I have been wondering about evolution.?

Question

I have been wondering about evolution.?
Evolution could be a fact, as many believe, but I am left wondering...
Why do you suppose it is that ONLY primates have developed the ability to reason? Why not a feline or canine...lots of other mammals have shown themselves to be incredibly intelligent, so what kept them from evolving as mankind has?
Why only ONE "sapient" race?
A Christian would say that it is God-given, that man has "dominion" over all life on earth.
What would an evolutionist...sorry...ummm...... person who believes that life forms evolve from other, more primitive life forms tell us?
I'm truly interested in your opinion about this

(But please, spare me the insults. Insulting people who don't think the way you do does not reflect well on your intelligence, nor does it mark you as a "free thinker".
Besides, it's Monday, and I've already had to deal with my son-in-law. Trust me, you can't annoy me any worse than he does, anyhow, so it really is wasted effort....)

Answer 1

I agree that it's not a bad question.

Two thoughts:

First of all, because reasoning is our forte as homo sapiens, we tend to think a lot of it. For example, we find it almost impossible to let go of the notion that our reasoning abilities demonstrate that we are in some sense the "highest" animals. But that's just because we're looking at things as human beings. We don't know yet that there's anything particularly useful about reasoning - human beings have only been around a few hundred thousand years, while there are other species that have lasted far longer than that.

Secondly, it's not certain that we are the only sapient race. Other animals have abilities we're only just beginning to recognize. Again, it's hard to stop looking through eyes biased towards humans' abilities.

Thirdly, if there were at some point in time going to be sapient races, there'd almost certainly at some point in time be only one sapient race. Perhaps we just happen to live at that point in time, and someday there'll be more than one. Or perhaps we so thoroughly transform/dominate the planet that the first sapient race eliminates the possibility of there being any others.

Answer 2

That's actually a really good question.

Well to be quite frank, we aren't the only race who can reason. Certain species of the Mammalia family have (admittedly less refined) capacities to reason, and solve problems via non strictly animalistic tendencies. Gorillas can learn language in a rudamentary form, but this is to be expected from a genus so close to ours (Though not certain, life is tricky like that). But dolphins have shown the ability to communicate, reason out complex solutions to problems, think laterally, and even recognize the nuance found in the varying pitches and tones of a human voice to denote emotion or mood. Water mammals have taken a very different evoultionary path, and have an common ancestor with Humans much further back in the evolutionary tree than say the Great Ape family. But why do we occupy a unique place on the evolutionary tree? Because intellegence was our only adaptive function. The Great Apes are much more agile, stronger, and faster. Their intellegence isn't the focus of their gene selection, so it remains under deveoloped in their current form. Ours however, we are a much weaker species, and we had to use our higher intelligence to thrive. This took evolution on an entirely new path (it seems every species does this sometimes), where strength, speed, and agility were not the only factor determining the viability of a species. Using intlligence and only intelligence, we managed to not only avoid danger, but to thrive. As we evolved further and further in this vein, from our humble days as an Austerolopithicine to our current, though still hominid, form. Other species remain under (or more acuratley "other") developed because they did not need intelligence on the level of us to survive.

Answer 3

Numerous mammal and birds have some sort of abstract reasoning skill. Dolphins don't have thumbs and will never master fire.

The primate line was relatively unsuccessful since is was somewhat generalized. Of the great apes, only humans are not endangered to some degree.

What set us apart was a positive feedback loop. Intelligence became a major survival trait with tool making. Upright walking freed the upper limb for fine tasks -- throwing and tool making. (If you've ever seen a chimp throw a stick, you'd see how much better humans are.) Finally, there's a simple principle in ecology -- only one species can exist in a niche as it will outcompete others. Digs have shown that for a time, Neanderthal man coexisted with humans and a recent find shows that H. habilis and H. erectus coexisted. (Contrary to press reports, this was not a surprise to anthropologists; see below.) In the end, one was squeezed out.

