How did our intelligence evolve??

Question

Regarding evolution... Humans supposedly evolved from a common ancestor with apes. So at one point, we had this common ancestor. HOW exactly does intelligence evolve? I mean, a smarter animal mated with another smart animal and smarter had a great chance of survival?? By the way, I'm a Genetics major so I understand the molecular aspect, but this is one part I never understood. From what I learned, i always thought there was no explanation for this. We humans are VERY different from apes. We are complex, emotional beings. When I go to the zoo, I just don't see it in my monkey cousin sitting in the cage.

Answer 1

Curiously enough, intelligence began rampant increases when beer was discovered. This might have something to do with the "natural selection process", though.

Answer 2

Go to the zoo and look into the eyes of a gorilla or a chimp, not arboreal monkeys. We are much more closely related to apes than the simians.

Gorillas can be taught sign American sign language, meaning that they have the brain structure to support a language, just not the physical vocal structures to speak as humans do. But they have communicated emotions (happiness, sadness) through, and so they do have emotions just like us. This is significant because it shows you that intelligence didn't just pop up as a random mutation that lead to the growth of more brain tissue in one early hominid. It has actually been evolutionarily conserved within our group since somewhere just before the great apes branched off. We humans and the great apes only share a common ancestor, and the early hominids which gave rise ultimately to humans are all extinct. If they were still around, coexisting with us, it would be a lot easier, perhaps, for us to visualize the progression of intelligence.

Also, it may help you to not think about evolution as a mating process between two specific animals with a the same genetic mutation... Think of it on a broader scale: as something occurring gradually --verrrrry gradually-- over a very long period of time within a population... If you think about specific genes being turned on and off and the mingling of chromosomes (although, yes, this is the *mechanism* of evolution), it's more difficult to grasp the evolutionary process as a whole picture.



And to the person who answered before me:
Evolution is NOT the passing on of AQUIRED conditions. This was Lamarck's original and incorrect argument and no one has claimed this to be true for the past 150 years... The mechanism involves the passing on of changed *genetic* material, rather.

Answer 3

Evolution is governed by science. The governors select, decide on, and regulate the criteria that they regulate. So far, they are short on links, which do not hurt perpetual funding. Here are a few questions for you:
1. Have you noticed that fossils of evolved species, how they look like the modern types?
2. Have you noticed that different types of herbivores secrete dung after their own kind?
3. Have you noticed that all humans have the same DNA, are born pink--for the most part, have the same amounts of toes, hands etc, and like cars come in various shades and sizes?
4. All archaeological samples retrieved are either worthless, if the archaeological sites selected are disorderly and unintelligent or they are intelligent and orderly. Since scientists take samples from intelligent sites, what does it say about the creator of the sites? Evolution is either a flawed science with wrong results or it is borrowing samples from an intelligently designed earth--part of an intelligently designed universe, which is calculable and keeps immaculate time. Check the creator of this interwoven energy system, called Universe for all intelligence.
Source: The Golden Fleece Found by Basil Hill.
Boaz.

Answer 4

Here's my bet. Yeah, we probably had some common ancestor. But, I'm betting that we evolved more quickly because we were able to find better food supplies. Better food, more adapations, bigger population, more diversity. There was study done not long ago involving several small groups of tribal people. Their way of life hasn't changed in hundreds, if not thousands of years. People like the Hunza, and the tribes in New Guinea have only limited development. Why? Why did we advance, and they didn't? Food. Those tribes spend most of their time trying to feed themselves. All work, all advances come from that need, and revolve around that need. Plentiful food supply, and the right foods (proteins that help with brain function), promote advance. Most of those isolated tribes have limited supplies of protein, and mostly eat starchy foods that don't fill all their nutritional needs.

Artisans that are fed can devote themselves to their trades. Scientists can work on discoveries. More food encourages population growth. It's one thing to say that there's more humans than apes, but look at it like this... They require less to survive and can't adapt to keep up with the changing environment. The margin between us and then is humongous.

We can see the reverse in our own country. Children fed diets of unhealthy food do poorly in school and have more behavior problems. I may be wrong. But I think genetics only take us so far.

Answer 5

Well you must understand that evolution is a in part adaption. Why humans or Homo Sapiens which is Latin for the "Wise man" came to have a intelligences, maybe caused by the environment. Take a two year old, now think how does a two learn, one by adults, but the over way in by mistakes, and exploring.

Now lets imagine that early forms of man like Homo erectus found fire by chance. Now Homo Erectus had a thick jaw bone, and thick skull because it had to grind meat all day to get the nutrients. Now with the found tool, Homo Erectus can now cook its food tenderizing it, in this way Homo Erectus doesn't need the thick jaws and skull since his food isn't so hard to eat. Over hundreds of thousands of years, of cooking food Homo Erectus' skull isn't so thick. In this way it has adapted or evolved.

Now the skull isn't as thick the brain has more room to grow. The places where the most growth is bound to happen is in the frontal lobe of the brain, this is where rational thinking, speech, and the other things that we associate with being human.

Answer 6

Intelligence evolved because it's a survival trait. In any population there is a range of intelligence among individuals. Those in a population who are smarter will be better at catching/gathering food, so their children will be better fed and better able to survive.

Answer 7

Intelligence is the pattern recognition power available in your brain. Evolution ensured that those with higher intelligence would have a better survival rate - and over many millions of years man has "higher" intelligence now than it ever did.

Answer 8

The reason is levels of consciousness or level of awareness in all creatures which keeps expanding to infinity. Its one of the attributes of God in man. eg. when i was in primary 1, i learned by a, b, c, d ---z. This is a level of intelligent. This system helped sharpened my imaginative faculty. Next, i entered primary 2 where i began to learn to use a & b to form a word, this also added to my intelligence up to university level where i study the distance btw two stars. this is also a level of intelligent. Each level is as important as the other. And it continues to an unknown.

Answer 9

regarding evolution,its definition is the increase in allelic frequency in a population.then evolution is true.but if evolution is such a thing that it makes one animal from the other then its not true.coz they say that any acquired charecter cannot be passed onto their offsprings?then how can we evolve?they say the ancestors tried to do this therefore they acquired that.which is not possible.even if they have acquired anything then its not possible to pass it to offsprings.

regarding intelligence,its gifted by GOD to save urself from bad n do good deeds.so that u can go to heaven.

Answer 10

they are emotional also, have tight bonded familys and they have the intelligents to learn like we do look at koco the gorrilla who can speak using sign language they are just like us just they cant speak like us have the tools we thought up... plus the apes u see at the zoo arnt allowed that special learning they kinda kept simple