What prevents other animals/species from evolving and developing cognitively the same way humans have?
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One thing I want to add to the other great answers here: while they don’t exist anymore, there used to be other “human” species. And not just direct predecessors of modern humans, but species more like cousins. You might have heard of Neandertals, but there are other groups like the Denisovians. Both groups were closely related enough to Homo Sapiens (you and me and all modern humans) that we have good genetic evidence that the groups interbred with humans on multiple occasions. It’s impossible for us to gauge their exact “intelligence”, but there is possible evidence that some of these groups were intelligent enough to do things like make fire, make cave art, or possibly even bury their dead. A lot of this stuff is the subject of ongoing research and I’m no expert. But my point is that it is also possible that humans were less unique and special than we thought and we were simply the last ones standing.
Absolutely nothing, but time and random mutations. As I write this, there may be a whale, elephant, ape, or similar creature with a large neocortex which has one of the (possibly singular, possibly numerous) mutations which result in proteins which (so far inexplicably) result in true consciousness, resulting in it being compelled to find and communicate with other truly conscious creatures, and starting a cascade of adaptive behavior accentuating and enlarging their neocortex in ways similar to ours through countless generations of their new species. Perhaps others in its local population also have true consciousness, and they will together begin the millenia-long process of building a true civilization of their own. Possibly it or they will recognize the consciousness of, and establish communications (in whatever way they are able) with, one or more of the billions of creatures, all humans, which already have both true consciousness and true civilization.
So far, there is no evidence of this, but the only thing preventing it is time and random mutations.
The sentence and intelligence we enjoy isn’t an end point of natural selection. Evolution has no end point. Each species is best evolved to fit its specific environment.
Crocodiles have remained unchanged for millions of years because there is simply no need for them to change. They are a killing machine that perfectly fits that specific environment they live in.
I understand the question you’re asking, but it’s framed in a way that our sentience is the end goal of natural selection. Human are and will continue to evolve.
Don’t think of evolution as a movement towards something. Nothing is ‘trying’ to evolve, nothing is ‘preventing’ evolution. It’s just a question of what’s happened and what hasn’t happened. Nothing is ‘preventing’ housecats from developing higher intelligence, it just happens that there hasn’t been a significant mutation resulting in increased intelligence in cats that has caused that line of cats to have a better chance of surviving and reproducing than other cats.
Remember, for every advantageous mutation that results in something that can benefit the species, there are oodles and OODLES of disadvantageous mutations that resulted in that genetic line from dying off.
Hell, maybe there was a cat one time that had a mutation that made it super smart (for a cat). But if that mutation also resulted in it being sterile… well, that’s a no go evolutionary path.
Opposable thumbs? How do we know whales aren’t more intelligent than humans but in a way our minds aren’t capable of understanding?
It’s much easier to be born knowing how to cope in life. Learning takes up many resources. A brain the size of a human’s is metabolically expensive and inefficient. Resources have to be plentiful to supply the needs of one human compared with other animals, and humans can only survive long-term in groups. Others who rely on learning exist, but one brain will compete and beat out another when resources are scarce. Right now humans are the victors with a population of 8 billion, but once they exhaust resources, it’s the less costly animals who will carry on.
The niche is already taken by us – the humans. No other animal is likely to be able to succeed in competing with us for that role. Additionally, a selective pressure for high cognitive abilities is present only in very specific situations where they can be usefully put in practice.
Who says something is stopping them? It’s just extremely long period of time..
Look at our society and addiction to stress. Why would you wish that on another species?
We keep eating them.
Actually its more like, anything that might get close to competing, we wipe out their habitats (dolphins, whales, bonobos, chimpanzees, etc)
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