page 115:
.... I intend to start by asking two basic questions:
1) Is there any real social structure in cetacean populations?
2) Do cetaceans have highly developed social behaviour?
I am sure some readers are already appalled that I would doubt either concept. But the fact is that in recent years the authors of one popular book after another have started from the basic premise (sometimes explicit, sometimes implied) that the cetaceans represent a higher order of social evolution and, by implication, intelligence. Human nature and the press being what they are, some of these accounts have received wide publicity in magazines and newspapers and on television, to the extent that complex dolphin sociology and high cetacean intelligence has joined motherhood and apple pie in the public mythology. The realities of social organization in cetacean populations, I suggest; although interesting, are considerable more mundane than speculation. Frequently analogies have been drawn in popular literature between dolphins, and chimpanzees and man, with respect to social structure, as well as intelligence. In several important ways the major social parallels between many cetacean species and terrestrial mammals lie not with the primates, but with the nomadic plain animals, and the behavioural repertoire and social organization of most species may be less "advanced " than many people have come to believe, and as much the result of great mimicry as of creative intelligence.
....... dolphin language
page 147:
The conclusions of authors who have carried out work in this field fall into three groups; those who believe that there is a dolphin language (for example, J.C.Lilly); those who regard these sounds as quasi-language (for example,R.-G.Busnel, and J.J. Dreher); and finally those who regard the case for language at best non-proven, or not supported by experimental evidence at all (for example, D.K. and M.C. Caldwell).
......... succourant behaviour
page 149:
......... On the basis of these results one can ask the vital question with respect to succourant behaviour: Does the animal aiding a distressed school-mate really understand the consequences of helping? There are significant observational data to suggest that succourant behaviour is automatic in female dolphins, an essentially mindless response to certain triggering stimimuli, as in the example given earlier of a female bottlenose dolphin which carried a shark on its melon, taking it to the surface over and over again for days. It is not in fact necessary to postulate that the animal has to understand what it does in order for succourant behaviour towards peers to evolve, as long as it confers selective advantage. There are similar records of females taking stillborn calves to the surface over and over again for many hours, and of one doing this with a partly decomposed head.
page 149,150:
This, I suppose, brings us to the question of cetacean intelligence, which raises immediately the thorny and hoary problem of defining the concept. All animals can be shown to be intelligent to some degree, if one operates on an absolute scale. What we are really asking, of course, is "Are dolphins as intelligent as man, and if not, how intelligent are they, relative to man, or higher primates"? Some authors insist that the answer to the first question is yes; others, myself included, cannot see that the experimental and objective behavioural observations support this supposition of high dolphin intelligence; in fact they frequently suggest the opposite. Dolphins can perform quite complex tasks. Bottenose dolphins, in particular, are superb mimics, can memorize long routines, and are amenable to training. They are not superb at solving problems, merely quite good by higher vertebrate standards and, as might well be expected, their auditory learning skills are considerable. They have been ranked at about the same level as the elephant in test scoring. Certainly some dolphin species exhibit individual behaviour of some complexity, and they sometimes spontaneously innovate. But so do many other mammals, a point which tends to be forgotten. I used to have a cat which (despite the 90 per cent sensory cortex in his little brain) learned spontaneously to open doors. Opening doors was an act which now and then brought results in the form of food to which he did not normally have access. But did he have a 'plan'? He would sometimes open the bedroom door and then stand looking rather bewildered. Purpose and intent imply some foreknowledge of the specific results of specific actions. The more definitive studies on dolphin behaviour suggest (despite statements to the contrary) that dolphins have not yet been demonstrated to have thought processes of this kind.
Some works have explored the anatomical route, pointing to the large proportional size of the brain (this is not true for all cetaceans, incidentally), the high degree of convolution of the cerebral cortex and the zonal differentiation as possible evidence of the high intelligence of dolphins, especially since some parallels with primate organization were noted. Other recent work, however, also seems to point to significant organizational differences. The neurone density in most cetacean brains is not particularly high, and larger brain density in most cetacean brains is not particularly high, and larger brain size does not seem to be correlated with increased neurone density. Although the cortex is extensive, it is likely to be taken up with the processing of acoustic information, and there is some reason to believe that these data may be more 'cumbersome' to store and retrieve than visual information. In several respects other than neurone density, the distribution of large pyramidal motor cells resembles that in the ungulates and carnivores. There are other descriptive and interpretive studies which provide evidence that the dolphin brain is essentially different from ours in many significant respects, for example in the thin limbic cortex, weak vertical striation and absence of primate-type granule cells.
page 151:
With respect to 'communication', we know that cetaceans gather, accumulate and (perhaps unwittingly) broadcast information about their environment. Such evidence as we have suggests that 'intent', as we understand the term, is lacking in this broadcasting. They can signature, both vocally and by body language, and this facilitates social cohesion and recognition of emotional condition. Studies to date of their sound production do not, sadly, even begin to produce evidence of the existence of a 'language' that parallels those of Homo sapiens, with their rich variety of syntax.