But that kind of question is based on a misunderstanding of how the selection process works. Well, no, that argument doesnt make sense. From: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/wild-things/how-giraffe-got-its-long-neck, Giraffes, it turns out, are not the first species in their lineage to have a long neck they just have the longest one. For one thing, intelligence is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. As a result, if food is plentiful and can easily be accessed, neck sizes stay the same. This way of thinking about brains and intelligence has been "very, very dominant" for decades, says Evan MacLean, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. As the saying goes, a jack of all trades is a master of none. Humans began being a little more intelligent than their competitors, which allowed them to advance faster and drive out competition leaving them as being uniquely intelligent. Intelligence seems quite the trump card unless you are a horse. Why are WE stuck? Period. Studies aimed to correlating brain volume to complexity have failed to identify clear correlations between sociality and cognition because of cases like social insects. Many points you make during your justifications are unsupported hypothesis to fend off the question. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately 7 million years, [ citation needed] from the separation of . Well a distinct advantage is given to exceptionally intelligent individuals. The complexity of the process of reproduction through Male & Female,That isnt simply,No need to Creator,Improbable Or at least we are very good at it in comparison with millions of species out there. When you toss a bag of oranges onto a table, do they all roll in the same direction? Using evolutionary game theory, it has been shown that adaptations for social exchange can be favored and stably maintained by natural selection, but only if they include design features that enable them to detect cheaters, and cause them to channel future exchanges to reciprocators and away from cheaters. Swamps are swamps, when basic life forms made thier way to earth, simple life forms in swamps, for example , most swamps located in the same region are so similar in thier environment that every living creature would have all followed the same path. It may simply be that reptile body limits the intelligence that can be supported in some way, so there was no route from dinosaur to digital watch. An example of darwin theory about girrafe is a total idiocy. But parents are now able to select their children's genes in ways never possible before. The fact that humans are the first species to evolve on this planet with such an "advanced" intelligence in three and a half billion years suggests that there are many more ways to become successful than be intelligent. The question of creation is separate from the question of whether or not evolution happens. [14], The human brain has evolved gradually over the passage of time; a series of incremental changes occurred as a result of external stimuli and conditions. While sexually selected ornaments such as peacock feathers and moose antlers develop either during or after puberty, timing their costs to a sexually mature age, human brains expend large amounts of nutrients building myelin and other brain mechanisms for efficient communication between the neurons early in life. The road to humanity was a long one, however. Some life. But, I think it provides a good example as to how evolution works as whole and illustrates how intricately evolution may have shaped us to be so damn smart. Secondly why giraffe has to have a shorter neck while it has a very long leg. 100,000 years sounds like a long time but it isnt, certainly not enough time for so many changes to take place, so many changes that created such a monumental difference in intelligence between animals and human beings. That must count for something, right? [121], Human brain evolution involves cellular, genetic, and circuitry changes. The questions that Herculano-Houzel sought to answer go back more than 100 years, to a time when scientists were just starting to study the relationship between brain size and intelligence. The specialization would allow a quantum leap in cleverness and foresight during the evolution of humans from apes--perhaps the creative explosion seen about 50,000 years ago, when people who had . I think I remember a stand up comedian from when I was a teenager saying, I used to think the brain was the most fascinating organ in the body, and then I realized look whats telling me that! LOL. To this point, it does not exist. Neurological studies on nine month old infants were conducted by researchers in 2012 to demonstrate this phenomenon. Researchers thus formulated the transformative cultural intelligence hypothesis, which stresses that our physical cognition is developed and affected by the social environment around us. [4][5] Our knowledge of the complexity of behaviour of Homo habilis is not limited to stone culture, they also had habitual therapeutic use of toothpicks. From the bitter divisions between statist and anti-statist socialists in the nineteenth century to the vicious rivalries between Communists and Socialists in the 1930s, followed by many more episodes of destructive sectarianism and flawed strategy . Name it, Capitalism, Socialism, even Communism-- all contain something of merit towards structuring a . This hypothesis posits that human cognitive complexity arose as a result of the higher level of social complexity required from living in enlarged groups. OK, were dealing with an extremely small data set until such time as the search for extraterrestrial intelligence pays off, this hypothesis is untestable. We have far less carrying parts but we do have 100% control over them. But lets say intelligence has a minimal requirement that not all species can meet a certain type of brain a degree of complexity of the brain. | Twelve misunderstandings of kin selection, The Evolution of Intelligence; Robert J. Sternberg, James C. Kaufman, 2013, The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans; Stanley I. Greenspan, Stuart Shanker, 2009. [86], Evolutionary biologist George C. Williams and evolutionary medicine researcher Randolph M. Nesse cite evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides as referring to the emotions as "Darwinian algorithms of the mind",[87] while social psychologist David Buss has argued that the sex-specialized differences in the emotion of jealousy are adaptive strategies for detecting infidelity by a mating partner and anthropologists Donald E. Brown and Ward Goodenough have argued that marriage is a cultural universal that evolved to regulate sexual access to fertile women within a particular culture in response to male intrasexual competition and dominance. Why did only humans reach this level of intelligence (and related capabilities like speech, dexterity, vocalization) out of billions of species and none come even close to it. Organic v conventional using GMOs: Which is the more sustainable farming? 