> or because intelligence actually has a hard time surviving in nature. Alas, I can't find it now... there was a book that I read (Bear / Brin / Benford as the

> or because intelligence actually has a hard time surviving in nature. Alas, I can't find it now... there was a book that I read (Bear / Brin / Benford as the author I believe... maybe Baxter... one of the great Bs I'm sure of) about the matrilineal line from a small shrew like animal in the time of the dinosaurs through neanderthals to modern times... and beyond. Part of the "and beyond" was the theme that intelligence and our brain is an extremely expensive organ to maintain (our brain consumes about 20% of the calories that we consume a day https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC124895/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC124895/ ). After some catastrophe that reduces the energy budget that animals can use... well, intelligence is one of the things to go. (Late edit: It was Baxter - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel) )