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Journal Jack William Bell's Journal: Is intelligence a survival trait? 17

Journal by Jack William Bell

I am not convinced that intelligence is a valid ecological niche. Why? Because every valid ecological niche that exists has multiple species occupying it, both at once and serially over time. Intelligence has one species...

I had better stop for a second and define my terms before continuing. In this case intelligence doesn't mean 'self aware', as I am equally convinced that many animals are self aware, including dogs, cats and all non-human hominids.

Nor does intelligence mean 'problem solving' or 'tool using' per se. Those things are definitely survival traits and we humans share them with the dogs, cats and apes I already mentioned, as well as with crows and other animals.

No, I am talking about the kind of intelligence that overcomes instinctual behavior and allows an animal evolved to live in groups of no more than a few hundred to co-operate in groups of hundreds of millions. I am talking about the kind of intelligence that creates tools to make tools to make tools to make tools to make the Internet. Intelligence that comes up with total war, double entry bookkeeping and governments of the people, by the people and for the people.

I am talking about the kind of intelligence that currently makes us the dominant species on this Earth...

As I said before; this kind of intelligence, though largely successful in our case, is not a viable ecological niche. So next I need to define what I mean by 'ecological niche'. For the purposes of this discussion I define an ecological niche to be a set of traits that allows a species to exploit some aspect or aspects of the environment so that they survive as a group -- without upsetting the overall balance to the extent that the environment degrades and that niche becomes untenable.

This is a very difficult definition, because many species do overgraze their habitat or otherwise destroy the environment around them. Humans are not unique in this and humans may be the only species that has ever made a concerted effort to reduce their impact on the environment. (We can argue the success of that effort some other time.) The point is that when a species does this it is no longer in a viable ecological niche according to my definition. A valid ecological niche is one where, aside from external forces, the environment remains in balance because the species is participating in the overall ecology without harming it.

Painted with rather broad brush strokes, some examples of valid ecological niches include 'small flying bug catchers', 'large herd-group herbivores', 'lone predators' and 'amphibious larva eaters that reproduce on land'. Each of these niches holds multiple species today, and has held many others over the last few millennia. Over and over again different species have adapted to fit into these niches. The fossil record of this is clear and unambiguous!

But there is no fossil record of any other animal ever having the impact upon this planet that we humans have wreaked. I have argued this point with people who say things along the lines of 'sunken beneath the seas' or 'who says that things like building and roads would last a million years'. The answer to these is easy: The evidence would exist on current land because some land areas have never sunk. And damn right we would find evidence of things like suspension bridges and large-scale cities after a couple hundred million years. Look at it this way; we have found many complete and partial skeletons of T-Rex over the years. But the odds of us finding even one shouldn't be all that great because, after all, T-Rex could not have existed in large numbers at any one time! They were a large predator and our knowledge of large predators is that, because they exist at the very top of the food chain, they do not survive in large numbers. Their ecological niche requires large ranges per beast.

If the calcium bones of a few large predators could become fossilized and survive millions of years for us to find them, then how much less likely is it that we would find evidence of large steel-reinforced concrete structures?

The other argument I hear is 'so maybe they expressed their intelligence differently'. That one is valid, but entirely beside the point; I am talking about the ecological niche we humans occupy, not some other. And if that intelligence was one we would recognize as such, why aren't there species out there today in those niches? Just as many species share the niche of 'small flying bug catchers', so should many share the niche of intelligence.

There is no extant evidence that any do, although I will accept that elephants, dolphins and whales have enough brain mass to qualify. My point is this; we are the only example I know of where a species uniquely occupies a niche (intelligence), not only now but in all of time on this planet. Interestingly this may be the answer to Fermi's Paradox, they aren't out there because only an incredibly unlikely set of conditions can bring things like us about. In other words Drake missed a couple of decimal places in one part of his equation...

Given that everything I have said up to this point is true, then we must ask the question "Why are we here?" Could it be some bizarre accident? Could it be intelligent design? (Which begs the question of where the other intelligent race came from.) Could it be 'God'? Each of us will answer that question in our own way and I don't know if we can ever settle the question to everyone's satisfaction.

So let us ask other questions: What do we do about it? What does it mean? Where do we go next?

I have some ideas...

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Is intelligence a survival trait? More

Is intelligence a survival trait?

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  • I can answer this question easily, but first I have to play with words the way you do:

    So next I need to define what I mean by 'ecological niche'. For the purposes of this discussion I define an ecological niche to be a set of traits that allows a species to exploit some aspect or aspects of the environment so that they survive as a group -- without upsetting the overall balance to the extent that the environment degrades and that niche becomes untenable.

    This is a very difficult definition, because many

    • You missed the point I think. Perhaps because I was trying to keep it fairly short, so I will try to zero in on my main argument.

      To begin with, you are right in one way: By viable niche, I mean a niche which can be occupied long-term (as in millia-long) without the species having to adapt and change to survive. In this way cockroaches are much more successful than humans.

      But more importantly is the singular fact that all viable niches have multiple species, over time and at the same time. Yet, as a niche,

      • But more importantly is the singular fact that all viable niches have multiple species, over time and at the same time.

        But is this really a requirement for you to call something a niche? Or is it just the way things happen to be?

        To belabor the point; for every 'viable' niche we do have long and extensive fossil records of different species adapted to them. Without exception. For intelligence we do not.

