A Question about Evolution of Animals and Humans (read)?

Question

Isnt inteligence the best result of evolution?

Human beigns dominate the world(in a sense) because our brains are the best result evolution could give us.

But certain animals have existed here far before Erectus (ancestor) set foot in Africa. like the Big cats for example. lions and tigers have not put emphasis on development of the brain but instead on claws and strength, wont a bit of smartness go well with that hunt?

why didnt those animals divert into the branch of evolution that puts emphasis on brains rather than muscle?

i always had this doubt! why?

Answer 1

perhaps you have this doubt because you're using your reasoning ability. this is a trait that animals do not have. many details about a plant or an animal are determined by the instructions contained in its genetic code,the blueprints that are wrapped up in the nucleus of each cell. Researchers have discoverd that mutations in the genetic code can produce alterations in the decendants of plants or animals. here though is a quote from Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig, a scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany, on the conclusions drawn from 70 years of mutation breeding, " Mutations cannot transform an original species of plant or animal into an entirely new one. this conclusion agrees with all the research of the 20th century taken together as well as with the laws of probability. Thus the law of recurrent variation implies that genetically properly defined species have real boundries that cannot be abolished or transgressed by accidental mutations."
If highly trained scientists are unable to produce new species by artificially inducing and selecting favorable mutations, is it likely that an unintelligent process would do a better job? So basically i'd say that the animals that have claws and strength, though they have varied over time, are still animals with claws and strength. That's what they were ment to be and the boundries of their "kinds" cannot change. Humans are the only creatres with this "bit of smartness". So if the boundries of those animal kinds cannot change, and this is what leading scientist are recently discovering, then the boundries of humans could not have been able to change either. so wouldnt that preclude that humans too are the way they began and are supposed to be.
another quote from Lonning; "My empirical research in genetics and my studies of biological subjects such as physiology and morphology bring me face to face with the enormous and often unfathomable complexities of life. My study of these topics has reinforced my conviction that life, even the most basic forms of life, must have an intelligent origin". I agree with him.

Answer 2

I would say that you think we are at the pinicle of evolution and that no more evolving can carry on. Well, evolution is still going on and maybe in the future some animals will develop brains like ours.

Secondly, while intelligence seems to be the best result, the process of reaching the modern human brain left humans vulnerable. A tiger would survive better if it had better muscles/sharper claws rather than having a slightly more intelligent brain that didnt amount to much. IF claws and muscle allowed them to survive long enough to reproduce, there is no push for brains then. I would say, the human as nomadic people before, had to develope brains to adjust to new environments?

So, why were humans able to do so? Im not sure but maybe every step they took in achieveing the modern brain also had their own important contribution to men and when the modern brain was achieved, those steps were less important.

Also, I wouldnt think that the human brain/intelligence is the most successful thing we have. I mean, yes we have bettered human kind with it and our niche has expanded well beyond something 1000 years ago but its still not the greatest.

Bacteria still live in extreme places, sea animals adapt to living at sea and by far in terms of numbers, cockroaches outnumber us and live in the filthiest places. Humans are only good ar what they do.

Answer 3

Start with: "Isnt inteligence the best result of evolution?"

Why do you say that? Of course, to an intelligent species, it's nice to rate 'intelligence' as the ruler by which to compare ourselves to others. It makes us feel good.

But intelligence is just another adaptation AS FAR AS NATURE IS CONCERNED. Some creatures developed long necks, others long noses, others really good eyesight, a keen sense of smell, the ability to find predators at night, etc. For us it was a big brain. I'm happy I'm one of those ... but I have no illusion that it makes me "better" than other species. I may be smarter than a shark or a polar bear, but if I'm swimming in the ocean, a shark is far "better" than I am, and if I'm surviving a winter in the arctic, the polar bear is way "better" than I am.

When you understand that, then you'll understand that evolution doesn't head in the direction of "betterness" ... so it does not head in the direction of intelligence. For some animals, strength was a better adaptation than intelligence ... for others it was speed ... for others it was flight. Each found adaptations that worked well for it. Intelligence is not the only thing that works.

Answer 4

Judging by brain size, which is a crude estimator
of intelligence, predatory animals have increased
in intelligence over time. It takes more brain
power to be an animal hunter than it does to be a
plant eater. The fact that one group of animals, the
primates which includes humans, have specialized
in larger brains and more intelligence is no indication that all organisms should follow the same evolutionary path. Some specialize in one
way of life others in another, or rather many others.
As long as each can survive and do well with
their own specializations there is no need for them
to develop others.

Answer 5

The standard answer I have always heard to this question is that we did not develop intelligence until after we lost the agility and strength of our ancestors. Apparently, it takes hundreds of thousands of years of starvation to overcome instinctive gathering of food from natural sources (fuits and berries) and to develop the desperation necessary to think of a way to hunt down and kill something.

There is also a philosphical answer to this question, and it basically goes this way: If our intelligence was not caused by an intelligent source, it is not really intelligence. It only seems that way to us. If nobody did it, it just happened. And thus, when the police arrest someone for some horrible crime and bring him to trial, they can say, scientifically, that nobody really did anything, it just happened. Of course, our entire legal system, culture and civilization itself depend upon the belief that we are morally responsible for our actions.

There is a second philosophical way to look at it: if everthing in our entire solar system, including the sun and the Earth and everything else, will someday be swallowed up by the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, then nothing that we do really matters. Nothing that we have made, or done, or anybody, will survive. So, we could say that our intelligence does not really matter. It is illusory and only seems that way to us, and our observations canot be relied upon.

In order to get the whole picture, we must not only look to science which tell us 'how', but also to religion or philosophy, which can tell us whether it 'matters'.

Is there meaning in the universe, other than what we imagine...? Is there purpose, or reason...? Are we only fooling ourselves that we are intelligent, or that anything we do matters...?

Science says we did not arise from an intelligent source, and that nothing that we are or do will last.

Answer 6

Because evolution is based on two things: random mutations and natural selection.

Intelligent species are the children of a freak, who was too smart for its own good and probably took advantage of the rest of its peers. Strong species are also descended from freaks, like the cat with the sharp claws. But the bottom line is this: when you are a freak whose mutation makes you more likely to survive and more attractive to a mate, your genes will survive. So in the case of the powerful felines, I would guess that maybe there were some smart freaks, but intelligence was not something that the cats desired to have, or found attractive in a mate.

Answer 7

Intelligence is not the "best result" any more than strength or speed are. Evolution is about adaptation to an environment, not producing the "best" possible creature. Humans evolved intelligence as a response to being weak and vulnerable primates living on the open plains among dangerous carnivores.

Answer 8

Continue to keep your eye on people who say "evolution is just a theory". They're trying to scam you.

Evolution is a SCIENTIFIC theory because there are mountains of evidence to support it. "Theory" does not mean "any halfassed idea" which is what creationism is. Creationism has no evidence to support it and actually contradicts the evidence.

Evolution is a FACT. The theory part is the mechanisms behind it. That same applies to the FACTS about gravity and germs. We still have theories behind them. Would you ignore such theories? Evidently, some people would. They deserve jobs in janitorial capacities.

Answer 9

I don't know is intelligence the best result? Intelligence allowed us to create nuclear weapons that may some day destroy the world. Intelligence allowed us to pollute our environment causing global warming with who knows what end. Maybe intelligence (or not enough of it anyway) is a bad thing for our survival - time will tell.

Answer 10

I am just happy to hear that at least a few people actually understand evolution (like the last answer, and not the first answer given here). It would be nice if people really understood evolution before they started arguing against it...