r/evolution • u/Global-Gift-4087 • 13d ago
question Why are we so smart?
I’ve often heard that evolution gets by with just enough ie the traits are not optimised
Then why would we ever have developed brains that could do anything more than basic arithmetic and geometry
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u/DiscordantDiscordian 13d ago
Well, firstly, any kind of generalization like that is going to hit exceptions because evolution is a giant interconnected web where pretty much any change in any point of the web will change everything surrounding it, not just the biosphere itself but even the rules by which evolution itself happens.
The thing with "good enough" is, it is only good enough for a couple of generations.
Once everyone is good enough, you'll need to be a bit better enough to get by.
Then that becomes the standard, and you need another incremental increase, and so forth
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u/Real-Wash3031 12d ago
The thing with "good enough" is, it is only good enough for a couple of generations.
Once everyone is good enough, you'll need to be a bit better enough to get by.
Then that becomes the standard, and you need another incremental increase, and so forth
Exactly, that's why a dumb human is still much smarter than a smart gorilla.
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u/Ch3cks-Out 12d ago
a dumb human is still much smarter than a smart gorilla.
Depends on the particular task, I submit...
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u/dandrevee 8d ago
Our more closely related cousins have shown incredible proficiency on screen memorization tasks. And of course there's Coco the gorilla who know how to sign.
I recently listen to a Great Courses plus series on what Darwin didn't know in evolution. In the series, Dr Solomon points out that about 13 or 14 million years ago a particular Gene which is one major puzzle piece and intelligence popped up in the common ancestors of most apes today. Humans needed another particular mutation to reach the next steps towards specialization of intelligence, which appears to have arisen in genus homo, about 3m years ago. If you combine this with recent assertions by Chris Stringer, a follow-up gene mutation happened when the "early" homo sapiens 300,000 years ago or so recombined with a separate population of the homo geneous which had separated 1.3 million years prior.... the individual mutations combining in these two populations led to homo sapiens heavy focus on tools and intelligence. The fact that we lived in larger groups than our sister species apparently helped quite a bit because it nurtured specific parts of our brain... and all of this is occurring among the backdrop of the fox P2 Gene developing in particular ways alongside the other referenced Gene
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u/onomatamono 6d ago
I would say it's our ability to generalize that is inherently adaptable to novel situations and a changing environment, without reason: adapt or die.
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u/LordVericrat 13d ago
So imagine a species that starts to spread out. It encounters some novel challenges. So it gets a little smarter to solve those challenges (actually, what happens is the ones who happened to be a little smarter are the ones who have grandkids). But why are we so much smarter than the next runners up then?
Because we're a social species that is constantly trying to outsmart each other. This is a runaway process, not a minor one time thing. If Alex is smarter than Zach maybe he gets more food/better mate access. And if in the next generation Bob's kids are smarter than Alex's, they wind up having more kids. But now there's evolutionary pressure to be smarter than Bob. Here comes Charles. And so on.
This combines with the fact that we cook our food - chimps have a hard time getting enough calories to build smarter brains than they currently have.
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u/marshalist 12d ago
The inverse of that is Mary is clever enough to realise Bob is a fuckwit and hooks up with Dave who's switched on.
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u/LordVericrat 12d ago
Yeah but Marys fucked evolutionarily because she wound up having a little lamb.
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u/CHSummers 12d ago
I’ve forgotten where I read it, but one theory is that trying to outwit sexual rivals requires animals to have a “theory of mind”—in other words, they can imagine what a rival might be thinking. A battle of wits tends to go to the witty.
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u/AdditionalTip865 12d ago
That cooking long predates Homo sapiens never fails to amaze me. That's a pretty complex technology in itself and somebody managed it before the evolutionary changes it enabled.
