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IMO intelligence is merely a by product of time, evolution and survival so I don't think it would be that unlikely.

by iambvk 9y ago

rgbrenner 9y ago
But dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years longer than us.. and there’s no indication they were intelligent or ever built anything
- crocal 9y ago
  Do you have proof they did not build anything? What can resist millions of years?
  - davidivadavid 9y ago
    No, that's what he's saying. There's no indication that they did.
- autokad 9y ago
  some more, the dinosaurs weren't just stupid (small brained), I believe they were so by design. I began thinking about it by finding out alligators/crocodiles lived during that time, and they have larger brains. I then wondered why, until I considered the fact that they came from laid eggs, and their 'thing' was the ability to get big when evolution supported it. brains require lots of oxygen and egg shells have limits to how much they can allow through them. my theory is that they were dumb by design, so that genes could activate and allow them to get really big if it suited them.
collias 9y ago
If that were true, why aren't sharks the most intelligent beings on the planet? They've been around in more-or-less their current form since the dinosaurs were around. Intelligence (as far as we know) requires a brain, which requires a lot of calories to work correctly. Increasing calorie intake requirements is not something that survival-selecting evolution would select for. Evolution selects for survival, not intelligence. Sharks and other animals have survived very well for millions of years without ever developing a higher level of intelligence. If anything, intelligence seems like it might be a happy mistake of evolution, and potentially very rare since evolution doesn't select for it explicitly.
- goatlover 9y ago
  It's probably the right combination of a body, intelligence, social structure and environmental pressures that lead to sophisticated tool making societies that pass their knowledge on down so it accumulates. So far, we're the only species on Earth to have enough of the right combination to get this far. So maybe it only happens 1 in 1000 worlds with multicellular life. How many planets does that leave in the Milky Way? That's the sort of calculation SETI does.
- usaiditurself 9y ago
  you answered your own question in the sentence that followed it. sharks face little pressure to evolve, so they aren’t changing very much

IMO intelligence is merely a by product of time, evolution and survival so I don't think it would be that unlikely.

by iambvk 9y ago

IMO intelligence is merely a by product of time, evolution and survival so I don't think it would be that unlikely.

But dinosaurs were around for hundreds of millions of years longer than us.. and there’s no indication they were intelligent or ever built anything

crocal 9y ago
Do you have proof they did not build anything? What can resist millions of years?
- davidivadavid 9y ago
  No, that's what he's saying. There's no indication that they did.
autokad 9y ago
some more, the dinosaurs weren't just stupid (small brained), I believe they were so by design. I began thinking about it by finding out alligators/crocodiles lived during that time, and they have larger brains. I then wondered why, until I considered the fact that they came from laid eggs, and their 'thing' was the ability to get big when evolution supported it. brains require lots of oxygen and egg shells have limits to how much they can allow through them. my theory is that they were dumb by design, so that genes could activate and allow them to get really big if it suited them.

collias 9y ago

If that were true, why aren't sharks the most intelligent beings on the planet? They've been around in more-or-less their current form since the dinosaurs were around. Intelligence (as far as we know) requires a brain, which requires a lot of calories to work correctly. Increasing calorie intake requirements is not something that survival-selecting evolution would select for. Evolution selects for survival, not intelligence. Sharks and other animals have survived very well for millions of years without ever developing a higher level of intelligence. If anything, intelligence seems like it might be a happy mistake of evolution, and potentially very rare since evolution doesn't select for it explicitly.

goatlover 9y ago
It's probably the right combination of a body, intelligence, social structure and environmental pressures that lead to sophisticated tool making societies that pass their knowledge on down so it accumulates. So far, we're the only species on Earth to have enough of the right combination to get this far. So maybe it only happens 1 in 1000 worlds with multicellular life. How many planets does that leave in the Milky Way? That's the sort of calculation SETI does.
usaiditurself 9y ago
you answered your own question in the sentence that followed it. sharks face little pressure to evolve, so they aren’t changing very much