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Cetacean science does not have to be pseudo-science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2001

Patrick J. O. Miller
Patrick J. O. Miller
Affiliation:
Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543 pmiller@whoi.edu
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Abstract

Rendall and Whitehead overstate the weak evidence for social learning in cetaceans as a group, including the current evidence for vocal learning in killer whales. Ethnographic techniques exist to test genetic explanations of killer whale calling behavior, and additional captive experiments are feasible. Without such tests, descriptions of learning could be considered pseudo-scientific, ad hoc auxiliary assumptions of an untested theory.

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2001 , pp. 347 - 348
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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