Why haven't other organisms evolved humanlike intelligence?

[Jupiter60]

It seems like it would be a huge advantage to their survival, so why haven't other organisms evolved such? Why are humans the only organisms capable of doing things like creating complex technology and using complex language?

 

[jim mcnamara]

This is an anthropomorphic answer, based on a text on a similar subject, given the question seems to be one as well: How would most humans react to some fuzzy mammal that seemed to be intelligent, reacted defensively and became murderously aggressive in groups when it seemed it would be able to "win" a conflict due to superior numbers.

(Hint: they would go out of their way kill one anytime they saw one. )

Replace "fuzzy mammal" with human and you essentially are describing part of human tribal behavior. Humans have been in the situation of fighting for territory and resources for a very long time.

Or:
Since we got tools and language first do you really think early men would have put up with competing species?

Jared Diamond discusses this concept with good stories and provides detailed insight in 'The World Until Yesterday':

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143124404/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Good book - worth a serious read.

Short answer: Humans already occupy the niche for supreme predator, and dominant mammal on all inhabited continents. Any non-human species acting as contenders for the niche would lose. This is the same reason why there are not hundreds of different large carnivorous species all living in one biome. The few species that already have a foothold are really hard to out-compete, without a disastrous environmental change to level the playing field.

 

[Ophiolite]

It seems like it would be a huge advantage to their survival, so why haven't other organisms evolved such?

Intelligence seems to be of limited advantage in survival. True there are niche applications, but the vast majority of successful organisms have very limited intelligence.

The fact that humans are the first species to evolve on this planet with such an "advanced" intelligence in three and a half billion years suggests that there are many more ways to become successful than be intelligent. The next century or so will show if intelligence is actually all that effective for long term survival.

 

[B0b-A]

Humans not as "advanced" as chimps in short-term memory ...

 

[.Scott]

It seems like it would be a huge advantage to their survival, so why haven't other organisms evolved such? Why are humans the only organisms capable of doing things like creating complex technology and using complex language?

Someone had to be first - and we may have killed off competitors.

Intelligence isn't worth much unless it is shared. A whole bunch of genius alligators that never talk to one another wouldn't advance their species a whole lot in terms of survival.

So the only animals that are candidates would be social ones.

 

[DiracPool]

Intelligence seems to be of limited advantage in survival.

Are you serious?

True there are niche applications, but the vast majority of successful organisms have very limited intelligence.

By "niche applications" do you mean the domination of the planet, the ability to control and domesticate virtually all of plant and animal life, the redirection of geological structures to create dams, etc., and the exploration of space... among many others?

You are correct in saying that the vast majority of successful organisms have very limited intelligence, at least in relation to the type of intelligence humans have. However, their success does not rest on the fact that they are "stupid." The success of a given species can result from several different reasons unrelated to "intelligence" per se, 1) lack of natural predators in their particular niche, 2) lack of species competing for resources, 3) an excessively high reproduction rate, and many others. Most of the "dumb" species that have been around for many millions of years have more that anything "lucked out" to have settled into such niches, or have had the reproductive capacity to spread out fast enough to stay one step ahead of the grim reaper or just simply evolve into something else. Being dumb doesn't help you survive. I think you would be hard pressed to find many evolutionary biologists that would agree that stupidity is a trait that is survivally advantageous. It is the clever squirrel that survives and reproduces, not the stupid one, and it is the EARLY bird that actually does get the worm, not the one that sleeps in (like me)

The fact that humans are the first species to evolve on this planet with such an "advanced" intelligence in three and a half billion years suggests that there are many more ways to become successful than be intelligent. The next century or so will show if intelligence is actually all that effective for long term survival.

Well, that certainly is a true statement. If we do blow ourselves up or trash the environment so bad it leads to our demise as a species, which is certainly possible, you may just indeed have the last laugh.

 

[micromass]

Are you serious?

Yes. Give my cat a humanlike intelligence. What would she be able to do with it. She has no physical capabilities of building anyting complex or using any tools. Furthermore, such an intelligence takes up a lot of energy (our brain takes up over 20% of all our energy). So I wouldn't exactly call it very beneficial. It's only beneficial if certain other side conditions are satisfied.

