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cruel sometimes maybe, but dolphins are also very well known for saving humans from drowning. I don't think its fair to project human characteristics onto anima

cruel sometimes maybe, but dolphins are also very well known for saving humans from drowning. I don't think its fair to project human characteristics onto animals, but at least some of what dolphins do is altruistic. The drowning and shark savior stories are countless, and date back to before recorded history in some cultures. Maybe they aren't so bad? There's also studies that can't find any reason they follow ship wakes besides "fun". I think they don't get as much credit as they may deserve

kirrent 6y ago
I've sailed with dolphins plenty of times. They've tended to lose interest when I was on a windsurfer or dinghy after a minute or so, no matter what speed I was doing. On the other hand, when I've been on a cruising cat, they can't seem to get enough. As long as you stay over 7 knots under sail they'll follow along apparently having great fun, particularly around and between the bows. I've even seen a large pod travelling in one direction hook a U-turn when they saw the boat to play for ten minutes before heading back in their original direction. All of this is to say what everyone else is saying. They're complex creatures with sometimes non-trivial motivations.
- keenmaster 6y ago
  Many animals exhibit play behavior, which has numerous benefits. The complexity of the play behavior is fairly bounded. Maybe that dolphin demonstrated an advanced form of it relative to other types of animals. The animal section of the Play wiki is interesting, especially the cognitive theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_(activity)?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_(activity)?wprov=sfti1
tappio 6y ago
Dolphins don't save humans because of altruistic reasons towards our species. Their own offspring behaves similarly when drowning, and they mistake a drowning human to potentially drowning dolphin.
- danans 6y ago
  The same could be said about humans' behavior toward their domestic pets, which are to a large degree bred to retain the traits of infant wild animals.
  - tappio 6y ago
    Not sure what you mean. I didn't mean to undermine dolphins; they are highly intelligent species and definitely altruistic. The point is simply that they don't save a drowning human because they care about a random drowning mammal, but because they mistake it to a drowning dolphin because we both have lungs. Not sure that has anything to do with what you said.
    - danans 6y ago
      Oh I just meant domestic pets appeal to the same parts of the human brain that human infants do, in part because humans have bred domestic pets to retain infantile traits into adulthood. For example, an adult dog retains most of the personality traits of a baby wolf, whereas an adult wolf does not. This is somewhat analogous to your explanation of dolphins acting altruistically toward humans because we resemble their young when struggling in the water. In the same way, it would be very hard for most of us to ignore a lost crying puppy wandering down the street.
- cetalingua 6y ago
  No, it is not that simple. Humpback whales have been observed to interfere and mess up with orcas protecting gray whale calves from being killed. It was observed several times and researchers think that humpbacks just really cannot stand orcas harming other whales, read more here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-humpback-whales-teach-us-compassion-180964545/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-humpback-... Humpback also have spindle (mirror) neurons in their brains, those are thought to be related to cooperation, empathy, etc. Humans have them too, but not many other species (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061127111607.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061127111607.h...). It is good to not anthropomorphise, but we really should finally move away from Descartes' view on animals being simple automatons.

kirrent 6y ago

I've sailed with dolphins plenty of times. They've tended to lose interest when I was on a windsurfer or dinghy after a minute or so, no matter what speed I was doing. On the other hand, when I've been on a cruising cat, they can't seem to get enough. As long as you stay over 7 knots under sail they'll follow along apparently having great fun, particularly around and between the bows. I've even seen a large pod travelling in one direction hook a U-turn when they saw the boat to play for ten minutes before heading back in their original direction. All of this is to say what everyone else is saying. They're complex creatures with sometimes non-trivial motivations.

keenmaster 6y ago
Many animals exhibit play behavior, which has numerous benefits. The complexity of the play behavior is fairly bounded. Maybe that dolphin demonstrated an advanced form of it relative to other types of animals. The animal section of the Play wiki is interesting, especially the cognitive theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_(activity)?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_(activity)?wprov=sfti1

tappio 6y ago

Dolphins don't save humans because of altruistic reasons towards our species. Their own offspring behaves similarly when drowning, and they mistake a drowning human to potentially drowning dolphin.

danans 6y ago
The same could be said about humans' behavior toward their domestic pets, which are to a large degree bred to retain the traits of infant wild animals.
- tappio 6y ago
  Not sure what you mean. I didn't mean to undermine dolphins; they are highly intelligent species and definitely altruistic. The point is simply that they don't save a drowning human because they care about a random drowning mammal, but because they mistake it to a drowning dolphin because we both have lungs. Not sure that has anything to do with what you said.
  - danans 6y ago
    Oh I just meant domestic pets appeal to the same parts of the human brain that human infants do, in part because humans have bred domestic pets to retain infantile traits into adulthood. For example, an adult dog retains most of the personality traits of a baby wolf, whereas an adult wolf does not. This is somewhat analogous to your explanation of dolphins acting altruistically toward humans because we resemble their young when struggling in the water. In the same way, it would be very hard for most of us to ignore a lost crying puppy wandering down the street.
cetalingua 6y ago
No, it is not that simple. Humpback whales have been observed to interfere and mess up with orcas protecting gray whale calves from being killed. It was observed several times and researchers think that humpbacks just really cannot stand orcas harming other whales, read more here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-humpback-whales-teach-us-compassion-180964545/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-humpback-... Humpback also have spindle (mirror) neurons in their brains, those are thought to be related to cooperation, empathy, etc. Humans have them too, but not many other species (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061127111607.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061127111607.h...). It is good to not anthropomorphise, but we really should finally move away from Descartes' view on animals being simple automatons.