Cetacean science does not have to be pseudo-science

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.