Whales are said to be quite intelligent. I don't think that really helps them. They have no capabilities to do much with said intelligence.

 

[DiracPool]

Yes. Give my cat a humanlike intelligence. What would she be able to do with it. She has no physical capabilities of building anyting complex or using any tools.

What does building anything complex or using any tools have to do with anything? Your response of "yes" was to the quote of Ophiolite, "Intelligence seems to be of limited advantage in survival."

So by that argument, Stephen Hawking's intellect is of limited advantage in survival. Stephen Hawking isn't building anything complex or using any tools, and I'm sure he has much less physical capacity than a cat. Even so, he's a celebrity, and has teams of doctors keeping him alive and teams of fans feeding him, wheeling him around to conferences, and putting his ideas up for him on the blackboard.. So I'd say his intelligence has a great advantage in his survival.

Furthermore, such an intelligence takes up a lot of energy (our brain takes up over 20% of all our energy). So I wouldn't exactly call it very beneficial.

Again, by that argument you're essentially saying that the strain on natural resources of a few extra plates of pasta a week wasn't worth powering Einsteins brain to come up with the General theory of relativity, or a few extra calories in Hawking's liquid diet wasn't worth the equation of black hole entropy.

It's only beneficial if certain other side conditions are satisfied.

Side conditions like what?

Whales are said to be quite intelligent. I don't think that really helps them. They have no capabilities to do much with said intelligence.

Chimpanzees are also said to be intelligent, as well as a host of other animals such dolphins, monkeys, elephants, even birds such as the African grey parrot and Magpie. It all depends on who you ask and what their criterion is for "intelligence." Human-like intelligence is very specific, it is the ability to hierarchically construct temporally extended symbol assemblies in an essentially unlimited fashion. Nonhuman animals simply do not have this capacity, which is why, as the OP queried, "humans the only organisms capable of doing things like creating complex technology and using complex language?"

As far as the whales are concerned, they've done just fine with whatever intelligence they had, that is at least until the super-intelligent greedy humans came along.

 

[AlephZero]

So by that argument, Stephen Hawking's intellect is of limited advantage in survival. Stephen Hawking isn't building anything complex or using any tools, and I'm sure he has much less physical capacity than a cat.

If Hawking didn't have the physical devices built by other humans, he would have been dead long ago.

For

domination of the planet, the ability to control and domesticate virtually all of plant and animal life, the redirection of geological structures to create dams, etc., and the exploration of space...

intelligence on its own is fairly useless. But intelligence plus opposable thumbs is a different ballgame.

 

[micromass]

So by that argument, Stephen Hawking's intellect is of limited advantage in survival.

Yes, it obviously is. If he were born 100 years ago, he would have died a long time ago, no matter what his intellect was. Furthermore, if somebody with Einstein's intellect was born right now in South-Sudan, then his intellect would also not mean very much to the person.

So I'd say his intelligence has a great advantage in his survival.

It certainly is now, because we have created a society of intelligent beings. We are talking about evolving to humanlike intelligence. Which means that the species in question does not yet have humanlike intelligence.

Again, by that argument you're essentially saying that the strain on natural resources of a few extra plates of pasta a week wasn't worth powering Einsteins brain to come up with the General theory of relativity, or a few extra calories in Hawking's liquid diet wasn't worth the equation of black hole entropy.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the evolutionary benefit of coming up with GR.

Side conditions like what?

Opposable thumbs, walking on two legs, a changing environment which made evolution necessary to survive, having eyes so we can see, ...

 

[Drakkith]

One could say that human ancestors were in the right place, at the right time, had the right prerequisites, and went through the right circumstances to develop intelligence and use it to their benefit. Aren't we lucky!

 

[DiracPool]

If Hawking didn't have the physical devices built by other humans, he would have been dead long ago.

What does that have to do with intelligence being detrimental to the suvivability of a species? If anything, the fact that human intelligence is able to build devices to keep Stephan Hawking alive is evidence that intelligence confers a survival advantage. Plus, every individual and species relies on the cooperation of conspecifics in order to survive

For intelligence on its own is fairly useless.

Who is talking about intelligence on its own? We're not talking about locked in syndrome here. The OP's question I believe relates to healthy individuals and populations of human and nonhuman species.

