How come we are so smart?

[DrPizza]

Dolphins are pretty smart. They work together to get food. They have plenty of time for leisurely activities. They beat the shit out of sharks if the sharks are bothering them. They have sex for pleasure.

And they don't spend 10 hours a day, 6 days a week working in a cubicle, getting paid for 40 hours of work because they're salaried employees; and being stressed out at work all the time, then have to fight through rush hour traffic to get to their little apartment they share with a roommate they don't get along with.

I'd say that makes dolphins a little smarter than some humans.

 

[mmntech]

I get the whole evolution thing...still doesn't make sense since we've only been here a short time.

As an individual species yes, but homo as a distinct genus has been around for 2.5 million years. Great apes have been around about 15 million years.

 

[Mayne]

Dolphins are pretty smart. They work together to get food. They have plenty of time for leisurely activities. They beat the shit out of sharks if the sharks are bothering them. They have sex for pleasure.

And they don't spend 10 hours a day, 6 days a week working in a cubicle, getting paid for 40 hours of work because they're salaried employees; and being stressed out at work all the time, then have to fight through rush hour traffic to get to their little apartment they share with a roommate they don't get along with.

I'd say that makes dolphins a little smarter than some humans.

yet we catch them in nets and eat them..well atleast the japanese. How smart can that be?

 

[brianmanahan]

consider the ant, you sluggard

 

[Mayne]

consider the ant, you sluggard

call me a sluggard and I will call you a dullard.

 

[MongGrel]

its called forum evolution.

I'm just going to go back to nuking you off the bat whenever I see you do this at the present rate.

 

[Mayne]

I'm just going to go back to nuking you off the bat whenever I see you do this at the present rate.

you do that dude. I've never seen you actually contribute to a thread since I joined up.

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[MongGrel]

you do that dude. I've never seen you actually contribute to a thread since I joined up.

Whatever floats your boat.

You must be too busy lurking in your own threads, then.

 

[Mayne]

You must be to busy lurking in your own, then.

You live in an delusional world where you think people give a good god damn.

I know my world. I pity you man.

 

[Mayne]

I didn't mean that Mongrel.

 

[bradly1101]

It doesn't take smarts to destroy a planet, just ingenuity, which we share with so many species.

 

[Mayne]

It doesn't take smarts to destroy a planet, just ingenuity, which we share with so many species.

what species? I'm really curious.,

 

[brianmanahan]

call me a sluggard and I will call you a dullard.

that job is already taken: http://forums.anandtech.com/member.php?u=53570

 

[highland145]

We ate the competition.

 

[Ruptga]

Oh wait I know this. Because we have veterans.

Once we had people living long enough to pass on knowledge effectively it was only a matter of time until that snowballed.

 

[bradly1101]

what species? I'm really curious.,

Have you ever seen a bird build an intricate home fifty feet up a tree? Have you ever seen a chimpanzee use a stick to extract insects from a nest? Or watched a chameleon blend into its surroundings? A whale communicating with its pod? I think it's all ingenious.

One thing that separates us is our mastery of materials, but look what we've done with that. We're paving over the earth and blowing pollution out of the backs of vehicles and airplanes because we want to travel in comfort. I saw a report on the evening news that showed how they're tracking pollution from Asia and believe it is worsening storms in the U.S., who set the standard. At least our mastery of materials gave us phones to stare at, conquering boredom with noise rather than peace, when boredom is just one judgement away from true serenity, so we never find it. Smart?

Another thing that separates us is language, or rather how we interpret it. The cat growls at another cat; the message is "go away." Was that effective communication? There are creatures in the ocean that communicate with luminescence, how ingenious and well spoken! Clearly we aren't the only ones that communicate. And when we do all I usually hear or overhear is gossip. "Who's stupid now, why won't she do that..." It's inane.

I'm a hypocrite though. I have a car, a phone and I'm typing this on a PC with all its plastic, oil derived parts. I could eschew the trappings of modern society, or just embrace that day down the road when I get to give it all up.

 

[Nograts]

You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals

 

[utahraptor]

This wiki explains a lot of the competing theories regarding the evolution of intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_human_intelligence

 

[John Connor]

Why is every other animal not smart? Pretty sure we haven't been on earth as long as some other animals. Why?

A very smart human named Michelangelo back in October of 1511 painted it.

Now the idiots WILL chime in.

 

[Ruptga]

Now the idiots WILL chime in.

LOL!

Idiots in glass houses, and all that.

 

[Jeff7]

Why is every other animal not smart? Pretty sure we haven't been on earth as long as some other animals. Why?

Nature had a little runaway accident.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[bradly1101]

The main difference I see between humans and 'lesser' animals is that they figured out how to fill their niches without destroying their own environment. We've been doing that since the Pleistocene Epoch where it is widely believed that we hunted the mega-fauna to extinction.

We have entered the 'Anthropocene.' (Cue scary music)

 

[Ruptga]

^^

It's a bit of a stretch to say that they "figured out" how to coexist. Completely natural forces result in extinctions all the time, and sometimes they also cause the death of almost everything on the planet while simultaneously triggering a 300 million year ice age.

I'm not trying to handwave our problems away, we have some big ones, but what harmony exists in nature does so because of luck and evolutionary processes, not because the natural way of things is inherently better.

 

[Sulaco]

The main difference I see between humans and 'lesser' animals is that they figured out how to fill their niches without destroying their own environment. We've been doing that since the Pleistocene Epoch where it is widely believed that we hunted the mega-fauna to extinction.

We have entered the 'Anthropocene.' (Cue scary music)

Ugh.

"bradly", learn some actual science and biology and stop parroting "what's in your heart!" and how Fern Gully made you feel.
Your posts are such painfully naive drivel and oversimplified, childlike frustration.

 

[Muse]

The main difference I see between humans and 'lesser' animals is that they figured out how to fill their niches without destroying their own environment. We've been doing that since the Pleistocene Epoch where it is widely believed that we hunted the mega-fauna to extinction.

We have entered the 'Anthropocene.' (Cue scary music)

Yes, this reads like it was lifted verbatim from the book I just finished within the last 12 hours, The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Kolbert's take (and the book is in essence a collection of ideas learned from of dozens and dozens of experts in fields related to the book's subject matter), is that man's ability to think was a result of some chance genetic mutation. It's not clear that the Neanderthals were not intelligent, but the record does not support the notion that they were as brainy as we. They were around for over 100,000 years and their tools evidently did not evolve, according to the archeological evidence.