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I wonder if the dinosaurs would have developed intelligence and civilization by now, had it not been for the Chicxulub asteroid?

• jiocrag 5y ago
  Dinosaur brain to body ratios never approached those of even early mammals AFAIK. Human brains are our specialized trait (like a rhino horn or snake venom). Like asking why fish haven’t developed civilization.
  • otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    Ants developed civilization. You don't need brains for that.
• drran 5y ago
  Look at crows, maybe. https://www.thoughtco.com/crows-are-more-intelligent-than-you-think-4156896 https://www.thoughtco.com/crows-are-more-intelligent-than-yo...
• Twisol 5y ago
  It only took our species a few hundred thousand years at most, while it's been hundreds of times longer than that since the dinosaurs went extinct. At the same time, sharks never developed civilization, so who's to say?
  • cft 5y ago
    Dinosaurs were the dominant species (including the sea), unlike sharks.
    • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      I mean, Dinosaurs weren't a species.
      • Twisol 5y ago
        To be entirely fair, neither is "shark" a single species... But yes -- my point was that no shark species formed a civilization over that vast period, so it's hard to say whether any dinosaur species would have.
        • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
          ok, fair enough.
      • khazhoux 5y ago
        This is a pedantic dismissal of the comment above. We all understood what he meant. If your intent is to educate HN on the difference between species, genus, family, order, ..., perhaps do so more constructively?
        • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
          I guess I just felt that there was quite a large number of dinosaur species for civilization to arise in, not to mention they were on land, so it might be weird to say sharks didn't develop civilization over a long period of time given the differences compared. But I suppose you didn't understand what I meant.
          • selestify 5y ago
            I don't think any of that was conveyed by the phrase "Dinosaurs weren't a species" :)
            • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
              I guess I do have a tendency to not specify everything but to just leave some things as implied, that said I think the amount of dinosaur species vs. the amount of shark species is strongly implied when saying dinosaurs is not a species in context. The land thing was not as strongly implied but again one might consider it when thinking yeah dinosaurs aren't a species, neither are sharks but the numbers don't align...hmm,hmm oh yeah and also the dinosaur species covered many more possible environments.
    • ascar 5y ago
      Also worth considering that humans became the dominant species after developing civilization or maybe by developing civilization.
      • dredmorbius 5y ago
        Even pre-civilisation humans were having substantial impacts on local landscapes and ecosystems, particularly in terms of out-competing other top predators. "Civilisation" defined as "having established cities". Arguably much of North America and Australia would be pre-civilisation by this definition. There are some exceptions among Native Americans in North America, but most cultures seem to have been tribal and reasonably nomadic or based in small villages lacking the complex social and economic structures, as well as trade and diplomatic relations associated with cities. Pueblo culture would be the obvious exception, possibly also mound culture (Illinois / Mississippi Valley). This is not an area of expertise for me. And my point remains that even without signifificant cities or intensive capital, these cultures had profound iimpacts on their landscapes and were clearly an apex species.
    • Contexti 5y ago
      I thought dinosaurs were not adapted to aquatic environments? Marine reptiles like mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs were not dinosaurs. Spinosaurus, though, was semiaquatic.
  • tempestn 5y ago
    Is it inevitable that given enough time, the dominant life form in a sufficiently hospitable environment will develop higher intelligence and civilization? I'm not sure we know whether that's the case or not.
    • krisoft 5y ago
      “Dominant life form” is not really a well defined concept. I assume you would say humans are the dominant life form of the present day earth, and many would agree with that. Ants are more numerous, cattle and antarctic krill are heavier by biomass so clearly such simple metrics are not what we are after. And clearly back when humans started developing “higher inteligence” they were just funny monkeys running around the savana harased by jackals left and right. Very much not a “dominant life form” in any sense of the word. One could attribute any special significance to them only in hindsight by what they become, rather than what they were.
      • tempestn 5y ago
        True, more a matter of the intelligence resulting in dominance than the reverse. I think you could define dominant as, basically, top of the food chain - able to kill any other animal it wishes to, and able to defend itself from all others. It would certainly be possible to be dominant without high intelligence, but it seems unlikely it would be possible to be dominant over a competitor that has a significant intelligence advantage, assuming the competitor survives long enough to exploit it. But the question is, does that mean that if such an evolutionary path is possible in a given environment, it will always eventually occur? My guess would be yes, but I'm certainly not 100% confident. ('Eventually' meaning, say, within a hundred million years. Presumably given infinite time, everything possible would occur, so that's not really interesting.)
