Ask HN: Why do we think that “humans are the most evolved of 'all' animals”?
Could it not be possible that snakes are evolved and are evolving to be the best venom producers? Elephants are evolved and evolving to become the biggest bodied organic creatures? Etc.
Not that I am trying to assign a life purpose to the animals or to humans, but just a question I'd in my mind.
I agree that humans might be most evolved to make use of the logical brain, but isn't it the humans themselves who have given so much importance to logic.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 16.8 ms ] threadI would think, if "most evolved" with no other information was used, some type of bacteria or small, rapidly breeding being would vastly be "most evolved". As evolution is merely about change over time, the number of iterations would be all that matters, I would think?
I know nothing of the scientific terms backing any of this, so perhaps there are measurable scientific methods for determining "most evolved". But I suspect it is a common, mostly useless term.
Also, if we can't perceive or measure any sort of higher order being, we're going to think we're at the top of the food chain. We can speculate, but never get any solid facts.
The one thing that humans have evolved, over and above the other living things, is the ability to abstract solutions to our evolutionary shortcomings.
For example, we can't breathe under water. But we can create the machinery that mines the materials needed to create that machinery (nice pseudo chicken-egg cycle) that creates the scuba gear and processes for filling them with breathable air (diluted with helium or other inert gas to lower the risk of "the bends"), and then using that gear to protect our skin (outerwear), swim faster (flippers) and breathe without gills (tanks and breathing apparatus).
There are other tool-using animals out there. But they are at the first step of tool usage, and lacking the layers of abstraction our tools employ.
We humans are less evolved for certain tasks than groups of other life. But we are more highly evolved in that ability to abstract our knowledge of other animal traits (flight, burrowing, erecting walls or damns, etc) and create things that accomplish those evolved traits for us.
EDIT: Helium. Not ozone.
You are right, however, that ozone was the wrong gas of choice. I meant helium.
More seriously, "most" implies a direction that we conveniently orient in ways that make humans seem superior. In my experience, linguists are particularly guilty of this type of thinking -- language is something that 'only' humans can do. What, prairie dogs can communicate semantic content using their voice? Hold on while I move the goalposts...
You can say most intelligent, probably, you can measure other stuff... but what does "most evolved" mean? Most DNA changes since the primordial soup? I doubt we win on that.
I'm not trying to belittle the asker here, I know "most evolved" is something of a trope. It's just one that's meaningless IMHO.
So, maybe you can only fairly compare the degree of evolution between members of the same species functioning in generally the same environment and competing for generally the same resources.
However, that doesn't mean that we should consider ourselves superior to other animals. It doesn't give us the right to destroy the plant and put other living being into factory farms.
We are probably also the species most capable of alienation and getting totally lost in the symbols we invent, taking them more seriously than what they're supposed to represent. Since that might very well be a major lubricant in our continuation of the course towards the destruction of our species and the ecosystem it depends on, in my books the jury is still out on just how advanced that is.
We probably have the best memory, and obviously the most complex society. But I'm not sure whether that makes us 'more evolved'.
Without this information it's hard to answer the question why they're saying that.
No, humans are not evolved to make use of the logical brain. Humans have the most evolved brain known to us, as well as the largest brain mass to size ratio. As the brain is the most complex organ known, it is not unreasonable to think of humans as the most highly evolved.
And anyways, what does it matter?
We are evolved for a specific niche, and so are all other animals. They are just as evolved for their niche as we are for ours. And how evolved you are is not very quantifiable, so what's "more evolved" or "less evolved" is not easy to define.
I guess we're fortunate that our niche has turned out to translate very well to an extremely diverse number of environments. We're good at cooperating and transferring detailed, complex knowledge to new generations, and that has allowed us to develop complex culture, technology, even allowing us to survive in space.
Asking this question is a bit like asking "Why do we believe in God?"
And the answer is that belief in God is not universal. Also, if you really talk to people in earnest, individuals who generally agree that God exists don't agree on a lot of other things pertaining to God and will have come to their belief by different pathways.
There are things for which there is enough consensus that it is socially acceptable to talk about it publicly. That doesn't mean everyone agrees. That just means most dissenters have the good sense to keep their thoughts to themselves and those that don't get mocked, pilloried, etc.
See also Overton Window.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
You've described a criteria - "logical brain" - and then evaluated currently living organisms based on that, and determined humans to be the highest on that. That's not the same thing as being "most evolved".
Evolution has no "direction", no goal beyond the ability to survive. It's dysteleological.
Recommend The Big Picture by Sean Carrol for an overall overview of related questions.
Evolution is merely the change in allele frequencies in a population over time. There is no herarchy or order one can impose to make a comparison of "more" or "less" evolved.