All in the Mind - Diving into dolphin heads: science, rights and ethics

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Diving into dolphin heads: science, rights and ethics

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Diving into the dolphin brain
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The Cove took out this year's Oscar for best documentary for its confronting coverage of the annual dolphin culls in Taiji, Japan. Scientists argue dolphins have complex, large brains - second only to human brains relative to body weight. Join Natasha Mitchell with leading cetacean scientists and an ethicist for a tour of a waterborne 'alien intelligence'. What are the consequences for captivity, and a controversial call for 'personhood' status?

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Guests

Associate Professor Jacopo Annese
Founder and director
The Brain Observatory
University of San Diego
California
USA
http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/

Professor Thomas I. White
Conrad N. Hilton Chair of Business Ethics
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles
USA
http://cba.lmu.edu/facultyresearch/facultylist/white.htm

Professor Diana Reiss
Professor of Psychology and Biopsychology, and Behavioural Neuroscience
Hunter College
City University of New York
USA
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/02_Faculty/FacultyPages/Faculty_Reiss.html

Dr Lori Marino
Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience and Behavioural Biology
Faculty affiliate with the Centre for Ethics
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
http://www.nbb.emory.edu/faculty/personal/marino.html

Further Information

All in the Mind blog with presenter Natasha Mitchell
Join Natasha Mitchell in the All in the Mind blog. You can add comments there, or directly here on the webpage too (It's easy! Just look for Add Your Comment).

Natasha Mitchell on Twitter

The Dolphin Brain Atlas

2010 AAAS Conference - Intelligence of Dolphins: Ethical and Policy Implications session
February, 2010.

The Brain Observatory, University of California San Diego

Dolphins: the Philosophical Questions
PDF of a chapter from Thomas I. White's book, In Defense of Dolphins.

The Cove
Oscar Winning documentary on the dolphin drives in Japan

Review of The Cove - Oscar Winning documentary
The Movie Show, ABC Radio National
Review by Ruth Hessey, 2009

In Defense of Dolphins
Accompanies the book of the same name by Thomas I White

Publications

Title: Mirror self-recognition in the bottlenose dolphin: A case of cognitive convergence
Author: Diana Reiss and Lori Marino
Publisher: The National Academy of Sciences, 2001
URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5937.abstract

Title: In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier
Author: Thomas I. White
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing 2007
ISBN: 9781405157780

Title: Japan's dolphin drive hunts from a scientific and animal welfare perspective
Author: Diana Reiss
URL: http://www.whales-online.org/doc_bin/reiss_marino_drivehunts_2007.doc
Originally published by The Ocean Project at http://www.theoceanproject.org/actfordolphins/scivi.html

Title: Spontaneous Vocal Mimicry and Production by Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): Evidence for Vocal Learning
Author: Reiss D, McCowan B
Publisher: Journal of Comparative Psychology, 1993 Sep;107(3):301-12
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8375147

Title: Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition
Author: Lori Marino, Richard C. Connor, R. Ewan Fordyce, Louis M. Herman, Patrick R. Hof, Louis Lefebvre, David Lusseau, Brenda McCowan, Esther A. Nimchinsky, Adam A. Pack, Luke Rendell, Joy S. Reidenberg, Diana Reiss, Mark D. Uhen, Estel Van der Gucht, Hal Whitehead
Publisher: PLoS Biol 5(5): e139, 2007
URL: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139

Title: Cortical Complexity in Cetacean Brains
Author: Patrick R. Hof, Rebecca Chanis, Lori Marino
Publisher: The Anatonomical Record, Volume 287A Issue 1, Pages 1142 - 1152, 2006
URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112098743/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Title: Neuroanatomy of the Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) from Magnetic Resonance Images
Author: Marino Lori, Sherwood Chet C, Delman Bradley N, Tang Cheuk Y, Taidich Thomas P, Hof Patrick R
Publisher: The Anatomical Record, 2004, vol. 281A, no2, pp. 1256-1263
URL: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16345569

Title: Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates
Author: Marino Lori
Publisher: Brain behavior and evolution 2002, vol. 59, no1-2, pp. 21-32
URL: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13773972

Title: Dolphin-Assisted Therapy: More Flawed Data and More Flawed Conclusions
Author: Lori Marino, and Scott O Lilienfeld
Publisher: Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, Volume 20, Number 3, September 2007 , pp. 239-249(11)
URL: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/anthroz/2007/00000020/00000003/art00003

Title: Origin and Evolution of Large Brains in Toothed Whales
Author: L Marino, D.W McShea, M.D Uhen
Publisher: 2004, vol. 281A, no2, pp. 1247-1255
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15497142

Title: Whistles with Dolphins
Author: Frederik Joelving
Publisher: Scientific American January 26, 2009
URL: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=whistles-with-dolphins

Presenter

Natasha Mitchell

Filed in: All in the Mind, Diving into dolphin heads, science, rights, ethics, The Cove, Thomas I. White, Diana Reiss, Lori Marino, Natasha Mitchell, brain, Psychology, dolphins, intelligence, mind,