Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins

When the sun rises in the east over the Gombe national park in Tanzania, the chimpanzees wake up, pull themselves upright in their nests and look out over the forest. Each tree with a sleeping ape or two. The scenery seems very familiar to us. And the book is filled which such wonderful imagery. Along with a lot of facts. Which again hammers home the similarities: A chimp life-cycle is almost human. They reach puberty in their early teen years. Females have offspring at around 15. They live to be around 45 in the wild. Famed Jane Goodall have studied them for more than 40 years, and have reported that they even share their dark side with us. E.g. she has reported chimp infanticide, cannibalism and warfare. Some sides of chimp "society" too dark for primetime tv you kind of wonder? Certainly, I dont recall seeing TV broadcasts on what it actually means to be a brutalized chimp female? I.e. life among the chimpanzees is male dominated. The topranking female is subordinate to even lowliest male. Accordingly, females are brutalized for sex, if they do not produce. A bit better among the bonobos though. Where bonobo females are bit more clever, forming coalitions that prevent males from exerting power. Even attacking and badly injuring males. Unheard of among chimpanzees. Bearzi and Stanford also gives us a lot of detail about chimp hunting. Another of these animals almost human activities? I.e. Chimpanzees go hunting, both for nutritional and social purposes. If the hunt is successful, sharing meat allows the chimps to build friendships. It is all about the politics. Sharing meat is an act with a clear message - not only will a male not share with a rival, but will use it to show how unimportant the rival is. Very human in this readers mind. And come to think of it, wasnt meat eating one of the things that made us human 2 - 3 million years ago? On it goes. Chimps go on (war) patrols to see if there is any intruders in their area. Not exactly completely ordered patrols though, there is sex, squabbling and mounching food as they go, but still it is a patrol. If the patrol meets a lonely chimp from another camp, the lone chimp is beaten terriblely. If not murdered. And then of course - the apes uses tools. We have seen various tool use on tv, such as sticks for eating termites etc. Stanford gives us a new tool use among apes: Females in some populations of orangutang employ sticks as auto erotic tools for sexual stimulation...sisters be free... And great apes (Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutang) are not the only animals who use tools, solve problems, cooperate, fight each other and much more. The cetaceans (Dolphins and whales) are also quite clever. And the other half of this book is about them (Leaving the elephants out seems to this reader a shortcoming). Again, dolphin lives are sort of familiar. A dolphin continue to breed well into its forties and live into its fiftie

After nearly 20 years as an environmental scientist, regulator and educator, I am truly excited to have encountered a book written with such elegance and obvious scientific rigor regarding a subject that is both fascinating and timely. Great apes and cetaceans are species which have long captivated human imagination and curiosity, and Bearzi and Stanford provide ample reason why this connection is warranted. I do hope this pair author further readings of such quality and accessibility.

As a scientist and educator, I found this book to be a very satisfying and enjoyable read, in terms of the scientific content, educational value, and the fascinating stories that are told. I would recommend this book for the scientist/non-scientist, evolutionist/creationist (it will enlighten you, you will learn more about yourself, for sure!). The book focuses on the cetaceans (dolphins) and apes (mainly chimpanzees) of course, but it will make you think about the human mind, how similar we can be to both groups, not in a genetic or anatomical sense but in terms of our behaviors. I highly recommend this book, it is rare to find a work that combines the introspective/contemplative side of science, with sound field science (as both authors are highly respected and prolific researchers in their respective fields).

Somewhere along the evolutionary path, cetaceans and the great apes parted ways and headed in different evolutionary directions...one to the forests and one to the oceans. And, that was quite some time ago; around 50 million years, and yet the two groups share many common threads behaviorally. How is that possible? The answer lies in the development of the brain and adaptations to the surrounding environments of each of the species involved. Chimpanzees have adapted to forest life in one way, while gorillas another. The same can be said for dolphins as opposed to orcas and other cetacean species. This book is an eloquently written look into the minds of the great apes, the cetaceans when compared to humans. It manages to enlighten while being highly entertaining and avoiding the trap of anthropomorphism that is so common when comparing animal species to humans. I would highly recommend this book to all, with the exception of staunch creationists, as it will make you look at dolphins and apes in an entirely new light.

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.