Natural Selection Proponents: Since higher intelligence has been proven to help in a creatures survival (aka humans), why haven't other creatures evolved at least close to our own intelligence level?
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Castrate
ANSWERS: 2
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I'm going to drop in my two cents, but not really as a proponent of natural selection. If you look at prey/predator animals you will notice that a LARGE percentage of their brains are devoted to movement. Their brain stems and cerebellum are typically mush bigger in proportions to humans or higher order primates. This is because it NEEDS the ability to move rapidly and accurately to either eat or avoid being eaten. Higher processing areas of the brain (the prefrontal cortex for example) is highly complex and sophisticated and this and other brain structures that have to do with reasoning and higher level processes take up a lot of space...typically at the expense of having a smaller cerebellum. So, in essence in order for an animal to 'evolve' into a higher level of intelligence their brains would need to grow exponentially larger, or the areas that are involved in motor skills and 'fight or flight' responses would need to diminish. Considering the majority of animals either kill or be killed, developing a more complex infastructure within their brains would be detrimental to their survival.
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Cyndi's answer was pretty comprehensive, and I agree with her points. All that I would add is that, while we certainly are the most intelligent species (by our own measures, anyway), there is a trend in many species for brains to get larger and behaviors to get more complex. Maybe in another few million years there will be other species that will be doing calculus and writing poetry. I don't think it's correct to assume that intelligence would be advantageous for all creatures, though. A shark is at the top of its food chain with the brain it has. Any further investment into developing "intelligence" would be a waste.
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