[darawk]

> This argument seems weak to us currently, but further research could resolve these questions in directions that would make it compelling:

> Are individual humans radically superior to apes on particular measures of cognitive ability? What are those measures, and how plausible is it that evolution was (perhaps indirectly) optimizing for them?

Yes, clearly. All the measures defined in this article are arbitrary (e.g. vehicular land speed), and so let's propose an arbitrary one for intelligence: Ability to prove mathematical theorems. Humans have proven many. Apes have proven zero. That is an extreme discontinuity. We can propose many others, of course: complex language development, building skyscrapers, landing on the moon, etc..

> How likely is improvement in individual cognitive ability to account for humans’ radical success over apes? (For instance, compared to new ability to share innovations across the population)

How does human cognitive ability being over-rated counter the discontinuity in intelligence development? Is the argument that our success is due to some other characteristic than intelligence, and so our intelligence is not really that much greater than the apes? If so, that's just a restatement of point 1.

[Qwertious]

>Yes, clearly. All the measures defined in this article are arbitrary (e.g. vehicular land speed), and so let's propose an arbitrary one for intelligence: Ability to prove mathematical theorems. Humans have proven many. Apes have proven zero. That is an extreme discontinuity. We can propose many others, of course: complex language development, building skyscrapers, landing on the moon, etc..

That's at least partially explained culturally - pressure to go attent university leads to more exposure to mathematics and stuff.

Also, how do you actually know that gorillas haven't proven mathematical formulas? I mean, they don't have writing so perhaps there were gorilla mathematicians before, they just weren't recorded.

[sampo]

> let's propose an arbitrary one for intelligence: Ability to prove mathematical theorems

The number of mathematical theorems proven by humankind has progressed in a continuous manner (as much as a quantity measured by integer numbers can) during history.

[paganel]

That only says something about maths, not about humans. For comparison, you could say that the number of literary masterpieces has been increased at what looks to be random intervals for the last 2 or 3 millennia, with no continuous progress in sight (i.e. the Spanish language has not had a new Cervantes for 400 years, the same applies to Skakespeare and the English language or to Dante and Italian). But this being an website mostly addressed to people who focus on technical stuff I expect a reply like “literature doesn’t count, it’s just words”.

[simonh]

Despite us starting with the simplest theorems and progressing to significantly harder and harder ones over time? Wow. That’s actually very impressive.