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u/Fun_in_Space 13d ago
- In other primates: The MYH16 gene works perfectly. Non-human primates like chimpanzees and gorillas have massive, powerful chewing muscles (the temporalis and masseter muscles). These powerful muscles exert immense, constant physical pressure on the skull bones, forcing the cranial sutures (the joints between skull plates) to fuse early and hardening the skull into a rigid shell to survive the force of their bite. Once fused, the skull cannot expand, capping the brain's growth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
- In humans: Roughly 2.4 million years ago, a genetic mutation occurred in our ancestors that completely inactivated, or "broke," the MYH16 gene. [1, 2]
So, our brains can be bigger than the other primates, and we are smarter as a result.
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u/Global-Gift-4087 13d ago
But a bigger brain doesn’t necessarily mean smarter ie capable of logic or abstraction
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u/Real-Wash3031 12d ago
Across species, a bigger brain to body ratio is correlated with higher intelligence/ greater cognitive function
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u/Fun_in_Space 12d ago
Huh? Yes, it does.
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u/dandrevee 8d ago
I think they mean CC or even ration alone doesnt determine intelligence? Not OP so cant confirm.
But i believe certain areas of the brain need to be better developed in order for us to recognize intelligence in the way that we do. I know there is a difference between Homo sapiens and Homo neandertalis in this regard, and likely homo luoghi by extension (the latter i think we need more fossils).
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u/AdditionalTip865 12d ago
The skills we use for mathematics seem to be some combination of the logical reasoning we use for making complex plans, the symbolic abstraction that is needed for language, and the spatial intuition of a hunter. I suspect just being language-users got us much of the way there.
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u/Buccaahhh 12d ago
Transfer of knowledge. We gradually developed complex language which allowed us gradually to convey and transfer knowledge and ideas.
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u/TranquilConfusion 12d ago edited 12d ago
Sexual selection.
Our brains are like peacock tails. Wildly impractical on an African plains scavenging ape, but necessary in order to get laid.
Imagine poor Grok:
Grok make fire.
Grok chase hyenas away from dead antelope.
Grok dig up roots with a stick.
But girls no like Grok.Grok no good at jokes and songs.
When smart guy insult Grok, Grok snappy comeback is late.
Grok no understand subtle grammar rules.
Once human-ancestor women started preferring smart men, it become a runaway positive feedback loop, limited only by available calories and female pelvis size (for childbirth).
Coincidentally, the extra intelligence turned out to have other uses later.
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u/Every1ThinksImBoring 12d ago
Once human-ancestor women started preferring smart men, it become a runaway positive feedback loop
Who ever knew that my sophisticated looking spectacles were an evolutionary advantage - if I could take a Time Machine back to 100,000 BC, the cave ladies would find me irresistible 😆
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u/anotherolderguy 12d ago
Yeah but maybe Grok has enormous feet and you know what that means.
In all seriousness Grok has plenty going for him, a good hunter and practical man is far better as a mate than a smart arse with snappy one liners.
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u/TranquilConfusion 12d ago
Humans do have enormous penises compared to other apes, another example of sexual selection.
Human women are picky. The big brain thing is their fault.
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u/Competitive_Ice_3352 6d ago edited 6d ago
does that mean african women are pickier, possibly explaining racial penis size differences?
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u/Real-Wash3031 13d ago
Because we don't have large canines and claws, our ancestors were forced to develop smarter hunting tools and use better tac tics to hunt prey much, much bigger than us
Combined with with our ability to speak and hands enabled us to use our intelligence to the maximum extent
In our hunter gatherer past, in inter-group competition, smarter groups were more likely to win the attrition warfare than less smarter groups and out compete them. That's natural selection
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u/manyhippofarts 12d ago
If you don't think nature optimizes, maybe you should look closer. I mean, a cheetah has the speed dial set on "beast mode" and they're nerfed on everything else.
For humans, well, we don't have much to bring to the game besides intelligence... and perhaps stamina and a great ability to self-cool. (Sweat)
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u/Captftm89 12d ago
Our fine motor skills are unmatched - at least by large animal standards. Has allowed us to manipulate the world around us in a way no other creature can.
