I see the quotation marks, but we haven't. We've evolved a 'different' species. The human brain is so large that giving birth to a child is dangerous to the female body (not so much with modern medicine) and the child is fairly immobile and completely dependent on its caretakers for the longest time. That's a big flaw.FAUST.DTC wrote:Something that puzzles me is how human evolution is so drastically advanced compared to other animals. How have we managed to evolve in to such a 'superior' species
We've been around 200 thousand years. Most species of animal around today have been around for much longer.. modern lions have been around for over a million years if I recall correctly.FAUST.DTC wrote:but why havnt we then evolved into a new form in such a long time?
Why haven't we changed? Well we don't have to. We're doing well. Evolution is a continuous process, but speciation isn't. Speciation works in drastic steps after long times of inactivity. We don't have to change because we're not being weeded out by nature. In fact, we're incredibly successful. Look at sponges, for example. Been around since the Cambrian. Almost unchanged.
Edit: Read this article for more on this. This occurrence is called Punctuated equilibrium and this is the first time I managed to spell it flawlessly.
We're very, very, very inefficient animals. Horses only need to sleep for 2 or 3 hours per night because their brains don't need as much energy, for example. Many animals could evolve human type hyper-intelligence, but they're not because being an intelligent human means a lot of sacrifices in strength and other things.FAUST.DTC wrote:What is stopping other animals from mentally evolving into an advanced species like us.
For example... there's this type of diving bird, forgot what its called. Its extant (still living) ancestors flew to an isolated group of islands a couple of hundred thousand years ago. There were no predators on that island and they were capable of diving, so with time, they lost their flight muscles. Why? Because muscles require tons of energy. Chicks that didn't have to develop a flight mechanism could use the energy into growing up faster (not consciously) rather than developing flight muscles and since there were no predators there, they didn't need to fly away to stay alive. So while 'flight' is generally perceived as a 'superior trait', it's not when your survival doesn't depend on it and then it becomes a hindrance.
Imagine those flight muscles being our brain. When you don't _need_ them to survive, you won't have. Evolution will never add anything that isn't needed and will get rid of anything that isn't needed. No other animal needs it. We did. And in, let's say, antelopes, having that huge brain means being immobile for a long time after birth because the antelopes would have a bigger head. That makes them more vulnerable to predators for a longer time after birth and thus less likely to survive and thus, less likely to pass on that larger brain to the next generation.
Edit: ugh, I'm so unstructured.
Big up Douglas Adams.
