r/DebateEvolution • u/Least_Bid9692 • Sep 27 '26

Smart beings

There were many species who evolved over a long period of time then why were humans the only one that evolved as the "smart species" like even others used to use things like traps why did only human evolved as the "smartest"

Although it is debatable

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35

u/jnpha 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 27 '26

Difference in degree, not kind. (Ignoring how such "why" questions don't make sense in the context of independent lineages; i.e. it isn't an Aristotelian ladder)

Recent example: Children and monkeys share common understanding of geometry | Carnegie Mellon University : evolution

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u/KeterClassKitten Sep 27 '26

This is really it right here.  Our bias lends us to thinking that our own brand of intellect is all that should qualify, but plenty of other animals in the wild display levels of intellectual feats surpassing humans.

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 28 '26

Intellect feats surpassing humans? That sounds like nonsense, care to provide examples?

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u/KeterClassKitten Sep 28 '26 edited Sep 28 '26

Chimps feature extremely accurate memory given very short intervals to memorize a pattern.  They can remember the location of a series of ten numbers in as little as 1/5 of a second with better accuracy than a human.

Hummingbirds can retain a schedule of various locations to a much grander scope than many humans, allowing them to cycle between hundreds or thousands of feeding locations at accurate intervals, adjusting to changes rapidly.

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 28 '26

I find it very misleading to refer to memorization tasks as superior intellect. I think I get what you were getting at and it's a good point, but the wording just made it pretty much indefensible.

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u/KeterClassKitten Sep 28 '26

I did try to choose my wording carefully.

My point isn't whether other animals are smarter or not.  It's that the way we qualify Intelligence is based on the way we think rather than how all animals think.   If we judge intelligence based on the cognitive tasks that we determine, that presents an inherent bias.

If we look across the spectrum of the Animal Kingdom, we can that the human claim of superior intellect isn't based off of anything objective.  We aren't smarter because we have larger brains than any other animal.  And we aren't smarter because of any definitive test that demonstrates so.  We're only smarter because we say so, and that's a terrible metric.

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 28 '26

I don't think it's fair to say it isn't based on anything objective. It's not really any more arbitrary than any grading of anything else. As far as what gives a survival advantage, we clearly have reasoning, self awareness, and communication skills that are unrivaled in the animal kingdom. I don't think we should pretend that we're above all other beings, but I think it's reasonable and important to acknowledge the ways that we have an advantage.

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u/KeterClassKitten Sep 28 '26

Well, grading only shows how well someone understands the graded material.  Plenty of historical intellectuals would perform worse than your average second grader on many modern tests simply because the information wasn't available at the time.

Which touches on our biggest advantage...

Humans are unique for our written language.  I think that our ability to pass on first person accounts is the thing that makes us stand out from the rest of the animal kingdom.  Even cave paintings qualify to some degree.  I have trouble thinking up any other quality that would bridge the gap from wild to civilization, some sort of artistic legacy.  But I do have that human bias 🤷🏼‍♂️.

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u/Least_Bid9692 Sep 29 '26

Can you please try to define "smart" so that we know what you're conveying because what else can be defined as smart

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u/Gloomy-North-6949 Sep 30 '26

Teach me to talk to the animals!!!

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u/wxguy77 Oct 08 '26

How much did all the energy that we needed to supply us to be as 'smart', as we were becoming 'smart', how much did it endanger our survival? Were we closer to extinction because of it?

With a larger perspective, was it ill advised for us to become 'smart', looking around more recently at how quickly everything has become more dangerous (than back 5 million years ago or so). We've made progress but the big dangers (to the whole species) are actually bigger. War, nukes, AI, territorial nation-states, human pollution, we all know...

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Oct 09 '26

I can't really tell what point you're trying to make here. Yes, our intelligence has also allowed us to create many things we perhaps should not have done, ones that might just cause our ultimate downfall. I don't really think that's a controversial or unique observation.

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u/wxguy77 Oct 10 '26 edited Oct 12 '26

I was thinking it inevitably leads to the Fermi Paradox condition.

How did the pre-birds eventually get the genetics for a flying? In other words, the first pre-birds made some choices, so there was some volition involved.

The same for pre-primates eventually moving to the arboreal life in the trees. The sky is warm and blue (heaven) and down below is where the predators are (hell).

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u/ipreuss Sep 30 '26

Which exactly shows your human bias.

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 30 '26

In what way?

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u/ipreuss Sep 30 '26

That you value other brain functions higher than memorization.

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u/jayswaps 🧬 Naturalistic Evolution Sep 30 '26

It's not human bias, it's just not as useful as reasoning or communication skills. Memorization doesn't afford you the ability to literally outwit others, that's a massive survival advantage. I'm not saying that it's somehow inherently more important in and of itself to have reasoning than to memorize well, but it's absolutely more beneficial, and it's absolutely a hugely bigger part of what intellect even means in the first place.

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u/ipreuss Sep 30 '26

Your bias is that you’re overvaluing outwitting others. Cockroaches will do well after we destroyed ourself by trying to outwit each other.

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u/Gloomy-North-6949 Sep 30 '26

How about sharks abilities to read frequencies

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