But intelligence plus opposable thumbs is a different ballgame.

"I just typed this entire sentence in quotes without using my thumbs, promise."

Ok, this is better now. I am glad I have my thumbs, don't get me wrong. My point, though, is that if the entire human population lost all their thumbs today, or even other appendages, human society would not just stop and wither away. Intelligent creatures, whether human or nonhuman, find ways around physical challenges and limitations by using their intelligence, that's what intelligence means. This not only happens on communal scales but also individual scales. Galileo overcame the lack of a "zoom" feature on his eyesight by inventing the telescope with his intelligence. Benjamin Franklin cured his presbyopia by inventing bifocals, writing to his friend George Whatley in 1784 that he was "happy in the invention of double spectacles, which serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as ever they were."

So, I guess I'm just not seeing what evidence there is that a lack of intelligence, whether it's an isolated "locked in" intelligence or a motorically expressible intelligence, confers a survival advantage in an individual or its species. If that's what the argument is here.

 

[Ophiolite]

Are you serious?

This was response to my comment that intelligence was of limited advantage in survival. I am completely serious.

Archaea are not intelligent.
Bacteria are not intelligent.

That's most of the organisms on the planet and they are surviving rather well.

If you want to consider prokaryotes only, I don't see much intelligence in plants, or a large part of the animal kingdom.

Of course intelligence is of value in human survival, but the vast array of organisms that survive perfectly well without it, suggests the advantages it confers are limited.

 

[Drakkith]

Of course intelligence is of value in human survival, but the vast array of organisms that survive perfectly well without it, suggests the advantages it confers are limited.

I don't think I agree with this. Most organisms, especially single cell organisms, are not complex enough to develop intelligence. Intelligence seems to require a certain amount of complexity. In general, the more intelligent an organism is, the more complex it is. Complex organisms occupy different niches than simpler ones and have different advantages and disadvantages, so I don't think it's fair to say that the benefits of intelligence are limited. I'd argue that the benefits of intelligence are many, but it requires more complexity than most organisms have and takes specific evolutionary steps to reach it.

It seems to be more of a case that intelligence is extremely beneficial, as a great many organisms have varying levels of it, but high level intelligence is extremely difficult to reach.

 

[Chronos]

There is little doubt intelligence has evolved and increased over geological time. The evolutionary pressure is fairly obvious; smarter prey encourages smarter predators and vice versa. Just about every organism is subject to evolutionary pressure. Intelligence is one adaptation that has utility for complex organisms. The interesting thing about human intelligence is it took a rather dramatic leap a couple million years ago. We went from simian to human levels of intelligence in a remarkably short period of time. Equally remarkable is that we have survived as long as we have. Mitochondrial DNA studies suggest humanity was nearly driven to extinction 150,000 years ago during a particularly severe ice age. We were again at the brink 70,000 years ago in the aftermath of the Toba supervolcano eruption. And these are just the events we know about. Without a fair bit of luck, intelligence is not overly impressive as an evolutionary advantage.

 

[DiracPool]

Without a fair bit of luck, intelligence is not overly impressive as an evolutionary advantage.

What makes you think it's luck that got humans through the ice age and and the Toba eruption? Each of which from a survival challenge was signified by a dramatic cooling of the planet as well as an accompanying destruction of much of the natural vegetation and animal food sources. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

...the Toba eruption resulted in a global ecological disaster, including destruction of vegetation along with severe drought in the tropical rainforest belt and in monsoonal regions. For example, a 10-year volcanic winter triggered by the eruption could have largely destroyed the food sources of humans and caused a severe reduction in population sizes.[22] Τhese environmental changes may have generated population bottlenecks in many species, including hominids.

Where is the evidence that it was luck that got humans through these bottlenecks?

Doesn't it make more sense that humans may have been able to survive these catastrophes because of their use of their intelligence to create and tame fire, build shelters, make clothing, preserve foods through salting them, drying them, and cooking them, and communicating through gestures and likely spoken language? My guess is that it was the humans that were able to leverage these intelligent traits that were the ones to survive the bottleneck, not the dumb ones that couldn't rub two sticks or stones together to create a spark for a campfire.

