Why are humans the most intelligent species
on Earth?
The first thing a baby giraffe experiences
after being born is a 2-meter fall straight,
down to the ground. But within an hour, it’s
standing, walking, and nursing on its own.
The same goes to the blue whale calf. After
nearly a year growing inside mom, it can swim
to the surface moments after being born.
Human babies on the other hand? We’re born
unable to move or eat on our own, we can’t
communicate or fully sense our world, and
we are basically weak. So what makes this
weak being be able to dominate the world?
The answer may be intelligence! We, humans,
are the Smartest beings on the planet, or
at least we think we are. But why are we like
this? Why are we more intelligent than the
other species on Earth?
Some people think that intelligence is the
crowning achievement of evolution. Well if
that's true there should be more intelligent
creatures on the planet Earth. But to the
best of our knowledge, we're the only ones.
The dinosaurs were on the Earth for roughly
200 million years and as far as we know, not
a single dinosaur became intelligent. We modern
humans had been on the Earth for roughly a
hundred thousand years. Only a tiny fraction
of the 4.5 billion years that the Earth has
been around. So you come to the rather astounding
conclusion that intelligence is not really
necessary!
So the question is “Why are humans the only
intelligent species on the planet?”; What
do we have that makes us intelligent? What
separates us from animals? What makes us “Intelligent”?
According to Michio Kaku,an American theoretical
physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science,
the answer may be a little unexpected to some
of us.
He believes that there are at least 3 ingredients
that help a species to become more intelligent.
First is the opposable thumb! You need a tentacle,
a claw, an opposable thumb in order to manipulate
the environment. Any intelligent being must
be able to change the environment and the 
world around it.
Second is eyesight as a predator. We humans
have our eyes placed to the front of our face,
not to the side, why? That's because we are
predators and as a predator, we have learned
to ambush, stealth or camouflage.
What if you are a
bunny? Then you just have to run, and that
won’t make a species intelligent.
The Last ingredient is language. As an intelligent
being, you should be able to communicate and
transfer knowledge to the next generation.
As far as we discovered, animals do not communicate
knowledge to their offspring other than by
simply communicating certain primitive motions.
Animals have no books, no language, and no
culture so they can communicate their knowledge
to the next generation. So most probably that's
how the brain evolves. Humans have an opposable
thumb, they have at least one language and
they have eyes of predators, and predators
seem to be smarter than prey.
So let's ask ourselves a question: How many
animals on the Earth satisfy these three basic
ingredients? The answer is clear, none! So
perhaps there's a reason why we became intelligent
and the other animals did not. Maybe that’s
the reason why we could survive when our babies
are born so vulnerable and undeveloped.
In the end, the mystery behind our supreme
intelligence can’t be explained by just
one reason; It is a mix of many reasons and
we can just reason it with just argument.
Right now, we are not completely sure about
the main reason for our intelligence, but
we know that most achievements in human history
are connected to it. All we can do now, is
that we use this intelligence to make the
world a better place.
