Ask HN: Why do we think that “humans are the most evolved of 'all' animals”? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do we think that “humans are the most evolved of 'all' animals”?

12 pointsrohan_shah25 comments

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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If you don't know about the mantis shrimp, go look it up.

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...

It's a loose term with little meaning.. or at least, without more effort to restrict the data. Even in your examples.

I 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.

The term is probably "most highly evolved."

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 mean argon or nitrogen ? As ozone is highly reactive in nature.

Actually, nitrogen is what causes the bends as well as nitrogen narcosis, making it toxic under pressure. And argon is even more narcotic under pressure.

You are right, however, that ozone was the wrong gas of choice. I meant helium.

Who claims that "humans are the most evolved of 'all' animals"? And what do they mean by "most" evolved?

Without this information it's hard to answer the question why they're saying that.

The fallacy starts with "most evolved". What does that mean?

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.

Ha, good point. I suppose you could say that, assuming the 'arrow of evolution' always results in an improved adaptation to a living thing's environment, that any creature is the "most evolved" relative to the DNA history from which it stems. Then again, DNA mutations don't always result in positive adaptations to an individual creature's environment; sometimes (most often?) individuals degenerate relative to their predecessors.

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.

The only reason "we" think that humans are the most evolved of all animals, is that "we" don't really understand evolution.

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.

Practically no evolutionary biologist thinks that. All organisms living today have evolved for equally long.

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.

It's a complete misunderstanding of evolution as something where species "level up" to become "more evolved", usually seen as more complex, stronger, faster, smarter, etc. But in reality, evolution is adaptation to environment by the process of natural selection. As long as you're surviving (or more accurately your genes), you are "evolved". This is no more or less true for humans, snakes, or Salmonella bacteria.

That claim is bullshit and we should stop making it. Evolution doesn't have a direction or a teleology.

But evolution does have a direction. Survival of the fittest! Those animals most fit to reproduce survive and reproduce. Humans have done that and taken over every other species with tools and general intelligence that no other animal can hope to possess. We are what you would call the apex predator on earth.

I would not say more evolved, if by evolved one means complex. Plants actually have more complex genomes than humans because they had to develop defense mechanisms that work even if they cannot move away from the threat. I would say humans are the most powerful of all animals.

All life is evolving to survive and reproduce. This is the reason that snakes have evolved to produce venom and that human have evolved logical thinking. We have essentially placed ourselves above the food chain. At least in that sense we are the most evolved.

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.

> 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.

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?

one word: anthropocentrism. it's easy to have a bias towards your species when it's the one that frames the experience of your entire existence.

Exactly. We think in terms of what's important to humans. Maybe a tree thinks what's important is to sit still and grow forever.

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.

Plants and animals are all different instances of the impulse of life. Plants tend toward instinct, animals intelligence. Humans are the first species to encode symbolic representations in matter. This capability is what has allowed us to 'evolve' beyond all other life forms. The ability to believe that that matrix is real ;)

> Humans are the first species to encode symbolic representations in matter.

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.

If you're talking about biological evolution, this question is considered nonsensical to those with a background biology.

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.

Because we are the ones making the observation. It's the same basis as religion.

I don't think there's a meaningful total ordering on 'how evolved' you are.

We probably have the best memory, and obviously the most complex society. But I'm not sure whether that makes us 'more evolved'.

Not everyone thinks that.

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.