# Whale Brains and Intelligence. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544 "2005-05-19T05:59:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/1 "2005-05-19T05:59:09Z")
Some animals, like whales and elephants for example, (probably–?) have bigger brains than humans. Yet we are clearly vastly superior to them in intelligence. Why are their bigger brains somehow less sophisticated than ours? And indeed do their bigger brains give them _any_ advantage over us? Do they, for example, have greater depth to their emotions 😕 ? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/2 "2005-05-19T07:13:46Z")
Well, they’re better swimmers… There’s really no correlation between brain size and intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/3 "2005-05-19T07:44:07Z")
The ratio is more important than the actual size. Whales are bigger animals, but in porportion, their brains are smaller. Secondly, they use their brain to do different tasks than we do. [This site](http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2004/11/brains_of_white.php) has details on why bigger isn’t better for whales. They say: > [@](#): > > Whale brains are stuffed with more white matter than most other mammals. The cost of gigantic brains is that the infrastructure for computing over larger distances begins to overtake the increased benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/4 "2005-05-19T08:41:02Z")
As Kimera said, size isn’t important, it’s the relative size that’s meaningful. Brains perform all sorts of functions but the single biggest task performed is simply controlling the body. Even in humans IIRC something like 75% of the brain seems to be dedicated exclusively or primarily to controlling the body. That control takes the form of telling the muscles what to do, interpreting input from the environment such as pain and temperature and simply keeping track of where all the various bits are in relation to each other. The logical extension of that bit of knowledge about the brain is that bigger animals will need bigger brains. Simply to interpret all the data coming in from what is probably a hundred square yards of skin requires a huge brain for a whale or elephant. Humans are much smaller and require far smaller brains just to control the body. However the human brain is massive compared to our body size. For example it’s larger than the brain of a horse, an animal that is several times larger. It’s also larger than that of a gorilla, which is also a much larger animal. The brain to body mass ratio of humans is larger than for any other animal. The same is not true of elephants or whales. While elephants and some of the dolphins have brains that are slightly outside the expected range for their body mass even that isn’t true for the baleen whales, which tend to have brains that are either normal size for the size of the animal or even on the low side. What that means is that after dedicating the required amount of brain power to just staying alive these animals don’t have all that much to play around with for abstract thought or problem solving or emotions. Humans on the other hand have what amounts to a spare 25% of brain mass just to dedicate to those sorts of things. > [@Smeghead](#): > > There’s really no correlation between brain size and intelligence. Can we see a reference for that claim please? Everything I’ve read has shown a reasonable correlation between gross brain size and intelligence (dogs are smarter than cats are smarter than rats etc) and a very, very good correlation between brian:body mass ratio and intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/5 "2005-05-19T15:25:49Z")
Wow, great answer, **Blake**. I learned a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Gene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Soylent\_Gene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Gene)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/6 "2005-05-19T16:28:10Z")
Proportion is important, but I believe intelligence is also related to the amount of surface area on the brain, and within the brain. In general, the more convoluted (or noodley) the brain, the smarter you are. The surface area is covered with gray matter, underlain by white matter. The amount of gray matter may be very important, i cant remember… ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/7 "2005-05-19T16:49:53Z")
> [@Soylent Gene](#): > > Proportion is important, but I believe intelligence is also related to the amount of surface area on the brain, and within the brain. Yes, grey matter is very important to intelligence. For example, on average, women have smaller brains than men but more grey matter. **Blake** , Smeghead might be refering to the belief that within a species, size is more important than ratio and that individuals with larger brains are more intelligent. There was a weak correlation found before that suggested individuals with larger brains were more intelligent, but a lot of new research is suggesting that size doesn’t matter as much as grey matter. Dr. Haier at the University of California Irvine did a [study](http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1187) where they found that the amount of grey matter plays more of a difference in intelligence than the actual size of the brain. [This google answer](http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=232621) contains a lot more interesting information and links. It includes a list of ratios of brain size amoung several animals. Brain Weight as % of body weight. Man 2,1 Asian elephant 0,15 Killer whale 0,094 Pilot whale 0,076 Sperm whale 0,021 Fin whale 0,008 ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/8 "2005-05-19T21:41:17Z")
> [@Jim B.](#): > > Some animals, like whales and elephants for example, (probably–?) have bigger brains than humans. Yet we are clearly vastly superior to them in intelligence. Aren’t you making an assumption here? 🙂 > [@](#): > > Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much… the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. > –Douglas Adams ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whale-brains-and-intelligence/304544/9 "2005-05-19T21:52:16Z")
Wouldn’t a large part of a dolphin or whale’s brain be dedicated to processing sound? How much of the human brain is dedicated to processing visual information?