[dmitriy_ko]

It could be that dolphins are smarter than humans. Dolphins didn't build civilization, but it could be because they don't have flexible enough limbs for tool making. Maybe humans just got lucky with a combination of relatively high intelligence, language and flexible limbs.

[hyperpallium2]

oblig DNA

  Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than dolphins because he has achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But, conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.

[zw123456]

They used to be land mammals. Maybe they had a civilization, but they ruined the climate with it, then evolved to be sea mammals but kept their intelligence? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis

[alchemist1e9]

Yes! another fan of the Silurian hypothesis. I know most dismiss it but there really are oddities in the geological record that are somewhat consistent with it.

[MattPalmer1086]

Do you have any references to these oddities? Always fun to think about things like this, but can't find much about it.

[zw123456]

Agree. No proof, I know, but such an interesting idea to think about!

[upwardbound]

Also you can't make fire underwater (setting aside elements like potassium that aren't readily obtainable in large quantities the way wood and coal are). This makes it a lot more difficult for an aquatic species to have an Industrial Revolution. I guess in theory you could burn aquatic plants like kelp, and burn them at the surface, building 2D floating factories at the surface of the ocean, but this sounds vastly more difficult than what we humans did. You'd have trouble finding enough kelp to burn, and the waves of the ocean would mean that your factories couldn't be on a stable foundation. I suspect you'd also have trouble making a spark for ignition, and you might have to be very patient and wait for a lightning strike or something.

[aszantu]

I wonder if we could help them by giving them artificial hands like the ones they are testing with apes