    • andyp-kw 5y ago
      This is true. Even though some species excel in certain areas (beavers are good at building, dolphins can communicate), no other species come close to human intelligence. We don't know if there's some special sauce that makes humans unique.
  • mkl 5y ago
    That's starting from a point almost at the finish line, with intelligent social dexterous tool-using fire-making apes. Really it took our species about 4 billion years. Every other living species has had just as long, and hasn't developed civilisation. There's every reason to think that the extinct dinosaurs, given 66 million more years, would be like every other non-human species.
    • loonster 5y ago
      That got me wondering how long it took social insects to evolve. Did we have massive colonies 66 million years ago? Appears so. [0] [0] https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/2/406/1054064 https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/32/2/406/1054064
      • airstrike 5y ago
        I'd listen to this thread as a podcast
• greendesk 5y ago
  For us, as intelligent species which have a civilisation, we have: 1. Ability to predict future 2. Language. This enables sharing group knowledge. 3. Abstract ideas. This has overlap to language. 4. Use of tools. The use of tools is relevant to building a civilisation after developing intelligence. To give an example why it matters, reflect how many tools are relevant to us today or centuries ago. For example, which a more efficient transport - an eagle gliding is more efficient than a human walking. But a human using a wheel (bicycle) is more efficient. The use of wheels, controlled fire, stakes, controlled microclimate through clothes derives from the use of tools. Given the above list, we can see that sharks and dolphins do not use tools. They have some use of language and share knowledge. They do not use tools as they are not suited for it in the water. Humans have hands which enable them to operate on multiple surfaces. Perhaps an octopus can developer higher intelligence and a civilisation? Note civilisation requires an intelligence, but it is a superset of intelligence. Note that for any species developing intelligence and civilisation is a very energy consuming process. In a human the brain is a very power-hungry organ. Its purpose is to enable a better survival for the species it operates in. On an evolutionary scale, for humans and mammals, the brain structure we see today developed over multiple millennia - it was not a one-shot change, but going from a local minima to another local minima, if we are using optimisation language. Going back to the octopus - perhaps it’s brain does the job done; now and then an evolutionary change might occur to develop an even more organised brain. If it works for the species, the change propagates. But if the change lowers the survival rate of the octopus due to the higher energy usage or complexity of operating a high brain - then the change will not propagate to next generation. There is a last question, back to the dinosaurs - perhaps there was a civilisation at one of the multiple dinosaur die-offs - but most of its artefacts are wiped out? What evidence do we really have that there was not a civilisation before ours? References: 1. Antonion Damasio. Descartes Error. 2. Adam Frank. Was There a Civilization on Earth Before Humans? https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/557180/ https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/557180/ 3. A book on Aikido, which I cannot find.
  • eesmith 5y ago
    Some dolphins use tools. "In Shark Bay, Western Australia, bottlenose dolphins Tursiops sp. carry conical sponges Echinodictyum mesenterinum on their rostra in the only documented cetacean foraging behaviour using a tool" - https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v444/p143-153/ https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v444/p143-153/ Also, octopuses: "The use of tools has become a benchmark for cognitive sophistication. Originally regarded as a defining feature of our species, tool-use behaviours have subsequently been revealed in other primates and a growing spectrum of mammals and birds [1]. Among invertebrates, however, the acquisition of items that are deployed later has not previously been reported. We repeatedly observed soft-sediment dwelling octopuses carrying around coconut shell halves, assembling them as a shelter only when needed." - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982209019149 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220... Lastly, your terrestrial experience might limit your understanding of what a 'tool' might be: "tool users in water often use other animals (and their products) and water itself as a tool ... Octopodes, as well as squids and cuttlefishes, also use water as a tool for protection by using jets of water to aid in burrowing for camouflage ... Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) singly and collectively expel bubbles to create nets that encircle, contain and concentrate schooling prey for easy gulping " - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2012.0424 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...
• jpm48 5y ago
  If you like SciFi this is a good take on that question. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48643567-the-doors-of-eden https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48643567-the-doors-of...
