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Life might be common but intelligent life might be rare. Of all the countless species on this planet, only a handful (if even) have developed the ability to con

Life might be common but intelligent life might be rare. Of all the countless species on this planet, only a handful (if even) have developed the ability to control fire and construct tools; considering how expensive it is on the organism, it might not be a generally successful evolutionary mutation. We might be an extraordinarily rare aberration.

eljimmy 11y ago
It's a good point. Dinosaurs were on Earth for a very very long time. We really have no idea how rare it is for life to evolve in such a way as to become highly intelligent. Makes you wonder if Dinosaurs would have evolved to the point of becoming some sort of highly intelligent reptilian species similar to us. That is, if they hadn't been destroyed. :D There's also species' such as Parrots and Dolphins that are both considered to be quite intelligent. So maybe intelligence is a fore-gone conclusion and that final step that "snowballs" their intelligence is just another roll of the dice occurrence.
- jeremysmyth 11y ago
  Makes you wonder if Dinosaurs would have evolved to the point of becoming some sort of highly intelligent reptilian species similar to us. You're half right. Dinosaurs have evolved[1][2] to become highly intelligent[3], but not reptilian and only similar to us in the sense that they are the only other species that makes hooks to catch food[4]. [1] "The scientific consensus is that birds are a group of theropod dinosaurs that evolved during the Mesozoic Era." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds [2] https://xkcd.com/1211/ https://xkcd.com/1211/ [3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand-analogies/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand-a... [4] http://io9.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033 http://io9.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-...
stan_rogers 11y ago
And it's not just intelligent life, either, when you think about it; it requires intelligible life. It doesn't matter how clever the individual is; without a relatively efficient means of bundling up abstractions and hypotheticals and so on and transferring them from one individual to another, progress is slow, limited and contextually bound. There is something special about language - a serialization scheme for thought - that sets it apart from mere communication, and there is no reason to assume that it's an inevitable natural consequence of individual intelligence. Call it another term in the Drake equation.

eljimmy 11y ago

It's a good point. Dinosaurs were on Earth for a very very long time. We really have no idea how rare it is for life to evolve in such a way as to become highly intelligent. Makes you wonder if Dinosaurs would have evolved to the point of becoming some sort of highly intelligent reptilian species similar to us. That is, if they hadn't been destroyed. :D There's also species' such as Parrots and Dolphins that are both considered to be quite intelligent. So maybe intelligence is a fore-gone conclusion and that final step that "snowballs" their intelligence is just another roll of the dice occurrence.

jeremysmyth 11y ago
Makes you wonder if Dinosaurs would have evolved to the point of becoming some sort of highly intelligent reptilian species similar to us. You're half right. Dinosaurs have evolved[1][2] to become highly intelligent[3], but not reptilian and only similar to us in the sense that they are the only other species that makes hooks to catch food[4]. [1] "The scientific consensus is that birds are a group of theropod dinosaurs that evolved during the Mesozoic Era." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds [2] https://xkcd.com/1211/ https://xkcd.com/1211/ [3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand-analogies/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crows-understand-a... [4] http://io9.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-crows-and-1460350033 http://io9.com/the-mysterious-tool-making-culture-shared-by-...

stan_rogers 11y ago

And it's not just intelligent life, either, when you think about it; it requires intelligible life. It doesn't matter how clever the individual is; without a relatively efficient means of bundling up abstractions and hypotheticals and so on and transferring them from one individual to another, progress is slow, limited and contextually bound. There is something special about language - a serialization scheme for thought - that sets it apart from mere communication, and there is no reason to assume that it's an inevitable natural consequence of individual intelligence. Call it another term in the Drake equation.