 

[Choppy]

Robin Williams once characterized the human race with the phrase:
"If we can't **** it, we'll kill it."

Apparently, over history, we've done a little of both.
http://www.sci-news.com/otherscienc...neanderthal-genes-modern-human-dna-01734.html

 

[Choppy]

More seriously though I think there's also an energy conservation issue. Maintaining a highly functioning, conscious brain requires a very stable metabolism that's constantly burning a lot of calories and you have to have some very specific conditions for such a system to evolve.

 

[256bits]

Doesn't it make more sense that humans may have been able to survive these catastrophes because of their use of their intelligence to create and tame fire, build shelters, make clothing, preserve foods through salting them, drying them, and cooking them, and communicating through gestures and likely spoken language? My guess is that it was the humans that were able to leverage these intelligent traits that were the ones to survive the bottleneck, not the dumb ones that couldn't rub two sticks or stones together to create a spark for a campfire.

I think what you are referring to is the conscientious ability of humans to adapt to environmental conditions. In that regard, we would have to be one of the more successful species on this planet.
Humans occupy all regions of land mass with its variable temperatures and other conditions, survive on water, below water and even is space, and if advanced intelligence allows us to use technology to do so, then the level of intelligence does matter.

One could make an argument that the gut bacteria of humans are just as successful as humans, and will be no matter where humans go, either on land, sea, air, or space, but the condition here is that their niche environment does not change, but they will be just as evolutionary successful as humans in the short or long term.

Question is, what is evolutionary success? amount of biomass, longevity, position on the food chain, use of tools, information gathering, member of an arbitrary biological classification ( done by humans ), sentience, ...?

 

[DiracPool]

Wow, I'm (almost) speechless. What a marvelous eloquence in that post, 256. I'm grateful for an ally here.

As such, I feel compelled to try to address your query, 'Question is, what is evolutionary success?'

That is a good question. Sorry to not sound more sophisticated, But..

It is obviously about staying alive and procreating (to the max ;) I can't think of anything else...

If I think of anything, I'll post it.

 

[Torbjorn_L]

Why haven't other organisms evolved humanlike intelligence? It seems like it would be a huge advantage to their survival, so why haven't other organisms evolved such? Why are humans the only organisms capable of doing things like creating complex technology and using complex language?

That depends on how you define [species-]like intelligence. By definition, you have intermediate stages so anyone trait isn't defining a species as such. Relevant here, intelligence isn't part of what defines a human. Not even hominins, where suggestions rather would be akin to our small canines, a truly unique trait among hominids.

So this part of the question is specie-centric.

There is very little of intelligence that seems derived among hominins. So far I know of the ability to plan ahead (corvids have problems there), suggest behavior when mentoring (chimps show but do not suggest), and handle combinatorial languages. Technology (tool use) is known among mollusks and fishes, contextual languages among birds and apes. The "complex" part here is a matter of timing, we are the first to evolve such.

So this part of the question is selection bias.

A more compelling question, since the specie-centric part fails, may be to ask if we will be alone in evolving the biased part.

Biologists commonly suggest so, specific traits are rare unless the environment promotes channeled evolution. (Such as when ocean living fishes, reptiles and mammals evolve similar body shapes.) The question why Homo evolved complex technology/language and if it suggests such a channeling is open.

Humans have been in the situation of fighting for territory and resources for a very long time.

So have other animals, even hominids (chimps).

Mitochondrial DNA studies suggest humanity was nearly driven to extinction 150,000 years ago during a particularly severe ice age. We were again at the brink 70,000 years ago in the aftermath of the Toba supervolcano eruption.

No. Which is why you don't quote references no doubt.

- The latest population models accounting for Neanderthal and Denisovan core genes show that Africa had a population that oscillated between 10-20 000 humans. No severe bottleneck seen. ["The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains", Pääbo et al, Nature 2013]

- How much the Toba eruption affected the population, even close by, is entirely unconstrained. That people repopulated the area shortly after suggests that the effects were very local. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory ]

To sum up the problems with these claims, they were based on mitochondrial evidence which is generally a poor informant and in this case have been efficiently refuted by whole genome sequencing.

