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>completely dominate the earth and the elements". I think that depends on how you look at it. If we're going by pure numbers, bacteria win by a landslide. Then

>completely dominate the earth and the elements". I think that depends on how you look at it. If we're going by pure numbers, bacteria win by a landslide. Then we've got fungi which come pretty close to competing with bacteria for most numerous and widespread. Ants probably have us beat too along with a few other insects. But to address the point you were making. It didn't happen all at once. It was a long gradual process that occurred with huge overlap between different hominid species. The 'jump' in brain power wasn't a jump, but a slow process of selection where smarter individuals would outcompete the less intelligent ones. For example, they would possibly hunt more efficiently, using tools and having a better memory for migration routes, they would have a better memory for dangers etc. Over time individuals better suited to this would mate and breed with others, this in turn would pass those traits on to offspring while individuals who couldn't compete would be left out and over millions of years of this and constant adaptations acquired because of this, humanity got smarter.

TremendousJudge 7y ago
You haven't mentioned what to me is a much more important evolutionary pressure: other humans. Politics is a feature of the ancestral environment. Humans aren't smart because they need to out-compete other species, or a harsh environment. Other animals do this as well, and none of those are as smart (sorry octopi, elephants, dolphins and crows). Humans are so intelligent because they had to out-compete each other, in a positive feedback loop that produced where we are at today
d0100 7y ago
> they would possibly hunt more efficiently, using tools and having a better memory for migration routes, they would have a better memory for dangers etc. Sure, but those reasons aren't enough. The world has to change often enough to make that 0.001% smarter brain have an actual advantage. And slow enough that there is no extinction event. Judging by what we see nowadays, 13.8 billion years don't seem enough for those odds. Unless the intelligence increases where such big leaps, and became the strongest dominant genes, that it didn't really matter how much time passed or how the world changed?

TremendousJudge 7y ago

You haven't mentioned what to me is a much more important evolutionary pressure: other humans. Politics is a feature of the ancestral environment. Humans aren't smart because they need to out-compete other species, or a harsh environment. Other animals do this as well, and none of those are as smart (sorry octopi, elephants, dolphins and crows). Humans are so intelligent because they had to out-compete each other, in a positive feedback loop that produced where we are at today

d0100 7y ago

> they would possibly hunt more efficiently, using tools and having a better memory for migration routes, they would have a better memory for dangers etc. Sure, but those reasons aren't enough. The world has to change often enough to make that 0.001% smarter brain have an actual advantage. And slow enough that there is no extinction event. Judging by what we see nowadays, 13.8 billion years don't seem enough for those odds. Unless the intelligence increases where such big leaps, and became the strongest dominant genes, that it didn't really matter how much time passed or how the world changed?