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Dolphins
(iconosphere entry)

Dolphins are a sea-dwelling mammal. 

Many people view dolphins as intellegent, while many others do not.

According to one prominant biologist, "If they're intellegent, then
where are the signs of that? Where are their roads, their buidlings?".
This fact should be examined closely, and in association with such 
concepts as:

   Thinking & Intellegence -(see map)-
   Robots -(in Scientist)-
   -(see map)-
   -(see map)-

First off, dolphins seem to be very intellegent in the areas of 
emotional empathy, possibly even understanding much of human -(see map)-
language. During the filming of the film "Day of the Dolphins"
(where-in dolphins are being used to take bombs up to enemy 
ships and things and blow them up), it became apparent to the
cast and crew of the film that the dolphins understood quite
a lot of things. At the end of filming, the dolphine left the
set for the last time -- previously at the end of the day's 
filming they would leave, but then be there bright and early.
Skeptics would point out (and rightly so), that by working with
the animals for so long there developed a kind of cross-species
understanding that is commonly found in such diverse areas of
interactions as people with their pets, lion tamers, zoo keepers,
etc.

Next, comes the problem of "proof" -- mainly by the demonstration
of "intellegently created artifacts". One of the earliest distinguishing
marks of intellegence was "ability to make tools". This was discarded
when it was discovered that apes often will find a twig, scrape the
sweet sap from a tree onto its tip, and then use it to catch tasty
insects (ants, termites, etc). As to the idea that dolphins "need"
roads, they are literally three dimensional creatures in the upper
levels of the ocean -- recall that whales (also of the delphinic
classification) are even less limited as to the depths of the ocean
that they can travel. What need of such a creature for roads. Similarly,
the idea of the need for buildings can be dispensed with. 

This brings up an important point: If the dolphins are so well adapted
to their environment, why should they DEVELOP intellegence? It is a
well known principle of biological evolution that things develop out
of a need as a survival mechanism. For example, man walks up right
and his arms are rather short. Alternatively, chimpanzee's have 
difficulty even walking let alone running quickly and for extended
distances. However, chimps are superb climbers. The fact that humans
are rather poorly adapted to walking upright is evidenced by the 
perenial back problems that they experience. Thus, an adaptation
may be a poorly done, but it will function "well enough" or of course
the species "loses out"; in this case, the non-running humans will
be eaten by the sabre-toothed tiger.

Thus, in a perfect environment, the very lack of challenge would tend
to lead us to conclude that dolphins (like fish) don't need intellegence
to survive at all, and thus, wouldn't develop it.

The debate is boundlessly going to continue.

Suffice it say, that if you DO become lost at sea and a dolphin happens
by (usually in pods (groups) of a large number), then you might find
out just how important your self-agrandising concept of "intellegence"
really means. Or not: Some people will NEVER learn; you can lead a 
horse to water, but you can't make him think.
    
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