  • zzedd 5y ago
    also "Evolution" by Steven Baxter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel)
  • xpl 5y ago
    I think you might have confused it with "West of Eden" by Harry Harrison? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_of_Eden
• Daniel_sk 5y ago
  Intelligence and civilisation is not the goal of life or evolution. As long as the species is able to reproduce and is not cornered into a situation that requires adaption (as our predecessors once were) they can stay unchanged or without developing higher intelligence. Intelligence is just another tool that can be used to preserve life.
  • Valakas_ 5y ago
    Intelligence is indeed just one tool. But as we see, maybe one of the best tools after a critical point. So it could be expected that after a while, evolution does converge to create intelligent beings who are able to control the environment and other species and even themselves, and with it, be the most successful of them all.
    • fleddr 5y ago
      Your notion of success is a human one. Evolution doesn't care. When you reproduce before you die, you're successful. Intelligence is in no way the best tool to guarantee reproduction, there's absolutely no inevitability to it. Grass reproduces just fine without intelligence. There's species practically unchanged for hundreds of millions of years. There is no evolutionary plan or roadmap, it's random mutations.
      • dmonitor 5y ago
        Basically every other species reproduces only because we allow them to and it benefits us. If we were ever existentially threatened by a competitor, we would eradicate it from existence before it even became a legitimate threat. Single-cell organisms and viruses are the only things we struggle with totally eliminating for our benefit, but we're working on it.
        • Daniel_sk 5y ago
          Trying to eradicate would change the environment and conditions and would favour species that are resistant to our eradication attempts.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I remember reading an article (probably linked from here), that said that, in a few million years, the only sign of our own civilization would be marbles. It’s not impossible that they did have a civilization, of sorts, and all traces have been wiped.
• cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Dinosaurs survived and are still with us as birds. They didn't evolve "civilization" but some have some intelligence, as we can see with ravens and crows which have complex problem and puzzle solving abilities and complex social structures.
• luxcem 5y ago
  Dinosaurs lived on Earth for about 170 millions years. Homo appeared on earth ~3 millions years ago, it doesnt say that they wouldnt but probably not. Intelligence and civilization is not the pinnacle of evolution considering all the species that lived, live and will live without developing it. It's rather an oddity in the story of life.
  • imbnwa 5y ago
    Simplicity always wins.
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      I'd argue that it's requisite complexity, with a constraint against excessive complexity. Complexity affords efficiency advantages, though usually with a resilience cost. Over the period in which that advantage exists, it's beneficial. A sufficient shock could (and frequently has) greatly negated the benefits of complexity.
      • HPsquared 5y ago
        "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
        • dredmorbius 5y ago
          Einstein. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/ A fave. Several others of similar spirit: Occam's Razor: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint Exupéry Ashby's "Requisite variety" (I'm not aware of a concise or elegant formulation) is another. "This law (of which Shannon's theorem 10 relating to the suppression of noise is a special case) says that if a certain quantity of disturbance is prevented by a regulator from reaching some essential variables, then that regulator must be capable of exerting at least that quantity of selection." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics) It's been adapted as well to a "law of requisite complexity", which effectively states that only complexity can manage complexity, or alternatively, that the complexity of a control system should correspond to the controlled system. See "Complexity and Organization–Environment Relations: Revisiting Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety" by Max Boisot and Bill McKelvey. There's also the phenomenon of vestigal functions in biology, e.g., sightless insects, fish, and animals found in cave environments, and even of eukaryotic organisms in which mitochondria once existed (a near-universal characteristic of eukaryotic life), but have since disappeared. (Their earlier presence can be inferred by relic genetic traces.) These are cases in which a previously evolved capability no longer provides a fitness advantage, and revert, typically through a process of genetic drift. In at least some cases, the mechanism for this appears to be that not having the capability actually affords a fitness benefit. The optical system in animals consumes a substantial fraction of neurological power, and in food-scarce environments in which sight conveys no advantage, the lack of a functioning visual system reduces overall caloric requirements. That is, there is a metabolic energy constraint on fitness and complexity. I'm not aware of a named principle that captures this. And I've suggested a possible heuristic for distinguishing between rare, false (misinnterpreted), and faked (intentionally misleading) phenomena that seems somewhat related, though it's based on perception thresholds: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/874e7c10d09c0139a7e5002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/874e7c10d09c0139a7e5002590d8e...