Yet the biological facts don't quite square with Homo sapiens' arrogance. We never seem to tire of bragging about how our supreme intelligence empowers us to lord over all other animals on the planet. We humans pride ourselves on our big brains. "From Hell's heart I stab at thee!" Gulp. Moby clipped off one of the captain's legs and then, years later, in a brilliant move of cetacean jujitsu, drowned poor Ahab by towing him into the abyss by the harpoon rope tangled around Ahab's remaining leg. "Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges." Herman Melville.Ĭall me Ishmael for making conjectures unflattering to humankind, but could Moby Dick have been smarter than captain Ahab? Melville certainly seemed to think so. Does that mean they're smarter?įigure from " Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition," Marino et alia, PLOS Biology Of Whales and Men Cetacean brains, such as those of dolphins (left) and humpback whales (right), have even more cortical convolutions and surface area than human brains do.
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