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Lilly’s theory had special significance for another group of scientists – astronomers.
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Man and Dolphin extrapolated Mary Lilly’s initial observations of dolphins mimicking human voices, right through to teaching them to speak English and on ultimately to a Cetacean Chair at the United Nations, where all marine mammals would have an enlightening input into world affairs, widening our perspectives on everything from science to history, economics and current affairs. The idea of talking dolphins, eager to tell us something, captured the public’s imagination and the book became a bestseller. Lilly published his theory in a book in 1961 called Man and Dolphin. If so, here were exciting new opportunities for interspecies communication. Perhaps, John reasoned, this behaviour indicated an ambition on the dolphins’ part to communicate with the humans around them. I went down to where they were operating and told them that this was going on and they were quite startled.” “I came in at the top of the operating theatre and heard John talking and the dolphin would go: ‘Wuh… wuh… wuh’ like John, and then Alice, his assistant, would reply in a high tone of voice and the dolphin would imitate her voice. Now aged 97, Mary still remembers the day very clearly. But on one occasion in 1957, the research would take a different course which would change his and Mary’s lives for ever. Unable to sedate dolphins, as they stop breathing under anaesthetic, the brain-mapping work wasn’t easy for either animals or scientists, and the research didn’t always end well for the marine mammals. Here, for the first time, Lilly had the chance to study the brains of live dolphins, mapping their cerebral cortex using fine probes, which he’d first developed for his work on the brains of rhesus monkeys. But here, in the tanks of Marine Studios, the dolphins’ playful nature was endearingly on show and their ability to learn tricks quickly made it hard to dislike them. “They were known as ‘herring hogs’ in most of the seafaring towns in the US,” says Burnett. Up until this time, fishermen on America’s east coast, who were in direct competition with dolphins for fish, had considered the animals vermin. It was on just such a trip in the late 1950s that the Lillys came across Marine Studios in Miami – the first place to keep the bottlenose dolphin in captivity. Photograph: Lilly EstateĪt every opportunity in the years that followed, John Lilly and his first wife, Mary, would charter sailboats and cruise the Caribbean, looking for other big-brained marine mammals to observe. Tripper and flipper: Dr John Lilly, who started experimenting with LSD during the project. And in this period, researchers were like: ‘Whoa… big brain huh… cool!’” “You are talking about a time in science when everybody’s thinking about a correlation between brain size and what the brain can do. The young medic couldn’t quite believe the size of the animal’s brain – and began to imagine just how intelligent the creature must have been, explains Graham Burnett, professor of the history of science at Princeton and author of The Sounding of the Whale. Lilly had been interested in connecting with cetaceans since coming face to face with a beached pilot whale on the coast near his home in Massachusetts in 1949. Here, Lilly hoped to commune with the creatures, nurturing their ability to make human-like sounds through their blow holes. The facility had been designed to bring humans and dolphins into closer proximity and was the brainchild of an American neuroscientist, Dr John Lilly. It was cleaned by the tide through openings at each end. The lab’s upper floors overhung a sea pool that housed the animals. He was sexually coming of age and a bit naughty.” “There were three dolphins,” remembers Lovatt. Despite her lack of scientific training, Lovatt turned out to be an intuitive observer of animal behaviour and Bateson told her she could come back whenever she wanted. “Well, I heard you had dolphins,” she replied, “and I thought I’d come and see if there was anything I could do or any way I could help…” Unused to unannounced visitors and impressed by her bravado, Bateson invited her to meet the animals and asked her to watch them for a while and write down what she saw. “Why did you come here?” he asked Lovatt. His name was Gregory Bateson, a great intellectual of the 20th century and the director of the lab. Lovatt was met by a tall man with tousled hair, wearing an open shirt and smoking a cigarette.