oldfella1962
Senior Member
I would be willing to bet that Koko (or other gorillas) could learn - on its own, without coaching - that its kitten friend does indeed prefer cat food to fruit, and when given a choice the gorilla would give the kitten something the kitten prefers, just through observing the kitten's behavior & reactions.
Evolution is very gradual. Comparing a gorilla's intelligence to that of a human is a huuuuuuge evolutionary jump. The difference is obvious. But if we could see into the past and measure the growing intelligence of every ape species from homo sapiens, Neanderthals, gorillas, chimps, bonobos, etcetera working backwards through the evolutionary branches, we could see how intelligence grows & changes over time.
Comparing a homo erectus in year C to its descendant/relative 500 years later in year F we might find slightly but measurably more intelligence. It just would not be blatantly obvious as if we compared the year C homo erectus to a year Z homo sapiens.
In other words, even someone like myself who isn't an expert on cars can tell a Ford Model T from a 2022 Chevrolet Camaro and expect to see different levels of performance from the two. These are two cars from two different branches of car evolution, with one car being an obviously advanced model. But I can't tell the difference between a Ford Model A from a Ford Model T, although there are slight improvements and differences that an expert could point out to me.
Changes are gradual and can only occur as fast as a species can reproduce/make slightly modified "upgrades" that are brought about by adapting to a changing environment, which is the stimulus. This rate then can vary somewhat depending on the stimulus forcing the genetic/evolutionary change.
Bottom line if we could measure & demonstrate the growing intelligence of every link along the chain of human evolution (other than skulls with differing brain capacity) back to the common ancestor of all apes we would see that there is no "defining moment" of when the first human AKA homo sapiens appeared.
The first human didn't just pop out of a non-human. Genes can't change that fast.
I think it would be great if we had a time machine and the very human writers of The Bible could be taught about genetics and the process of gradual genetic change over very long timespans, or even taught about the science in general. That would be an interesting concept for a story!
Evolution is very gradual. Comparing a gorilla's intelligence to that of a human is a huuuuuuge evolutionary jump. The difference is obvious. But if we could see into the past and measure the growing intelligence of every ape species from homo sapiens, Neanderthals, gorillas, chimps, bonobos, etcetera working backwards through the evolutionary branches, we could see how intelligence grows & changes over time.
Comparing a homo erectus in year C to its descendant/relative 500 years later in year F we might find slightly but measurably more intelligence. It just would not be blatantly obvious as if we compared the year C homo erectus to a year Z homo sapiens.
In other words, even someone like myself who isn't an expert on cars can tell a Ford Model T from a 2022 Chevrolet Camaro and expect to see different levels of performance from the two. These are two cars from two different branches of car evolution, with one car being an obviously advanced model. But I can't tell the difference between a Ford Model A from a Ford Model T, although there are slight improvements and differences that an expert could point out to me.
Changes are gradual and can only occur as fast as a species can reproduce/make slightly modified "upgrades" that are brought about by adapting to a changing environment, which is the stimulus. This rate then can vary somewhat depending on the stimulus forcing the genetic/evolutionary change.
Bottom line if we could measure & demonstrate the growing intelligence of every link along the chain of human evolution (other than skulls with differing brain capacity) back to the common ancestor of all apes we would see that there is no "defining moment" of when the first human AKA homo sapiens appeared.
The first human didn't just pop out of a non-human. Genes can't change that fast.
I think it would be great if we had a time machine and the very human writers of The Bible could be taught about genetics and the process of gradual genetic change over very long timespans, or even taught about the science in general. That would be an interesting concept for a story!
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