Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins (Hardcover)

by Maddalena Bearzi (Author), Craig B. Stanford (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Endowed through evolution with large brains, the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos gorillas and orangutans) and the cetaceans (dolphins and whales) are second only to humans in intelligence. In this delightful and intriguing book, dolphin specialist Bearzi and primatologist Stanford discuss the similarities between these groups. Both use tools, have sophisticated means of communication and cooperation, solve problems innovatively, transmit cultural traditions to the next generation and are able to imitate others. Like humans, apes and dolphins form complex social networks, and they are capable of deception and manipulation. The authors cite many examples: dolphins hoard objects in order to get treats or wear sponges as protective masks as they forage; apes use twigs to extract termites from termite mounds, chimpanzees cultivate alliances with group mates to dominate their communities. In the final section, Bearzi and Stanford survey the factors making dolphins and apes endangered species, and they make a plea for conserving the ecosystems in which they live, because the beautiful minds of these creatures are a terrible thing to waste. (Apr.)
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Review
Endowed through evolution with large brains, the great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) and the cetaceans (dolphins and whales) are second only to humans in intelligence. In this delightful and intriguing book, dolphin specialist Bearzi and primatologist Stanford discuss the similarities between these groups. Both use tools, have sophisticated means of communication and cooperation, solve problems innovatively, transmit cultural traditions to the next generation and are able to imitate others. Like humans, apes and dolphins form complex social networks, and they are capable of deception and manipulation. (Publishers Weekly 20080522)

To see the world from someone else's point of view is hard enough but how much harder when that viewpoint is that of a marine dweller with flippers or an ape whose cognition is based on leaf-centered survival in a rainforest? Hand-signed chimp communications and distinguishing imitation from emulation are two of the topics covered here, the first book to investigate the lives of the dolphins and apes in parallel. It explains why both have big brains and, as far as possible, what is must be like to be them. Fascinating.
--Adrian Barnett (New Scientist 20080830)

Delightful...By the time I reached the final chapter of Beautiful Minds I was so charmed that I felt compelled to read on. Bearzi and Stanford's book has the capacity to delight, entertain, educate, evoke compassion and, I hope, galvanize people into action.
--Debbie Custance (Times Higher Education Supplement )

Dolphin specialist Bearzi and primatologist Stanford team up in this discussion of the qualities of two species of mammal endowed with remarkably large brains. Among explications of the cultures, politics and emotion of the animals, the authors also make a resounding plea for conserving the ecosystems of these complex creatures.
--Elizabeth Abbott (Globe and Mail )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674027817
• ISBN-13: 978-0674027817
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #312,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars where two very different worlds collide, June 5, 2008

By	A. Sparks - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have always been interested in both primates and cetaceans and have read all of the books and articles that I can on the both of them. But this book takes it to a whole new level comparing two animals that seem very different in environment and in body structure. Its amazing how alike we all really are to one another. If you dont believe in the Darwinism theory of evolution this book is not for you. But if you are a true scientist and truly interested in learning about the mind of animals that may truly be very close to humans in intelligence this book is for you.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A biased review, June 19, 2008

By	Giovanni Bearzi (Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My review will be biased and I will keep it short, as I happen to be the brother of one of the Authors of "Beautiful Mind" (Maddalena).

Being myself a scientist who has been working on cetaceans for over 20 years, and an author and reviewer of several scientific publications, I am naturally inclined to strong criticism when I read this kind of literature.

And yet, I really like this book. It is elegantly written, full of intriguing stories and ideas, intellectually rich and even good-looking and pleasant to handle in its present novel-like format.

Craig and Maddalena chose a fascinating but also challenging subject and they managed to unfold it with a clear and understandable language and lots of real-life examples.

Their love for the animals gets across every single line of text, but there is no trace of romanticism, pietism or new age. Instead, the reader finds a clear conservation message and a vibrant call to ensure the protection and well-being of these magnificent and highly-evolved creatures.

Five stars.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nicely written little book that doesn't achieve its larger goal, November 27, 2008

By	Ursiform (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is the collaboration of a dolphin researcher (Bearzi) and an ape researcher (Stanford). It is structured as intertwined narratives about great apes and dolphins, with embedded attempts to draw parallels between ape and dolphin intelligence and social complexity.

This approach is immediately complicated by the fact the humans, bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans all have different social structures and reproductive strategies; there are also differences within the dolphin family. (It was not always clear to me whether the focus of the narrative is strictly dolphins or, more broadly, toothed whales. And there are references to the entire whale family.) Longer books have been written just to address differences between the great apes, so this strategy proves very thin in drawing parallels between two diverse families with diverse behaviors. Often, the parallels are drawn between bottlenose dolphins and chimps. But other comparisons are made when they appear to support the thesis of "parallel lives".

Individually, the two narratives are well written, engrossing, and serve as good overviews to two fascinating families of highly evolved and generally social mammals. (There are book-length treatments of each family with considerably more detail than provided in this book.) There is some overreach in their arguments about intelligence. For example, a story of a mother dolphin teaching her calf adult dolphin skills is touching, but other, presumably less intelligent mammals, get similar training from their mothers.

While succeeding with their argument that both apes and dolphins are among the more intelligent animals, the authors are not as successful in arguing for parallels in behavior, nor for uniqueness of capability. Without the argument of parallel social behavior, it is difficult to argue for similar intelligence (in quantity or form of expression) between apes and dolphins. And uniqueness is brought into question by other animals mentioned and not.

The authors mention elephants a couple of times, but only to acknowledge, without examining them, that they also have highly evolved social structures, and may be very intelligent. Looking further afield, the authors briefly mention research into neocortex ratio (the ratio of the volume of the neocortex to the volume of the more primitive parts of the brain) and social group size (and, presumably, intelligence) among primates. This ratio is also large in some monkeys, dolphins, and elephants. (There appears to be an overlap, in brain capacity and behavior, between the "smartest" monkeys and apes.) But some species of bears are reported to have neocortex ratios similar to gorillas. While clearly clever, bears are not notably social (although the same could be said of orangutans). Intelligence is a broad and complex topic, and appears to exceed either the grasp or interest of the authors.

Pleas for protecting apes and dolphins and their habitats conclude the book. While supported by the individual narratives, and a sentiment that I agree with, this ending does little to pull together the premise of the book. There may be many animals with "beautiful minds", but the case that great apes and dolphins have "parallel lives" is not proven by this book.