500 (Part 2) - The Dolphin Experiments with Kirsty Webeck and Suren Jayemanne

·50 min·5 clips

A scientist trained a dolphin named Elva to catch a rubber ring with its erect penis.

The episode begins with host Dave introducing guests Kirsty Webeck and Suren Jayemanne at a live show, followed by lighthearted banter about lisps and personal stories. Matt Stewart then presents a report on dolphin experiments, starting with a 1961 clandestine meeting in Green Bank, West Virginia, where scientists gathered to discuss searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. Among them was John Lilly, a neuroscientist who believed dolphins were intelligent and trained one named Elva to catch a rubber ring with its erect penis. Lilly's work aimed to prove dolphin intelligence, leading to the formation of the 'Order of the Dolphin' among the scientists. The episode details Lilly's broader experiments, including sensory deprivation tanks and electrode studies on monkeys. It focuses on his dolphin research, particularly with Margaret Howe Lovett, who lived in a flooded lab to teach a dolphin named Peter English. As Peter hit puberty, his erections disrupted lessons, leading Howe Lovett to manually stimulate him to maintain efficiency, a fact she described in her own words. The story takes a grim turn when Lilly moved Peter to a grim lab in Miami, and Howe Lovett later learned Peter had committed suicide by refusing to breathe. The episode concludes with updates on modern efforts to decode dolphin language by Google and comedic reflections from the hosts. Throughout, the hosts interject with jokes, audience interactions, and tangents about other topics, maintaining a fact-based comedy tone.

As heard by us

A dolphin's science lesson derails when puberty takes over the classroom.

A project meant to teach Peter the Dolphin becomes a deadpan comedy about science losing control of its own classroom. Hal Lovett's lessons arrive with wonderfully shaky credentials, from Planet of the Apes as preparation to telepathy tried from upstairs, while the speech tapes…

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Why you'd press play

When you want a dolphin, a lesson plan, and an aggressively impractical science experiment in your comedy.

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