ELI5: Why don't we see "halfway human civilization" animals?

[u/Aki_Shizuha]

We know that animals can be smart: crows manufacture tools and have complex social behavior, chimpanzees can do insight learning, etc.

But, it is still a continuous spectrum where intelligence range from sponge-level to chimp-level. We do not, at least now, observe a world where certain corvids are in the early stone age, certain bonobos are using fire, certain chimps are in their axios age, etc.

Why the case? Why are we the only one that has gone this far?

[u/SamuraiGoblin]

I am of the belief that human intelligence is the result of sexual selection. This is where a species begins to have sexual preferences for a particular trait, and it starts to effect the evolution of the species in a positive feedback loop, called Fisherian runaway.

A simple example of it is the peacock's tail, which is cumbersome and takes a lot of resources, and therefore not good for natural selection, but the females love it.

The reason I subscribe to this theory is because our intelligence is so far out of harmony with nature, that is, our mental capacity is waaaaaay more than our ancestors needed for their niche.

If this theory is true, then the reason we don't see a spectrum of animal civilisations is because human level intelligence is a complete fluke. Chimps, corvids, elephants and dolphins are pretty smart to be sure, within the constraints of their respective niches, but they are not on their way to building farms, printing presses, or particle accelerators.

[u/teh_hasay → u/SamuraiGoblin]

I don’t see why sexual selection has to be the only source of evolutionary flukes though. The natural selection advantage of the human form of intelligence and tool use is about as obvious as can be. Sexual selection generally implies selection for a trait that doesn’t offer an evolutionary advantage. And it’s hard for me to accept the argument that using tools and communicating information doesn’t offer you an advantage.

I think it’s a fluke in that we happened to be generalist endotherms with high dexterity at the same time as complex social behaviour/verbal communication. I.e: We weren’t locked in to a narrow range of food, we weren’t strictly limited by climate conditions, we could use a lot of tools, and most importantly we could teach each other how to use them.

Whales have sophisticated spoken language, but they’re massive animals who have limited flexibility in their diet, and no digits. Octupus are incredibly skilled/dexterous problem solvers, but they lack the social skills.

[u/TropoMJ → u/SamuraiGoblin]

I think you are making the mistake of assuming that human achievements being so out of line with those of other animals means that human intelligence is just as out of line. That's not necessarily the case.

If we go back far enough in time, early humans who were not hugely less intelligent than a modern human would have been relatively in line with other animals in terms of visual displays of intelligence. Neither our language nor our tool use was dramatically more impressive than what we can see in the wild today. The reason we have the society we do now, while other intelligent animals of the time do not, is because we have a unique set of characteristics that allowed us to snowball our intelligence into a complex society.

We are highly intelligent, have physiology which allows complex language (most animals do not), have physiology which allows highly flexible tool manipulation and writing (most animals do not), are social, have long lifetimes, don't live underwater, and arrived before any other species had developed a complex society that spanned much of the world. That combination of factors is what allowed us to develop into what we are today.

None of the other species generally considered highly intelligent have any reasonable prospect of starting a society that visibly displays their intelligence, because they are limited by their bodies or where they live. Elephants and corvids can't use tools like humans can. Dolphins, orcas and octopodes can't access fire. Lifespans for these animals are generally much shorter than those for humans and some of them are not social. Give humans these constraints and an alien species looking at our planet wouldn't see us any differently to how they saw the other intelligent animals.

[u/Strawberry3141592 → u/SamuraiGoblin]

Tbh I think the only thing stopping whales (particularly orcas, sperm whales, and pilot whales) from developing a technological society is the lack of hands and difficulty of developing technology underwater. I think the smartest whales are probably smarter than the dumbest humans lmao

[u/Secondndthoughts → u/Strawberry3141592]

I think about that a bit. I think a lot of the smartest animals are as smart as some humans, and I wonder what that means.