I’ve been thinking: if evolution is true, why is it that humans are so far advanced past even the most advanced mammals in intelligence? There’s no great buildings erected by simians, or photorealistic art created by whales, or exponentially increasing medicinal breakthroughs helmed by dogs. If all mammals share a common ancestor, we would expect to see a roughly similar level of intelligence development among them all. There are certainly some non-human mammals who are smarter than others, but nowhere near the order of magnitude between humans and the most advanced mammalians.
One could argue that a whale has hugely more advanced intelligence than a paramecium, but I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. A paramecium hardly has resources for intelligence, but whale and elephant brains are huge compared to ours. Many scientists believe brain size can be a decently accurate indicator of intelligence, so what’s up with these lazy beasts? 
One could also argue that our fine motor skills allow us to better express our intelligence, but it wouldn’t be too hard for an elephant to utilize their trunks to make intelligible markings on the ground indicating a language of some sort, or markings indicating abstract mathematical reasoning. Could it be that these creatures are so beyond us that we just don’t comprehend the subtleties of their grand superiority? I doubt it; I’m no Einstein by any stretch of the imagination, but I can appreciate his transcendent intelligence.
Any time I try to put on an evolutionary perspective, I find myself thinking: if this is true, why do I perceive beauty in a sunset, or feel gratitude, or desire meaning and autonomy? You won’t see much discussion of these sorts of questions in Talk Origins and similar evolution apology sites. I wonder why? 
Posted by poppies
