Could Dinosaurs Have Evolved Higher Intelligence If They Survived Extinction?

[Gold Barz]

Do you think that if they weren't killed off and survived the extinction events, some of the dino's would have gotten more intelligent to the point where its just an intelligence arms race? I guess the main word here is potential, did they have the potential to do it?Is it true before they died off there were clues left behind pointing to hightened intelligence (bigger brains?)

 

[NoTime]

They were certainly as intelligent as say a bird.
So what do you mean by intelligence?

Is what you are really asking is were there any sentient ones?
I've never seen anything that would say yes.
But, I suppose its possible we might just not have found the data.

 

[Gold Barz]

I am asking if did the dinosaurs have the potential to be a lot smarter than they were? maybe even the potential to be as smart as us, if they had survived those mass extinction events that led up to their demise?

 

[selfAdjoint]

I am asking if did the dinosaurs have the potential to be a lot smarter than they were? maybe even the potential to be as smart as us, if they had survived those mass extinction events that led up to their demise?

Well even if they evolved intelligence, would they stay dinosaurs in the process? Look at the evolution of birds, who are directly evolved from dinosaurs; first the dino evolved limited flight, and when that proved to be an adaptive winner futher evolution took place to enhance the flight ability. And in that process those dinosaurs evoved from therapsids into archaeopteryx.

I presume that evolution of large brains, assuming there was some original adaptive edge to it, would not be less transforming. Think that our human brains use some whopping percentage of our energy budget, so in order to really exploit an improved brain the dino would have to evolve a better energy management system than the reptile one.

 

[Gold Barz]

So the dinosaur body plan just didnt have what it took to potentially become intelligent?

Also, weren't there findings to suggest that some dino's were evolving as social creatures?

 

[arildno]

Why do you think all dinosaurs were so terribly dumb?

It isn't idiocy to die from the effects of a big rock falling from the sky, it is simply sheer bad luck.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Based on fossil evidence, admittedly a poor sample, dinosaurs show some increase in encephalization quotients ( g of brain per Kg of body) over their time up to the end of the Cretaceous.

Mammals show a similar trend from the Paleocene to the Pliocene.

Whether encephalization quotient means anything or if the trends really reflect a major change, is up to you to decide.

See this:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/anatomy/Brain.shtml

 

[rkkane]

if they evolved to be more intelligent they would have passed our intelligence about 64,900,000 years ago

 

[NoTime]

the dino would have to evolve a better energy management system than the reptile one.

Some people say that there were warm blooded dinos.
Birds for instance, are warm blooded.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Some say birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, but that both lines evolved from a common archosaur. (Just another theory *backs away slowly*)

Anyhow, what reason would dinos have for being sentient? We, presumably, are because it helped with social living & learning. Would dinos need the same awareness to function in a group? After all, they have weapons built-in for survival & don't need strong emotional bonds & social learning to work together.

 

[rkkane]

thats true dinosaurs would not achieve sentience unless it was beneficial for them. and as someone said earlier our brain uses up a lot of energy which the cold blooded reptiles wouldn't manage. so they would have to become warm blooded for a start.

 

[Gold Barz]

Check this site out, it talks about the "possible" intelligent dinosaurs.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/michael.magee/awwls/wls.html

How credible is that site? is it based on science or fantasy?

 

[DaveC426913]

Read Robert Sawyer's QUINTAGLIO TRILOGY about a planet with raptor-like creatures that have evolved intelligence and society (culture and technology about 1 - 3 centuries behind present-day - sailing ships, telescopes and superstitions about firey Gods crossing the sky in chariots.).

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765309742/?tag=pfamazon01-20)

 

[DaveC426913]

Think that our human brains use some whopping percentage of our energy budget

Twenty to twenty-five per cent.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Twenty to twenty-five per cent.

Thanks, Dave.

We are the only genus we know evolved intelligence and the fossil record suggests that to do it we had to change our lifestyle from a pretty much vegetarian tree dweller to scavenging savannah dweller and then to hunter-gatherer. We changed our basic body plan in the process. The original energy budget of pliopithecus or whatever wouldn't have supported a Homo Habilis brain, much less a modern human's.

 

[Gold Barz]

So selfAdjoint, is it safe to say that it is likely the dinosaurs would have not been anymore intelligent than they were before they died out? even the raptors and the troodons?

 

[rkkane]

we can't know for certain either way.
we don't even know what might evolve from things in existence right now.

 

[DaveC426913]

Worse than "we don't know for certain", we can't even guess. Evolution can't be predicted. It is an effect that results from countless factors in the environment over countless generations. It could go any direction.

It would not even go the same direction twice.

As Steven J. Gould posits: rewind the evolutionary clock and run it again, and we will assuredly get a COMPLETELY different result. There's no guarantee that something as basic as our bilateral symmetry would dominate. The modern world could be dominated by the descendants of starfish.

 

[Moonbear]

Worse than "we don't know for certain", we can't even guess.

Exactly. This topic calls for completely wild speculation. There is no way to answer this question in a scientifically sound manner. Thus, this thread is closed.