JACKAL & HYDE wrote:We've got to keep this going to 100 pages... lol
So, (totally unbiased here) the Earth is naturally the exact right distance from the sun to create life in this solar system. And so, everything has been evolving naturally for millions of years including 3,000,000 different types of animals that have been here for the exact same time as us from the mammal to the pond creature.
But somehow, we humans are soley flying around in Space Shuttles and playing Xbox but the other 3 MILLION + animals are no where near comparison even though we've all been "evolving" at the same time together.
That, is a fucking miracle even by sciences most crucial standards. 1 in 3 million with 10 million years to "evolve together" yet nothing...
Talk about a "Miracle"... That in itself is the biggest one of all and its as real as a 4th grade science class.
OK, consider what you need to make a complex society: intelligence, communication skills and the ability to make tools (notably fire). These things would be developed together, as there is evolutionary advantage to having a large brain unless you’re using it.
Insect anatomy simply doesn’t allow complex nervous systems. Marine life generally doesn’t have the limbs to make complex tools (fire is certainly out of the question). Dolphins, of course are very intelligent and social creatures, but they can’t form tools, so there is simply no advantage for them to evolve further mentally. Birds, of course need their fore limps for flying.
This basically leaves mammals. Solitary animals won’t have developed the communication necessary, hooved animals are out of it on the tool thing again. So we’re left with land based, pack animals with the necessary dexterity to create tools- Primates.
Now the theory is that Neanderthals weren’t our ancestors, but branched off further up the tree and evolved independently. They just lost out in the fight for resources to the more advanced humans (or whatever we were at the time). They may have been killed off by us deliberately, the jury is still out on that. If we weren’t here, it would probably be them in our place.
The point is, the conditions must be right for intelligent life to evolve. Why would Lions get smarter and smarter with each generation? All it needs to do is hunt down it’s pray. The strongest and fastest are the survivors. Some primates however developed the ability to manipulate their environment and the social skills needed to pass on this information on to it’s young. It’s those most apt at this that were successful. And it's from this point that real intelligence started to evolve.
Does this help? More importantly, are we nearly there yet?