Evolutionists: In millions of years, why haven't other animals developed intelligence comparable to Man?

Question

Try to demonstrate realistic reasons why our species required such a substantial leap as compared to every other species.

If evolution is true, what makes us need it more than others?

Give realistic reasons why every other species apparently did not require intelligence comparable to ours.

If evolution is true, why don't they need it also?

Why wouldn't such intelligence be a benefit to them?

Doesn't natural selection favor the most beneficial mutation?

Try to give solid examples why intelligence would ever be an unfavorable mutation. If you can, then explain why it survived and thrived in us.

wwags89: why?

stickfigure: don't stupider animals die just as quickly? (compare our population to theirs) How can any prey defend themselves successfully? If we were being eaten so fast, how could we have survived millions of years to develop intelligence?

This question certainly belongs in religion because evolution IS religion.

cigarnation: 1) the primary purpose and mechanism of evolution is survival. What other species is a threat to us collectively? The top of the food chain is a nice place to tout the benefits of cognitive intellect.
2) The other species have had identical time to evolve as we have, or more, considering sharks, etc.

tigerz: Fantastic point! How did flight evolve at all?! Why?! How could a species need flight so badly, AND survive millions of years to develop it?

Raky: variations within a species is not evidence that an amoeba can evolve into a man.

If dolphins are so intelligent, tell them to swim around the tuna nets, ok?

Indigo: having the same hands as other primates (in fact, similar skeletal structures of most mammals) is evidence of a common creator. If evolution favors beneficial mutation, why don't bears have aposable thumbs?

CJ: If neanderthal died because they weren't as fast as humans, why are there still animals around slower than us? Sloths, turtles, snails, etc...

If dolphins could benefit from opposable thumbs, why didn't they develop them? They've had just as much time as us, right? Also, see above about the intelligence of your dolphins versus a tuna net. The time it took humans to 'evolve' from cavemen to television is incomparable to the time frame it took to develop opposable thumbs.

Answer 1

Although I am a believer (for the most part) in evolution, you do pose a very good question.

My anthropology professor was fond of the arguement that, if a certain trait was not beneficial to a species, it would be "dropped" by that species, because it was disadvantageous to put energy into a trait that wasn't doing you any good. An example would be the big nose of the Neanderthal, which was supposedly useful to warm air before it entered the lungs in a cold climate like that in which the Neanderthal lived. Now, I have to admit to wondering exactly how much extra energy it took to grow and maintain a bigger nose. It didn't seem to make much sense.

However, with regard to your question, perhaps human-like intelligence is unique to humans simply because the string of mutations that lead to our intelligence never happened to pop up in other species. Perhaps the series of mutations that lead to intelligence of our caliber is quite convoluted and unlikely, and only happened once (to us). It would not require that intelligence would be an unfavorable mutation, because as you say, it is hard to fathom an instance in which intelligence would not be an advantageous trait.

Then again, some creatures have better eyesight than others; some have better hearing than others; it is also, in these cases, hard to see why ALL creatures would not also have optimal (such as evolution allows) sight and hearing. Perhaps it does require more energy than we (as quasi-laypersons) realize to develop and maintain these traits. The same may also be true for intelligence: perhaps our bigger brains and brainpower are also a great energy drain, and for those creatures to whom higher reasoning was not as valuable (say, to non-social creatures), such reasoning capabilities wouldn't be worth the effort to maintain.

Answer 2

Dophins, Whales, Chimps, German shepards. All possessed of intelligence which would put them on the far low end of the human IQ scale. All capable of language, use of simple machinery. Some more complex machinery.

There are probably other species I am leaving out.

You also forget human actions. A species as intellgent as us would be compitition in our younger ages. We'd most certainly hunted it down and killed it just as the Cro Magnum's apparently did to the Neanderthals. I'm a little fuzzy about time lines there but the analogy is still solid.

You want an example of evolution in our time. Look at the fire ant. Already it's evolved a multi-queen system. The first hive animal to do so. The Fire ants of South America still have single queens. However the assualt on our natural resources and because fire ants are such a pest in America we have fought them hard enough they have evolved defense mechanisms.

Evolution and religion are not incompatable. If you were to explain evolution and the creation of the earth to a 3 year old, which is about the level of scientific knowledge somebody a that time had would you not use something like Genisis to explain it? Do you honestly believe that the world and God can only be in terms limited by what our primitive anscestors could comprehend? I personally believe much of the Bible is in terms simplified for the technological levels of the day.

Answer 3

Well considering it is just us, gaining of this height of intelligence is rare and hard to do, though there are a few other animals that are not really that far behind in brains.

Originally there were other "human" species, but we were the top ones that bested them and survived.

If you don't think there is evolution and we aren't related to other primates, though distant as it is, just look at your damn hands. We have the same hands! No other beings other then other primates have these hands. If we are not of the primate family, then why aren't they totally different? I mean they are still basically the same after all this time. They are about the one thing that has virtually not changed and has remained useful just the way they were that long ago. If something works, it stays. If something doesn't work for a species it doesn't stay, like our feet that are a bit different then other primates.