 

[Jupiter60]

Intelligence certainly has an advantage to survival. I'm not saying that intelligence alone has an advantage to survival. I never said that. Blind humans have a higher survival rate than blind "animals". A blind animal will only survive if there is a human to take care of it.

 

[Drakkith]

Intelligence certainly has an advantage to survival. I'm not saying that intelligence alone has an advantage to survival. I never said that. Blind humans have a higher survival rate than blind "animals". A blind animal will only survive if there is a human to take care of it.

I'm not sure I agree. A lot of animals depend on their other senses more than humans do and can adapt to blindness.

 

[Travis_King]

Doesn't it make more sense that humans may have been able to survive these catastrophes because of their use of their intelligence to create and tame fire, build shelters, make clothing, preserve foods through salting them, drying them, and cooking them, and communicating through gestures and likely spoken language? My guess is that it was the humans that were able to leverage these intelligent traits that were the ones to survive the bottleneck, not the dumb ones that couldn't rub two sticks or stones together to create a spark for a campfire.

And yet, I stepped on a cockroach this morning...

Intelligence is certainly advantageous to humans. And, it seems that it is advantageous to other animals which find themselves in ecosystems with other intelligent predators. I don't think anyone is disputing that.

Intelligence is one of the traits that helped us overtake similar species, evolutionarily. We are mostly hairless, relatively weak given our size, we can't see well at night, we have no natural defensive traits (like a thick hide or poisonous sweat glands) nor offensively advantageous traits (like claws or sharp teeth) besides our thumbs. We exist because we are intelligent, and it happened by luck that our species was able to develop that intelligence to what we have now. We are the dominant species of the planet and the unrivaled predator of all ecosystems (if we choose to be). Sure, a shark can get us in the ocean, or a tiger in the jungle, but give me a submarine and some torpedoes, or a tank and some shells and I'll have dinner ready by six. Yet we are, in most other respects, unimpressive as a predator.

...my original point being, although intelligence has undoubtedly helped us evolve and survive as a species, cockroaches have survived for millions of years and have not developed any "intelligence" because they get along perfectly well without it.

 

[Chronos]

<Mitochondrial DNA studies suggest humanity was nearly driven to extinction 150,000 years ago during a particularly severe ice age. We were again at the brink 70,000 years ago in the aftermath of the Toba supervolcano eruption.>

No. Which is why you don't quote references no doubt.

With 'considerable' effort, I rounded up a couple references.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-humans-extinct_2.html, After Near Extinction, Humans Split Into Isolated Bands

A causal relationship between the population bottleneck and the Toba super-eruption is in dispute - e.g., http://ice2.uab.cat/argo/Argo_actualitzacio/argo_butlleti/ccee/geologia/arxius/4Gathorne-Hardy.pdf, The super-eruption of Toba, did it cause a human bottleneck?
There is, however, little dispute a population bottleneck existed around that time.

Reference requests are welcome. Dismissive remarks are not.

 

[Torbjorn_L]

Intelligence certainly has an advantage to survival.

In very few organisms, seeing how few species are and how little biomass they command. Human equivalent intelligence can be rare because it is a) low likelihood (biologist's take, seeing how low likelihood specific traits have) and/or b) it is difficult to evolve (doubtful, since it took a few million years and many hominids participated).

We are mostly hairless, relatively weak given our size, we can't see well at night, we have no natural defensive traits (like a thick hide or poisonous sweat glands) nor offensively advantageous traits (like claws or sharp teeth) besides our thumbs. We exist because we are intelligent,

As long as we are clear on the causality here, since cultural intelligence allowed us to be hairless (clothes) et cetera.

Yes, intelligence is "our thing", same as elephant trunks are theirs.

 

[Torbjorn_L]

With 'considerable' effort, I rounded up a couple references.
There is, however, little dispute a population bottleneck existed around that time.

The Paabo reference I gave beg to differ. Again, it is modern and based on core genome sequencing, while older refs is not.

Reference requests are welcome. Dismissive remarks are not.

You are welcome to both. I see so much crap posted so when there isn't any attempt to give references I assume as default that there isn't any. It is not malice, "assume no malice", it is an assumption of ineptness. Good for you to have found those mitochondrial evidences (I assume) I found, better than going from memory. (Which of course I do too at times, putting me in the inept class when I'm wrong. And I am of course wrong at times. It is, admittedly, a fine line between productivity/laziness and too much research/effort.)