1999 According to this strand of thought what led to the evolution of advanced intelligence in Homo sapiens was a drastic reduction of the aggressive drive. (13 November 1975). Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com. !, Are you trying to imply that if the theory of evolution were true, then it should have produced more than one species with our level of intelligence? One problem with the hypothesis that specific punishment for intentional deception could coevolve with intelligence is the fact that selective punishment of individuals with certain characteristics selects against the characteristics in question. Published: September 26, 2013. The social brain hypothesis was proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who argues that human intelligence did not evolve primarily as a means to solve ecological problems, but rather as a means of surviving and reproducing in large and complex social groups. You wording implies evolution is intelligent by design, ergo creation. Dolphins have the second-largest brain-to-body-weight ratio of any terrestrial creature. Whales are extreme when it comes to size; hummingbirds are extreme when it comes to the speed with which they flap their wings; bacteria are extreme when it comes to being very small; giraffes are extreme when it comes to having long necks; and barnacles are extreme when it comes to the size of their penis (relative to their body size). This shifted the gene pool in a more intelligent direction. religion Except by your logic all primates should have ended up in the same place.. Which animal is most likely to evolve intelligence? (in 100s of millions of years of life on Earth , why are we the only ones that became more intelligent? This reduced the human population to less than 10,000 breeding pairs in equatorial Africa, from which all modern humans are descended. Sure, he might be able to remember where to find the best prey, and therefore might be a LITTLE fatter and a little happier than a lion with a bad memory. [107] With complete monogamy, there is assortative mating for sexually selected traits. [117] Three regions associated with complex cognition include the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and the medial wall of the cortex. [42] Dunbar's social brain hypothesis on the other hand dictates that our brains evolved primarily due to complex social interactions in groups,[43] so in this way the two hypotheses are distinct from each other in that the cultural intelligence hypothesis focuses more on an in increase in intelligence from socially transmitted information. The human capacity is astounding. I want to start by saying I am trying to understand with an open mind about evolution but I have a few questions. The only thing that would ever save a species during that event would be their intelligence and their ability to survive without a planet. tallness, hugeness, fastness etc. The complex, eukaryotic cells that all animals and plants are built from, containing nuclei and mitochondria, evolved only once. Heres what we know: Granted the evidence is largely circumstantial, but come on. Australopithecus sediba. A new study suggests that human intelligence may have evolved in response to the demands of caring for infants. there would be no reason for the same conditions causing things in enviornment affecting its survival and survival of the fittest. Yes, exactly! [53] It is hypothesized that these abilities derive from a selection against aggression.[50][54][55][56]. Thats simply the orange that happened to be the one that fell on the floor. I think over this case, I mean eyesight, we also hit another extreme, dont we? The shorter ones did not get as much food, so they died. [11], Acheulean culture, associated with Homo erectus, is composed of bifacial, or double-sided, hand-axes, that "requires more planning and skill on the part of the toolmaker; he or she would need to be aware of principles of symmetry". Humans have evolved an advanced cheater detection system, equipped with proprietary problem-solving strategies that evolved to match the recurrent features of their corresponding problem domains. If we only look for convergence, it creates confirmation bias. In combination with other data, the formation of this tool culture for hunting large mammals in groups evidences the development of speech for communication and complex planning capabilities. But again, evolution does not have a plan, so how evolution would come into what we have achieved with those few mutations is not even on topic. Ars Electronica/Flickr [33] In honeybees, their symbolic 'dance' is a form of communication that they use to convey information with the rest of their colony. Evolution simply doesnt work by looking for traits that are good it works by weeding out traits that are harmful. Why are they the only things that have necks that are that long? I, on the other hand, really suck at doing theories justice. A lion is the king of its domain: at the top of the food chain. Since the disability principle is about selection from disabilities in sexually immature individuals, which increases the offspring's chance of survival to reproductive age, disabilities would be selected against and not for by the above mechanism. Second, you said: Evolution spare no room for paradox and freewill so there is no reason for intellience in the nature.. More importantly, we have one of the most structurally complex brains in the animal kingdom and this level of complexity gives rise to our ability to be so cognitively capable. But it is hard to imagine that a brain capable of such feats was required to survive on the prehistoric plains of east Africa, especially given the steep price at which it was bought. The children were asked to extract a floating object from a tube using water. [29][30][31] Social insects are shaped by ecology, including their social environment. [49][50] This theory has received strong support from studies of animal domestication where selective breeding for tameness has, in only a few generations, led to the emergence of impressive "humanlike" abilities. Why can we sometimes see the moon in the daytime? She might be able to kill a few more antelope, sure. Now the final prize-winning question, of course, is what was so special about the environment of early humans that made intelligence an adaptive trait? Or consciousness, for that matter. 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