Figure 7. The First 20th-Century Drawing of a Dolphin Brain (G. Elliot Smith, 1902).
Lateral view. The proportions are excellent, as are the gyri and sulci. Smith gives the species as Delphinus tursio; this probably corresponds to the modern Tursiops truncatus or bottlenose dolphin. This brain closely resembles that of Tursiops shown in photos in reference 7. Langworthy’s 1931 drawings (“Porpoise”) are also similar (Brain, 54, 225, 1931).
Figure 8. Mesial View of Same Brain as in Figure 7.
We demonstrated that, like other animals, the monkey, the rat, etc., these animals can be rewarded by stimulating the proper places in their brains.[16][18] In a recent series of experiments we have been establishing the controls necessary to understanding what brain rewards mean in terms of natural physiology. We have demonstrated quite formally that rubbing the skin of these animals with our hands is a rewarding experience to them; they will seek it vocally and by body gestures and give certain kinds of performance in order to obtain this reward.
Recently we have found that “vocal transactions” are a reward to these animals.[7][13] (See below for human analogies in the child.) This seems to be one of the basic factors in our being able to elicit humanoid emissions. The vocal transactions are started by a human shouting some words over the water of the tank in which the animal is residing. A single word may be used or many words—it makes little difference. Eventually the animal in the tank will raise his blowhole out of water and make some sort of a humanoid emission or whistle or clicks in a delphinese fashion. If the human immediately replies with some word or words, the animal may immediately respond, the human answers, and a vocal transaction is under way. We have shown that dolphins naturally do this with one another in both their whistle and clicking spheres, and sometimes do it in the barking sphere.[13] How much of this is “instinctual” and how much is not, there is no way of knowing at the present time.
A physical analysis of such vocal transactions shows them to be formally quite as complex as the vocal transactions between human beings. In other words, the dolphin may say one word or a syllable-like emission, or many, one right after the other, as may the humans. If the human says one word, the dolphin may say one, two, three, or four, and if the human says one, two, three, or four, the dolphin may say one. There is no necessary master-slave kind of relationship in the delphinic emissions.
In our early reports we gave examples which were single words which sounded like the words that the human made.[16][7] This presentation led to misunderstandings among our scientific colleagues. It looked as if the animals were doing a slavish tape-recorder rendition of what we were doing in a fashion similar to that of a parrot or a Mynah bird. All along we have known that the dolphins did not do such a slavish job and were obviously doing a much more complicated series of actions. We are just beginning to appreciate how to analyze and what to analyze in these transactions. As I stated in Man and Dolphin about 10% of these emissions sound like human speech. In other words, the dolphin is “saying” far more than we have transmitted to the scientific community to date. We hesitate to say anything more about this until we begin to understand what is going on in greater detail. We are making progress slowly.
Let me then make an appeal to you—a long appeal to your logical and rational views of man and cetaceans. Here I review the above points in more general terms, and develop a plea for a new science—a new discipline combining the best of science with the best of the humanities.
Several old questions should be revived and asked again with a new attitude, with more modern techniques of investigation and with more persistence. It may take twenty years or more to develop good answers; meanwhile the intellectual life of man will profit in the undertaking. There is something exciting and even at times disturbing in this quest.[19] The bits and pieces may have started before historical times. In each age of man a new fragment was allowed to be recorded and passed on to subsequent generations. Each generation judged and rejudged the evidence from the older sources on the basis of its then current beliefs and on the basis of its new experiences, if any. At times good evidence was attenuated, distorted, and even destroyed in the name of the then current dogma.