Answer 4

If I understand your argument correctly, it is based upon the assumption that "intellgence" is the absolute highest form of evolution, and thus all forms of evolution should inevitably lead to intellegince.

There are a few simple ways to refute this argument that immediately come to mind.

1. Undermine your initial assumption that intelligence is the highest form of evolution. Can you prove it is?

2. Claim that evolution is a process and even our current form of intelligence is in flux, as are all other evolving life forms- thus you can't conclude at this moment in time that other animals are in fact not developing intelligence.

I like your last question... it has a really easy answer (in the form of another question) as to why intelligence can be an unfavorable "mutation"- What other species has developed a means of complete and utter self annihilation?

Lastly, why spend your time wondering about such inane arguments? Isn't it better to practice faith as an example to others as opposed to arguing?

Answer 5

No. This question doesn't belong in religion. The only reason these kind of questions appear here is to avoid the "heavy-weight" answers you'd get in a scientific forum.

In any case, what we have here is an erroneous concept of selective pressure and, by implication, of evolution in general.

You make evolution sound like a shopping expedition where members of a species should get what the "species required."

Stripped to its basics, you might as well be asking: "In terms of my concept of evolution, what's wrong with earth-worms being able to read and write?" (Or having wings, fangs, and tenor voices for that matter.) Can you not see there's a sort of bass-ackwards proposition to selection in this?

If you are truly interested in "realistic" reasons, I have referenced below a starting point for a discussion. However, having read your previous approaches to the same question, I suspect my attempt at expanding the discussion past blurbs and barbs will be in vain. You have to decide whether the science of it interests you or whether you're just looking for fodder for your own theses.

Answer 6

Firstly, Neanderthals did develop intelligence equal to man, (They were a separate species and not an ancestor.) They died out due to deforestation and their lack of abitly to run as fast as humans and the ability to hunt on the open plains. Also disease from Africa threaten them. Which didn't effect us.

Dolphins are as intelligent as humans if not more so. They lack opposable thumbs & hands to construct things, write things record things etc.

Finally it is not our intelliegence that that makes us advanced.. we are not that smart (read some of the other answers here!!) it is our ability to use our hands, and to talk to each other, so we don't act as a smart indvidual, we act as a group together, learning and getting better every generation. Cave men were just as smart as us, so were Egyptians.. yet they don't have TV because they had not 'evolved' that technology yet.

So Intelligence is only a small part of the story.

Answer 7

I think its a little single-mined and humanist to say that animals dont have a reality comparable to ours simple because theyre afraid of a lawn mower??

maybe theyre so far advanced..that theyve built the real world..and are a part of it..instead of trying to dress up and act civilized..theyre at peace with the truths in life..that were all animals..and none here havent done what all the other animals do to survive.

And intellegence is a Moot Point. Most humans I know have NO intellegence..to speak of. You think ponying up 20 bucks for a date just so they can sit thru someone elses work..come out and say...I didnt like the movie..and go home and make love/sex IS intellegence?

I doubt there is a reasonable explanation as to what MIGHT pass for Human intellegence in the 1st place [look to our Prez for the jokes punchline]

and Natural Selection is a hoax perpitrated on the weak to justify bullies. Nazis thought the same thing...that they were the Super Race..and the others they preyed on were lesser beings..vermin. They deserved to be executed because it was survival of the fittest...and might makes right when conquoring in numbers.

Sorry Buddy..But Im NOT buying your premise...try again!

Answer 8

Whether you want to believe it or not, the evidence of evolution in humans is in front of your eyes if you'd just look. Two examples: we are taller than we were a thousand years ago. Look at the armor worn by the knights. Men with hair on their chests are not as common as they were even a hundred years ago, and those of us who are hairy-chested don't have as much as our ancestors. Intelligence in animals? How do you discount the dolphin and whales, some of whom may be more intelligent than humans. To address other animals not attaining human intelligence or better I'll refer to the Bible where God gave man dominion over the animals. If they were intelligent, we couldn't use them for food and other purposes. Why did it survive in us? 'Cause that's the way God wanted it.

Answer 9

Humans evolved their cognitive abilities not due to a few accidental mutations, but rather, from an enormous number of mutations acquired though exceptionally intense selection favoring more complex cognitive abilities.

In layman's terms, as humans evolved, intelligence became an increasingly important factor in choice of a mate. Thus, humans themselves contributed to a rapidly increasing growth of size and complexity of the brain in ways that far outstrips normal natural selection.

Answer 10

Simple answer: intelligence is not the only genetically favorable characteristic. Other such favorable traits include coloration / camouflage, speed, keen eyesight, defense mechanisms (claws, sharp teeth, poison, etc.), and many more. Favored organisms and species possess one or more of these characteristics.

I do think that for the unique case of man, intelligence could be unfavorable in that we possess (due to the stain of original sin) the capacity for great evil - even the capacity to destroy ourselves - and can use our intelligence to achieve these dark ends.