If HUMANS are the product of EVOLUTION, does that mean that CHICKENS will one day THINK and have JOBS?

Question

Will there be underwater cities inhabited by thinking dolphins? Will there sometime be possum engineers? Raccoon doctors? Monkey lawyers? (well, we already have those) Kitty kindergartens? Kangaroo carpenters? .......

Answer 1

Not necessarily. We do all those things because protohumans were exposed to evolutionary and selective pressures that lead to creative humans capable of technological advancement.

If, and that's a big IF, any of those animals you mentioned which that are rather intelligent get exposed to these same selective pressures over a LONG period of time (it took us 2 million years to figure out fire, so it'll be a while), then sure why not. But the odds of that happening are very small, but you never know, we'll see in 5 million years what happened...

Cheers.

Answer 2

There is a distinct possibility that descendants from one of the contemporary species of animals could develop intelligence as the product of evolution, if the entire system is subjected to enough stress so that intelligence makes for a survival trait. To some extent, the house pig has developed a higher cranial and generally mental capacity than its wild cousin _without humans intentionally breeding it into the numerous races_, simply by profiting from better diet etc.

It is somewhat unlikely that this will happen without human interference while humans still are around. Selective breeding might result in races of more intelligent animals. Whether that will ever reach sapient level is a different question. Genetic modifications might help to speed up that breeding process, but aren't really required.

There are a couple of ethical and vital questions tied to this: will mankind as a species risk creating a rival or even superior sapient race? How will mankind steer its own biological future?

David Brin's "Uplift" novels describe a universe where intelligent races help races with potential for sapience to achieve it as clients, with an eons old stable pyramid scheme. Some of the topics addressed in his books are serious problems with the concept of beasts attaining or being taught sapience (hidden in good-to-read space opera stories).

Answer 3

It's possible, if the need arises. Evolution favors the fittest for a particular niche. Say a chicken is smarter than the rest, and finds a way to avoid the fox or the colonel long enough to lay eggs. If that increased intelligence is passed on to the chicks, they may find other ways to live longer, too, and hatch still smarter chicklets. One day some enterprising chicken may invent a fox trap, or build his own chicken coop and go into business for himself. Then look out world - we'll have the Bill Gates of chickens on our hands!

Answer 4

None of your suggestsions are in conflict with the theory of evolution, given enough time. However, none of them would be a specific prediction of the theory. Evolution appears to work by natural selection, meaning the fittest organisms have a higher chance of surviving and passing on their genes. The specific nature of changes organisms undergo as a function of evolution is a mere sideproduct of this principle. So for thinking chickens to evolve, there would first need to be a number of random mutations that increase the chickens IQ, and these mutations would also have to increase the survival of these chickens. Probably not likely.

Answer 5

No. You misunderstood your high school biology teacher. Chickens, because of how taxonomists have defined "chicken", will always be what we presently conceive of them to be. However, until life ceases, they will also always be subject to evolution and probably natural selection (humans will also). It is possible that, down the road, an avian species with chickens as an ancestor may have an "intelligence" comparable to our own. If such a species structured their society as we do ours, then yes, I suppose they would have jobs.

Answer 6

If it happened, it would be the ancestors of chickens, not chickens that one day think and have jobs.

Other life on this planet may become sentient, but will never become as smart as us. Because we wouldn't allow that to happen.

Answer 7

Possums are too lazy to be engineers. Give that job to the beavers.

Answer 8

GOD knows abt future
U just cocentrate on ur present
Hope for the best in future

Answer 9

Maybe. You know, if we don't blow up the Earth in the next couple of hundred-thousand to million(s) years.

Answer 10

LOL weird question. But we weren't apes before.