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Science just this week published a news piece looking at whether increased intelligence in various animal species leads to increased fitness. In many cases, researchers are finding that higher cognition has evolutionary trade-offs that can decrease fitness:

Raine has pioneered such studies, chiefly in bumblebees. In the lab, he tests how fast a bumblebee learns to associate different colors with nectar rewards. Some bees master each task in just a few tries, whereas others never quite get it. Colonies with the slowest learners collected 40% less nectar, he and his colleagues reported several years ago.

But by marking the tested bumblebees and allowing them free access to the outdoors, he and graduate student Lisa Evans discovered that in the wild there are trade-offs to being a fast learner. Bees that make errors in the color association test are also “more likely to assess new flower types,” Raine says. In one experiment, these error-prone bees wound up collecting more sugar than their “smarter” sisters, the team reported at the meeting and online on 17 May in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A. Raine and Evans suggest that for bees, a mixed colony of fast and slow learners might be the most successful.

Similar trade-offs between learning and other factors seem to be at work in a common European songbird called the great tit, according to a talk by behavioral ecologist Julie Morand-Ferron of the University of Ottawa. In recent studies, she, Ella Cole of the University of Oxford, and their colleagues have discovered that these birds display individual variation when challenged to pull a lever out of a tube to gain access to food. The lab-tested birds belong to a monitored wild population, and the team reported in 2012 that “smarter” birds laid more eggs and were more efficient foragers. However, for unknown reasons, these birds are also more likely to abandon their nests, negating any reproductive advantage, the researchers noted. Thus, as in bees, a range of cognitive abilities persists among these birds, Morand-Ferron said.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6197/609.full

 

[Doofy]

Not sure if anyone here will be familiar with this, but one idea I have heard is that consuming psychedelic mushrooms could be what moved us so far beyond the other apes. If you've ever experienced the indescribable wonder of a full-blown psychedelic trip this might not sound far-fetched to you. The word 'profound' doesn't even begin to describe the experiences produced by chemicals like psilocybin, so if it turned out that they were like booster rockets for brain development then it wouldn't surprise me. I believe this theory claims that human brain size increased at an absurd rate right around the time that environmental changes would have meant our distant ancestors left the trees and started coming into contact with mushrooms on the ground. It alleges that low-dose psilocybin sharpens our vision, higher doses lead to these psychedelic trips, involving increased sexual activity and stronger community bonds. So, based on that it sounds like there would have been some evolutionary advantage to having it in the diet.

It goes by the name of 'Stoned Ape' theory should you feel like googling it. I'm no anthropologist so there may be very good reasons to distrust it but it's certainly an interesting idea to me.

 

[Drakkith]

Not sure if anyone here will be familiar with this, but one idea I have heard is that consuming psychedelic mushrooms could be what moved us so far beyond the other apes. If you've ever experienced the indescribable wonder of a full-blown psychedelic trip this might not sound far-fetched to you. The word 'profound' doesn't even begin to describe the experiences produced by chemicals like psilocybin, so if it turned out that they were like booster rockets for brain development then it wouldn't surprise me.

It goes by the name of 'Stoned Ape' theory should you feel like googling it. I'm no anthropologist but it's certainly an interesting idea to me.

From wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna#.22Stoned_ape.22_theory_of_human_evolution

McKenna's "stoned ape" theory has not received attention from the scientific community and has been criticized on several fronts. His ideas regarding psilocybin and visual acuity have been criticized for lacking evidence and for misrepresenting Fischer et al., who studied medium doses (not low doses) of psilocybin and found that perception (but not visual acuity) was altered. Fischer et al. further state that psilocybin "may not be conducive to the survival of the organism". There is also a lack of evidence that psilocybin increases sexual arousal, and even if it does, it does not necessarily entail an evolutionary advantage. It may even be a disadvantage in the context of the presumed higher sexual competition in Homo Erectus as indicated by its higher sexual dimorphism relative to Homo sapiens.[80]

Looks to me like McKenna (the guy who developed the theory) didn't know what he was talking about since he failed to use his cited studies correctly.