        We were first. Yes, we're special. We're doing stuff that hasn't been done before.

        • We were first. Yes, we're special. We're doing stuff that hasn't been done before.

          Ahh... But being first means we are an anomoly. Our adaption is statistically a long shot of epic proportions. In fact, statistically we shouldn't exist. The undeniable fact that we do exist may not mean that we are the first to have a successful adaption to a new slot. More likely it means only that we have managed to survive at our current level for around fifty thousand years, a mere blip in time compared to the years li

          • Jack, I think you may be making a logical fallacy here yourself. If we assume that evolution has created increased complexity in living creatures, and further assume that intelligence is (at the very least) not possible below a certain level of complexity, then the fact that humans are the first intelligent species is not an anomaly. We were simply the first to get over the intelligence threshold. That makes us no more of an anomaly than the first patch of snow you see in summer while hiking up the side
            • Hmm... Except that your base assumption is at least partially fallacias in itself: The 'complexity' of species has probably not advanced significantly since the late Triassic. The larger dominiant species have changed, but is a tiger really more 'complex' than a velociraptor?

              It is easy to see evolution as a slow and deliberate progression from single-cells to human beings. But most likely that is only boastful nonsense. Unless you believe in God or intelligent design you have to accept the fact we are an a

      • You missed the point I think...importantly is the singular fact that all viable niches have multiple species, over time and at the same time. Yet, as a niche, intelligence has only one species ever that we know of. This is my real point, and one you left out of your logical analysis.

        Whereas I think you missed my points:

        1. Your definition of "viable niche" is flawed. Long-term sustainablity is not something that evolution can select for a priori; in fact, if it has any cost at all evolution will select a
        • That is what is referred to as a straw man argument. Unfortunately my original thesis depends on something of a straw man argument itself, albeit a defensible one.

          So let's turn the discussion on it's head. Instead of me trying to defend a logical point you dismiss, let me ask you to provide positive proof of something that would refute my conclusion: Point to an existing example of an evolutionary adaption that is (a) unique and (b) directly promotes long-term survivability for the species that has it.
          • Replying to myself again, but I should clarify that such positive proof would refute only one logical basis to my argument, namely that there are no other examples of such a thing. In other words it doesn't refute my entire argument, but does undermine it considerably. Only positive proof of another intelligent species would refute the entire argument.

            OTOH it is equally clear the evolution is a complex thing. It does ocaisionally throw up new things like seeds, flowers and grasses that create new ecologica
            • It's clear to me that you're still completely ignoring MarkusQ's points. But while that is a major failing, that's not the most important flaw in your argument.

              First you're saying that intelligence isn't a niche. That's correct. Any more than "being a parrot" is a niche, even though there are several (sub)species which fit this description *and* your spurious definition of a "niche" (which see MarkusQ's cogent rebuttals). For me, even the idea of thinking about species in terms of the niches they inhab

          • Point to an existing example of an evolutionary adaption that is (a) unique and (b) directly promotes long-term survivability for the species that has it.

            Firstly, and most importantly, evolution has nothing to say about the long-term survivability of species. Nada. Zip. There is, and can be, no evolutionary adaptation that "directly promotes long-term survivability for the species." The best you can hope for is one that indirectly promotes survival of the species by promoting the survival or fecundi

            • In the first part you seem to be saying that I have made a Category Error [about.com] by conflating evolutionary adaption with long-term survival.

              I disagree. Certainly evolution selects for survival one animal/plant/whatever at a time, which would tend to focus on adaptions that are short term in effect. However genetics, the engine of evolution, provides for long term effects as well! Population Theory [ucsb.edu] shows how this mechanism works to conserve currently non-adaptive genes in the population until such time as the eco

              • If this weren't your own journal, I'd suspect you of trolling. Here goes:
                • The article on Population Theory you linked to has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
                • It is doubtful that group sellection operates as high as the species level; to see this, consider what happens when an individual with the allele that favours species survival over individual fitness is pitted against one with an allele that favours individual fitness above all else. Which allele makes it into the next generation?
                • Even if grou

  • Yes (Score:1)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) *
    My first thoughts were: Yes, but it hasn't been put to the test yet. Think really big and futurist. For example, if we ever see a huge "ELE" asteroid coming at Earth and manage to do something about it, that will be a case where our big intelligence has been proven to be a survival trait. With it, we live; without it, we die. Billions of years from now, Sol will be a red giant and everything alive on Earth will die. If any life of originally terrestrial origin manages to survive that, it will be becaus

  • Nothing that a quick read through The Selfish Gene wouldn't clear up.

    First, I think it is more than semantics to state the intelligence is not a niche - or at least it wasn't when our ancestors evolved. A niche is a particular pattern of free energy. intelligence is one aspect of a strategy for exploiting that free energy.

    I've always found it remarkable how deeply coherent such strategies in the living world are, including in the human world. Even with us, it's far more than intelligence. However,

  • my neighbor's teenage son committed suicide. He was a genius. i've also seen that social skills tend to decline with advanced intelligence, but i could be wrong. it might be interesting to find a tie between inherited smarts and autistic like disorder.

    there's an old football saying that I've generalized. "In order to be a great football coach, you have to be smart enough to understand the game, and stupid enough to think it is important." I've generalized that to getting along in society, work, life, anyth

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