued to interrupt their work,
Margaret gave in and masturbated the dolphin.
(dolphin squeals)
Only then would he focus on the lessons.
- I don't like it, I don't like
that piece of information that you just feed me right now.
- What about don't you like?
- That's disturbing, I knew that
was going to happen and I hoped
that you weren't going to say anything
sexual like that but then he went there.
- He probably was like "Oh yeah,
"every time I do this I get a little something, something."
Peter did not learn to speak English.
By 1967, John Lilly's funding had dried up.
After that, the research center closed.
- Yeah, yep, I think that sounds about right.
- [Sara] While his earlier, less
controversial research was well respected,
his ideas were certainly extreme.
Much of what he claimed seems to
have soaked into the Zeitgeist,
despite the lack of solid evidence.
If John Lilly had focused his
research, on say otters.
Hi, there.
Would we believe them to possess human-like intelligence?
Justin Gregg, author of Are Dolphins Really Smart,
The Mammal Behind the Myth, thinks this a possibility.
- I don't know why I have this feeling
in my soul and body that dolphins are smart.
I think with the things that they do
in the ocean, as dolphins, to get
around, to communicate, to survive,
It's very smart, - So many,
all animals do that.
Dogs bark at each other, we don't
think that they have a language.
It's incredibly difficult to measure
the true intelligence of an animal.
Who are we to say an ant, in it's
own habitant, is not intelligent?
One of the reasons he believes we
see dolphins as intelligent, is their human-like behavior.
We see ourselves in their complex
social groups, their playful attitude,
and their ability to empathize.
Gregg argues the more scientific path
to unlocking the secrets of dolphins
and the intelligence of all animals
is by studying cognitive abilities.
How do they behave in their environment?
Rather than, in comparison, to ours.
- Do you believe that one day it's
going to be revealed that they
can talk and they are gonna open up a can of truth?
- What do you think the dolphins are going to say?
- About aliens, cause aliens store
their ships in the ocean.
- What are the aliens doing?
- The aliens are just living their lives.
- So what is your big, do you have
any kind of big takeaway today?
- Dolphins are interesting AF.
I do think they are intelligent to
some degree, just by being kind of like human-like.
- There's definitely dolphins smarter
than people people out there.
- Can I do my dolphin outro song?
- Yeah.
- Five, six, seven, eight.
♫ We learned about dolphins, are
♫ They smart, we don't know.
♫ It's not confirmed but they are majestic hoes
(dolphin squeals)
No.
- Da fu?
(jazz music)