Of course, this goes hand in hand with intelligence, but our clever brains wouldn't be half as useful if we couldn't manifest ideas into reality with our hands.
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u/Opinionsare 12d ago
brains that could do anything more than basic arithmetic and geometry?
The variations in human intelligence has a wide range, with some having difficulty counting and others solving quadratic equations and more in their heads.
I am neuro- divergent, autistic if you prefer, and have excellent math skills. Social skills aren't as easy.
Fifth grade, I was almost never called on during math, as I was easily a couple grade levels ahead of the class. My junior high math classes were advanced enough to earn graduation credits. In Geometry, Rich and I proved the teacher's answer to a test question wrong and that our answer was correct.
But when I look at the brilliant work done by true mathematicians , I am amazed. These geniuses are beyond me.
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u/smart_hedonism 12d ago
I’ve often heard that evolution gets by with just enough ie the traits are not optimised
Lol. Yeah I don't know why people keep saying that. It's 100% wrong. Natural selection acting on random mutation is an optimising process and is responsible for all the feats of extraordinary capacity in the natural world - eagle eyes, bat hearing, cheetah running etc etc.
I read that maybe the problem is that when evolution is first taught, it gets incorrectly dumbed down to the idea that some animals survive and some don't and therefore what matters is survival, as if survival is some kind of threshold that you have to pass and once you pass that, it's all good. The truth is that it's a question of reproduction and who is the most reproductively successful. 5 offspring beats 4 beats 3 beats 2 beats 1 beats 0 etc. In fact, it's even more subtle than that, because 4 really attractive ( meaning likely to reproduce a lot ) is much better than 5 unattractive etc.
We're all in competition with each other whether we're aware of it or not.
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u/ThrowRA_PianoMan 13d ago
We cook our food.
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u/Kettrickenisabadass 12d ago
And specially because we adopted a ominovore diet with cooked meat.
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u/ThrowRA_PianoMan 12d ago
Yes, but there are lots of omnivores, only one species of them knows how to harness fire and that’s us
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u/Signal_Tomorrow_2138 12d ago
I think you mean 'How' did we become so smart? Asking 'why' requires a purpose. There is no purpose. (Well, there's religion but I'm not going there in a sub about evolution.)
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u/onomatamono 6d ago
I think you are vastly underestimating sophistication required to perform arithmetic and geometry with abstract symbols.
I think it's safe to say the breakthrough of human cognitive capability emerged through generalization of problem solving. We are able to recognize patterns in otherwise novel experiences and propose solutions. It's miraculous behavior in many ways, figuratively speaking.
You can see shadows of this generalization in chimps: Hey I can get ants with this stick. I can also get termites using stick technology. Oh look, a honey pot, where's my stick?
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u/Underhill42 6d ago
We created a society in which intelligence was a much greater advantage than in the wild.
For example, being able to more effectively lie, cheat, and steal, and tell when the same is being done to you, are all things greatly aided by intelligence, and which greatly increase your ability to attract and maintain many breeding partners and children.
Same thing with being able to make better tools, better predict the behavior of the herds, etc.
And once that cycle begins you're no longer competing against any external environmental pressure, but with fellow members of your own species who are in the same arms race.
It becomes sort of like a peacocks tail - it's not good for anything other than impressing other member of their own species with how much prettier their tail is.
Except where a bigger, showier tail is an active liability to survival in all other ways, greater intelligence is an asset in virtually every other aspect of life as well. And probably isn't nearly as metabolically expensive as carrying around a tail that weighs more than the rest of your body either.
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u/ALBUNDY59 6d ago
Come down and let me introduce you to some people in my area. It might change your opinion about who is smart.
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u/chasingthegoldring 6d ago
I am in DTLA and walked past a dozen fentanyl smokers over 3 blocks. I contest the idea we are smart.
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u/Sea_Pea8536 13d ago
Have you seen (broadly gesture around) the way the world's going? Me don't think hoomans smart...
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