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This is a common misconception about evolution and natural selection [1]. Evolution doesn't have an "arrow", or direction, and it doesn't necessarily lead to any kind of improvements at all. Natural selection merely means that the least healthy individuals of a species will be less likely to pass on their genes. Intelligence likewise will not necessarily be put to any kind of use at all. The evolution of human intelligence is still a delightfully big, open question in science, but the current thinking is converging on it being, well, as Bob Ross might have put it, a "happy little accident". Researchers have been able to track the development of the human brain through the varying sizes of a hole in fossilized hominid skulls [2]. Brains are massive caloric sinks and require a lot of food, rich in animal fats, to be able to develop. [3] Meanwhile, just a short time ago in evolutionary terms, humans accidentally developed the ability to digest milk into adulthood [4], and we got overall bigger, stronger, and healthier -- but our hungry brains also got a new source of nutrients. The jury is still out on exactly what evolutionary advantage our brains confer, if any [5]. So, it is possible that human-level intelligence is not an evolutionary advantage at all. There are after all numerous species at the top of their respective food chains, evolving much more slowly, that could be considered successful in evolutionary terms. And, given the caloric requirements of large brains and the unclear advantages that they produce, they could maybe be viewed as a disadvantage. If we were to view brains as, well, a kind of tumor of sorts, that will simply grow and develop depending on caloric availability, then perhaps humans developed agriculture because our brains were hungry and civilization because our brains got bored, and all of this was only possible because we accidentally developed the ability to digest lactose as adults, and none of it is a necessary consequence of evolution at all. This btw is one of the major components to my favorite answer for the Fermi Paradox. [1]: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq... [2]: http://theconversation.com/how-our-species-got-smarter-throu... [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sorry... (I don't love the headline on this article, but the content is okay.) [4]: https://slate.com/technology/2012/10/evolution-of-lactose-to... [5]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/the-evolutionary-mys... |