Terran non-human intelligence

Hi, Dexx.Welcome to EvC! This isn't a very good argument. Technology-capable intelligence has only evolved one time that we know of, and all Homo species are a result of this one evolution. So, we only have a sample size of one.If we were treat all the species of Homo as separate examples of intelligence, we would be engaging in "pseudoreplication," which means we would be treating things as if they are separate, independent examples, when, in fact, they are not.----- Tool use, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. We have many independent examples of tool use on the earth today. Many primates use tools, many birds use tools, ants use tools, etc. Given that, I would consider it highly unlikely that there were not tool-using creatures in the past.Granted, most of these animals don’t actually build the tools they use, so if that’s what you’re looking for, I think we may still only have a sample size of one (although there have been reports of other types of animals building tools, too).But, given the large impacts that humans have had on the environment, I doubt that any previous civilizations of the magnitude of our civilization would be completely unevidenced in the fossil record. At the very least, we would see extinction events, and probably also at least a few durable artifacts.----- Maybe billions of years ago, but certainly not just millions.But, consider the fact that there are rock formations today that haven’t been subducted since before the Cambrian period.Combine this with a few other observations --- (1) lack of fossilized artifacts and (2) lack of fossilized organisms with obvious adaptations for technological utility --- and the likelihood that such a civilization existed becomes vanishingly small.Plus, given how extraordinary a second civilization on Earth would be, the evidence required to convinced scientists of its existence would have to be exceptionally monumental.I submit that, given all the digging that has been done around the world, if something that monumental existed, we'd very likely have found evidence of it already.Edited by Bluejay, : Addition: "Given that, I would consider it..."

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Caffeine. So, it seems that there are two ideas as to what is required for technological intelligence:

1. The Brain-First Hypothesis: increasing intelligence took advantage of whatever manipulatory organs it had available to it
2. The Hands-First Hypothesis: the dexterity of the manipulatory organs promoted the evolution of intelligence.

I don't know that we have to pick one or the other, but your statement sounds like you think intelligence is all brain and the hands are just along for the ride. I tend to think that our technological intelligence would never have evolved without dexterous hands, because the hands are rather important for any survival-relevant application that our intelligent brains could have thought of.I also agree with JUC that most other animals would require very significant alterations to their bodies in order for their intelligence to translate into technology. Some animals --- like raccoons, elephants, octopus and crabs --- would obviously require less extensive alterations, but most --- like giraffes, ladybugs, walruses and tuna --- will require quite a lot more alteration.I’ll acknowledge that intelligence in the absence of manipulatory organs is possible, but the technological capacity of such a combination would be severely limited. Dolphins are a great example of this: bubble nets are really impressive things, but how far can they actually take this kind of technology?Like I said in my first post, it would take extremely monumental evidence for the idea to fly.----- Granted, there are a few pockets in the geological column where all the evidence could be hidden pretty conveniently like this, but not 3 billion years’ worth of such pockets---maybe a few million years’ worth at most.Through most of the Earth’s geological history, any noticeably advanced civilization would have left evidence behind, at least in the form of extinction events (which we were apparently causing long before we built cities or wrote poetry), which would register quite resoundingly in the fossil record.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.