Answer 4

I think all animals and humans evolve-and its constant. Our life spans, our looks, even our diseases are always doing this.When you read or watch stories of animals saving humans, and interacting-its just based on need and enviornment-they still are evolving and I don't think we give animals credit or concern enough (something we need to evolve more)
I was raised in a Christain home that believed in evolution-if there is no time for God then whats 10,000 years? And who did Adam ans Eves sons marry? The Bible is one of many holy books filled with teachings and parables-in my opinion the best-but it is a teaching book, overlapped with history and facts but a spritual thing. Why don't people consider that we did evolve? That perhaps the first man and woman were the first to recognize the concept and fact of a spiritual self, of being an individual, of a greater force harmonizing the universe? Perhaps the simplicity and trust of the animals and life that way, is represented by the Garden of Eden and that our recognizing our own self, and the fact that we have a choice and the ability for spiritual growth and individualism was the apple-that drove us out per se? Just a personal concept-
The physical and the spiritual are intertwined and yet separate-arguments to define two different things seem kind of pointless to me.

Answer 5

There are many kinds of intelligence. The wolves that became domesticated and were the first dogs some 10,000 years ago are a good example. They found an ally in humans something other creatures didn't find.

The change had almost immediate physical consequences.
Recently a Russian scientist created a strain of domestic foxes by breeding them for their lack of fear of humans, which immediately changed the coat colors of the domesticated pups to colors similar to the coat colors of dogs.
This change was completely unexpected.

To read more about it try this link.
http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf

Perhaps part of the evolution of humans was domestication to a god concept.
All of recorded history has occurred since the development of religion.
When or if we abandon religion what might we loose or receive in return is a real question.

I have to wonder if philosophies like Buddhism are the next step in religious evolution. Buddhism has no God in the classic sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-1JVctSOY
♥Blessed Be♥
♥=∞

Answer 6

If in fact there was no other sentient race that evolved would, by itself, mean nothing. However there is evidence that Neanderthals, rather than being an ancestor of humans, instead developed separately and they were sentient. In fact they may have been the first to have some sort of religious belief. Graves have been found that a dead Neanderthal was respectfully placed into then covered with flowers. That suggest that they might have believed in an afterlife.

Answer 7

It is a good question. There is some amazing animal behaviors. Crows now drop nuts on the road to be crushed open by passing cars. As cars are relatively new, this must be a new learned behavior. Orangutans have demonstrated potential self awareness before mirrors. Intelligence and self awareness may exist in degrees.

The sort of intelligence that humans now display is a very new occurrence. If it has taken so long to develop in us, it seems to requires a rather long string of conditions for its occurrence.

I don't think we fully understand our own minds, let alone those of the other animals.

Answer 8

There is nothing to say that other "branches" may or may not develop into a sentient species. It is also conceivable that whales and/or dolphins may have a level of sentient behavior. Many different primates show the ability to create tools and learn from each other as well as different dialects. We tend to assume that man is very different from other animals but as you examine the facts, that distinction tends to blur. The point being that "sapience" is a very hard to define term.

Neanderthals may have been just as sapient or nearly so as us.

As for "dominion", we are dominate by terms of our ability to manipulate our environment, but as we are aware of the consequences of our actions, we need to minimize the negative impacts on our home world.

Answer 9

We aren't sure that primates are the only animals capable of reason. The answer to this question is nebulous, as it depends on the particular definition of "reason" that the asker is willing to use. African Grey parrots have demonstrated the ability to think about objects in terms of abstract characteristics. Prarie dogs use a semantic language. Dolphins, whales, and elephants demonstrate self-awareness. Octopi and some squid are capable of multi-level problem solving. No other species, to our knowledge, has achieved the equivalent of "human reason", but the term is defined by human standards.

Answer 10

It is just that we are intelligent, we can reason, and we are "sapient" by our own definition. Other animals are intelligent in their own ways, yet I assume you are speaking of our dominance over other lives in our influence on Earth. The only answer is luck.
At our present time, we just happen to be (for the now) the dominant race, evolved into a state based upon using tools and logic. It just be that the only reason we are on top is simply because we can use our hands to manipulate other objects.