Are Dolphins Really Smart

How intelligent are dolphins? Is their communication system really as complex as human language? And are they as friendly and peaceful as they are made out to be? Justin Gregg weighs up the claims made about dolphin intelligence and separates scientific fact from fiction. He presents the results of the latest research in animal behaviour, and puts our knowledge about them into perspective with comparisons to scientific studies of other animals, especially the crow family and great apes. He gives fascinating accounts of the challenges of testing what an animal with flippers and no facial expressions might actually be thinking. Gregg's evidence-based approach creates a comprehensive and up-to-date study of this fascinating animal which will appeal to all those intrigued by dolphin behaviour.

A leading authority on dolphin intelligence shares scientific information about dolphin creativity, emotions, and communication abilities while advocating for stronger dolphin protection laws.

How smart are dolphins? They’re good at doing tricks, and they love fish! But how much do we know about the ways dolphins communicate and relate to each other? In Do Dolphins Really Smile?, curious young readers will learn all the dolphin basics, as well as new information scientists are finding out about these fascinating creatures!

The natural world can be viewed as a continuously changing complex system comprising variable units that do not conform to any stable plan. Within this framework, human evolution is not the story of the past that created Homo sapiens and then handed this account over to written history. It is the ongoing process that shapes us now and will shape us in the future, body and mind. We must understand it in order to survive and be able to direct it to our advantage. The Dynamic Human presents a general theory of how humans function as a multi-individual system embedded in the natural world. The authors employ a unified approach of systems theory to outline forces that direct ongoing human evolution and produce its outcomes in terms of the past, present and future. Readers will find a perspective on the human place in nature, through a brief account of the past human evolution over 10 million years ago, a discussion of the earliest appearance of humans some 2 million years ago, and a description of the mechanisms of the changes in the gene pool of humans from generation-to-generation. Understanding the forces involved in these mechanisms (physical and mental growth and development) may allow us to understand world better. The Dynamic Human presents a simplified perspective on human evolution for all readers interested in a discourse on the origins, nature and future of human beings.

A New York Times bestseller: "A passionate and convincing case for the sophistication of nonhuman minds." —Alison Gopnik, The Atlantic Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition—in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos—to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.

"Dolphins are very smart animals, and that means they know how to take care of their young. This charming book explores the underwater world of these amazing aquatic mammals, showing how dolphin mothers care for their young, how they eat, and how young calves like to play. Through vibrant full-color photographs paired with accessible text, beginning readers embrace the wonders of nature as they discover important facts about the dolphin's life cycle."

Apes and dolphins: primates and cetaceans. Could any creatures appear to be more different? Yet both are large-brained intelligent mammals with complex communication and social interaction. In the first book to study apes and dolphins side by side, Maddalena Bearzi and Craig B. Stanford, a dolphin biologist and a primatologist who have spent their careers studying these animals in the wild, combine their insights with compelling results. Beautiful Minds explains how and why apes and dolphins are so distantly related yet so cognitively alike and what this teaches us about another large-brained mammal: Homo sapiens. Noting that apes and dolphins have had no common ancestor in nearly 100 million years, Bearzi and Stanford describe the parallel evolution that gave rise to their intelligence. And they closely observe that intelligence in action, in the territorial grassland and rainforest communities of chimpanzees and other apes, and in groups of dolphins moving freely through open coastal waters. The authors detail their subjects’ ability to develop family bonds, form alliances, and care for their young. They offer an understanding of their culture, politics, social structure, personality, and capacity for emotion. The resulting dual portrait—with striking overlaps in behavior—is key to understanding the nature of “beautiful minds.”

Drawing on their own research as well as scientific literature including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, anthropology, psychology and neuroscience, two cetacean biologists submerge themselves in the unique environment in which whales and dolphins live.