101–110 of 155 posts
One theory why primates evolved big brains is because they had hands. Big brains for an animal like a gazelle don’t pay off because, without hands, there isn’t much a gazelle can do with that big brain. Better it use that energy for bigger leg muscles. Primates evolves hands so they could better grasp branches, but, once they had hands, there was a lot more they could do with them, like make tools. A bigger brain for…
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Does it? For us, certainly, but put all land-life on a scales and all sea-life on the other side and it'd most certainly tip to the sea-side.
You're probably right if you look at the mere amount of bio mass. I'd wager you're wrong if you look at the complexity & general level of activity of life forms. Unless you find a way to efficiently get the oxygen out of the water and to deal with water pressure, I think most life forms are better off on land.
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Maybe they came from a gas planet and they came to invade the deep sea because that's what home looks like. Unfortunately, these super intelligent beings failed to understand that, on Earth, most of the fun happens on land.
Does it? For us, certainly, but put all land-life on a scales and all sea-life on the other side and it'd most certainly tip to the sea-side.
They divide biomass up into three environments, with 6 Gt C in "marine", 70 Gt C in "deep subsurface" and 470 Gt C in "terrestrial". You can also see in their analysis that the huge biomass bias towards the land is due to plants and fungi, which overwhelmingly favour the land; among animals there is actually more biomass in the oceans.
Octopuses are really incredible creatures. They diverged from humans in the evolutionary tree hundreds of millions of years ago. Our common ancestor would have been a very dumb animal. Their brain structure is so different: 8 semi-autonomous tentacles, with one sort of central coordinating body. What could it possibly be like to experience the world that way? They're probably the "peak" of intelligence with the most…
> 8 semi-autonomous tentacles, with one sort of central coordinating body. What could it possibly be like to experience the world that way? Humans have two semi-autonomous brain hemispheres, each with a slightly different personality.
I sometimes think the account of evolution of man you tend to get in popular science writing may have things backwards - it tend to be our ancestors got good at hunting which allowed us to evolve larger brains but I'd imagine it was quite likely that a random mutation made our ancestors smarter first, then there were behaviour changes then we evolved some superficial changes such as changes in size and shape of some parts.
There must be a lot of luck involved in getting the right DNA sequence to produce the right neural structures to get a smart creature. I mean lots of dedicated computer scientists are trying to hook up artificial neural networks to make them smart and are yet to get something with the general problem solving ability of an octopus I think. Maybe evolution only hits on a working sequence occasionally by chance and cert…
One theory why primates evolved big brains is because they had hands. Big brains for an animal like a gazelle don’t pay off because, without hands, there isn’t much a gazelle can do with that big brain. Better it use that energy for bigger leg muscles. Primates evolves hands so they could better grasp branches, but, once they had hands, there was a lot more they could do with them, like make tools. A bigger brain for…
Well I think the bigger issue for gazelles is energy density period - brains are calorie hogs and it doesn't take much cunning to track down grass. Grass eating is the opposite direction in a food strategy - going for abundant but low density food instead of chasing higher density. A diverse diet is a bit of a hallmark of intelligence in itself in that they are able to use their brains to get more food to make it wor…
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Not sure why you got down voted. The ‘why’ does prejudice a creator :) It also assumes free will in asking the quesiton.
I wasn't thinking about the question of a creator, per se . I was thinking generally about the fallacy of seeking intentionality in evolution. There is a point to analyzing what happened, of course. It's just that too much "why" is dangerous.
Why ("how come")? Is a legitimate question, though. What selective pressure is there in the environment that would lead to dumber octopuses dying off while smarter ones thrive?
There must be a lot of luck involved in getting the right DNA sequence to produce the right neural structures to get a smart creature. I mean lots of dedicated computer scientists are trying to hook up artificial neural networks to make them smart and are yet to get something with the general problem solving ability of an octopus I think. Maybe evolution only hits on a working sequence occasionally by chance and cert…
It's not luck, it's time. Evolution occurs so extraordinarily slowly, it's hard to comprehend. People are trying to create intelligence a million times faster than evolution did.
One theory why primates evolved big brains is because they had hands. Big brains for an animal like a gazelle don’t pay off because, without hands, there isn’t much a gazelle can do with that big brain. Better it use that energy for bigger leg muscles. Primates evolves hands so they could better grasp branches, but, once they had hands, there was a lot more they could do with them, like make tools. A bigger brain for…
So, yeah octopodes are really cool, but it's not correct to say that octopodes evolves intelligence and chromo-camouflage in some sort of direct way because they needed to become intelligent: what would have happened was over a very long time, certain families or society started being born with more than above intelligence, which allowed them to get better access to food and mates, which meant they were fitter, which meant they may pass on their advantageous traits their children, who would carry it on the their children etc.
Evolution doesn't happen "because" of something. Wales didn't evolve into marine mammals because they needed more food. Yes, they needed more food but their evolution just randomly moved their species towards the water.
For example a terrestrial wale may have been born with the ability to hold its breath, just by chance. Eventually every terrestrial wale has inherited that ability, and then the process repeats, with another mutant wale evolving thicker blubber which would allow it to obtain more food, spend longer in the water end pass on their trait for blubber.