Why are we smart, i mean smarter then other animals or living creatures?
In: Biology
Probably because, for whatever reason, our ape ancestors evolved an “opposable thumb”, meaning we could grab things much better than any other animals.
Only from that point on was “more brainpower” really an evolutionary advantage. Before that, a bigger brain was not all that helpful since the brain uses a lot of energy, which kind of cancels out the advantage of being more intelligent.
But with opposable thumbs, we could use tools and manipulate our surroundings much more precisely than before. So, suddenly, being more intelligent was WAY MORE of an advantage than before, and well worth the extra energy cost.
Thats essentially the reason we evolved towards more intelligence than any other species: We are the ones who have the opposable thumbs to actually make this intelligence count.
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