Intelligent Evolution

In examination of the dominant intelligent species of this planet, it seems that certain abilities and attributes are always associated with them:

Bipedal Movement - The ability to walk on two legs is essentially necessary to free the forelimbs, allowing further development into hands rather than paws.

Manipulative Hands - The ability to grasp and manipulate objects, and ultimately their environment is an obvious requirement for any intelligent species to evolve.

Objects require hands and the use of an opposing digit or thumb. To be of maximum use, the thumbs tip should be able to touch the tip of the other digits on the hand. This ability leads to greater co-ordination and an increased ability to interact with the environment.

Sensitive nerve endings or touch pads at the finger tips also lead to greater dexterity and further awareness. They allow the brain to process and obtain a greater understanding of the object and the environment being manipulated.

Binocular Vision - This refers to the ability to direct both eyes simultaneously at an object. The importance of this ability for the growth of the brain, is that it allows a better judgement of distance, invaluable for hand eye coordination, leaping and throwing. It also stimulates the three-dimensional thought and nerve centres of the brain.

When you couple binocular vision with dextrous manipulating hands, and three dimensional thought, you not only have the tools considered necessary for the basic development of intelligence, but you also gain a massive evolutionary advantage, and the ability to manipulate the world around you.

Sociability - Intelligent beings must, by way of definition, also be sociable. Intelligence forms and evolves from the ability to communicate with other intelligent beings, providing an environment for collective learning. The more sociable animals are, and the more able they are to interfere with and transform their environment, the more intelligent they become.

Sociable animals also parent their offspring, providing a massive advantage with regards to survival of the species. By both protecting the offspring in the most vulnerable stages of its development, and imparting knowledge by way of communication and learned behavioural patterns, a parented animal has a far greater chance of survival, and a head start on the intellectual ladder of evolution.

Diet - Diet also plays a large part in intelligence. Meat, being concentrated protein, is an important factor in the development of intelligence. Meat eaters need less bulky food and thus require far less time eating it. This allows more ‘thinking time’, enabling the creature to become more cultural and inventive. Grassers and herbivores spend virtually all their time eating, leaving little time to evolve elsewhere.

Warm Blooded - As intelligence increases so to does brain size, Marsh's Law dictates that brains grow from generation to generation in warm blooded animals. A crocodile of today has the same brain volume as a comparable sized ancestor from 200 million years ago, whereas a modern cat with the same body size as a sabre-toothed tiger of only 30 million years ago has twice the brain volume.

Aggressive Dominance - (to be completed)

In summation it seems then that intelligent earthly beings are bipedal, have an erect stance; are equipped with grasping hands having sensitive fingers and opposable thumbs; are equipped with binocular vision; own a large brain; are sociable and therefore have some form of parental guidance in childhood; are able to communicate; have aggressive tendencies.

It obvious from the above descriptions that humans satisfies all of these criteria, and that other animals perceived to have a degree of intelligence also share many of these qualities. So with regards to evolution, lets go back in time millions of years to see if there were any other creatures that fulfilled these criteria for an intelligent being…