Why did evolution allow humans to become so intelligent?

elaborate?

Well, your overly simplistic view of intellect.
I mean, first of all, having a brain our size requires a huge energy consumption.

>The only reason X trait exists
persists

>Homo erectus discovered fire
>A genetic mutation made our jaw muscles smaller

Alright, persists!

>I mean, first of all, having a brain our size requires a huge energy consumption.
Yes but the advantage of having bigger brain is too much. A lot of other developments also have associated costs. Isnt it a bit curious that flight was developed at least three times completely separately but human level intelligence only once. Especially considering how long since we have had basic brain.

>Why did evolution allow humans to become so intelligent?
Because politics.

Politics is something that features heavily in recent human evolutionary history, and is even clearly visible among the other great apes. Twenty thousand years ago on the savanna, the guy who could most effectively argue that he deserved a larger part of the meat than everyone else, lived longer. The guy who politicked himself onto the top and got the be the king, had lots of kids. The guy who managed to convince the tribe to execute that fucker Horg... sure did better than Horg, evolutionarily.

In an environment that features politics, it is advantageous to be smarter than *everyone else*. It's not enough to be smart enough to survive through the winter, or hunt a deer successfully, or in some other way outsmart the environment; you are in a strong evolutionary position if you can outsmart *other people around you*.

If there is an evolutionary advantage to outsmarting people around you, there is a very strong evolutionary pressure towards more intelligence, without limit -- more is better, because everyone else around you is also getting more intelligent, requiring you to be more intelligent yet to beat them. And so we see strong evolution towards more intelligence, at the cost of most other considerations, with every generation.

>The method of birthing too many young and allowing the weak also works, almost better than the human method.
Both methods have their advantages and drawbacks. The human method works better in less dynamic conditions where competition is fierce, while the quantity over quality method works in cataclysmic times where a disaster has killed off a lot of competition or something has changed the established niches.

I already said it man. Fire. No other species had fire. Fire allowed us to digest and capture food more easily, accounting for the energy requirements. Also, a mutation made it so that our jaw muscles didn't take up so much skull space so we could grow bigger brains.

Well then why are (early) humans the only animal to experiment with fire? Why did no one else even try to control it? 3.5 billion years of evolution and only one animal thinks of using fire?

There are many methods. Not only "the best" survive, but any which are good enough. Hence the preponderance of species that exist.

Good post. I heard this theory is gaining ground. Although they didn't call it politics but something like social competition or power dynamics or something. Same thing.

Probably because protohumans were the only animals to use tools for hunting and other important life functions. Some other animals would use rocks to break nuts or something simple like that but our ancestors would sharpen sticks and build huts and carry stuff around with them. And we probably developed such advanced tool use from the fact that we walked upright and could no longer depend on the shelter provided by the forest as much. A lot of this is just me speculating.

Me too, I like it.

Poor Horg though, that Machiavellian son-of-a-bitch Norf.

Im sure intelligence is more complex than flight plus youve got a simplistic view of survival value. Its not blanket like that. Every adaptation is highly contextualised and wont develop unless there is pressure. Meaning cost to not having the trait rather than benefit to having it and arguably intelligence actually has developed independently many times if u look at birds, octopuses, cetaceans, primates etc etc. Maybe human intelligence once but that is by degree.

This is overly simplistic too i think and ignores the overwhelmingly greater benefit of learning how to cooperate. Arguably social living requires intelligence because observational learning and empathy are quite complex traits. But its probably not the only reason for human intelligence. Very complex groups exist for less intelligent animals like the gelado which lives in massive groups.

I think if you are intelligent though with prolonged development you are forced to have small amounts of offspring and care for them. Especially exaggerated in humans with big head underdeveloped children. And maybe this even puts pressure on intelligence to allow your offspring to survive and teach them etc.

There was a niche to fill for smart, slow-breeding apes. It was filled by mutation, and selection allowed it to persist since its reproductive rate was above 1.