In talk.origins Steven L. <sdlitvin@earthlink.net> wrote:

Paul J Gans wrote:

In talk.origins Friar Broccoli <EliasRK@gmail.com> wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:06 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
wrote:

Friar Broccoli wrote:

On Aug 13, 8:38 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@pacbell.net>
wrote:

K_h wrote:

Fermi's paradox suggests that there are little or no other intelligent
civilizations within the Milky Way galaxy.  On the other hand, intelligent
life should exist on a substantial fraction of planets with life because
natural selection broadly increases intelligence with time.

.

Does it? News to me. What evidence do you have that this is the case?

.

There has been an increase in the intelligence of a broad range of
species on earth with time.

Has there? What broad range, exactly? And if natural selection
broadly increased intelligence with time, we would expect all
species to be undergoing this push, wouldn't we?

I don't see how this follows at all.  I would expect different
species to adopt widely differing strategies depending on
circumstances.  In plants, intelligence would be a complete
waste of resources.  Others like Starfish and Jellyfish have
used other strategies to ensure they can navigate and persist in
their environments without needing intelligence.

The definition of evolutionary success is reproduction.  

Not sufficient; the definition of evolutionary success is occupying and 
dominating an ecological niche.  A species can reproduce and yet become 
extinct if it is preyed on by another species.

But it is sufficient.  Without it you are extinct.  With it you
aren't.

Those Galapagos finches Darwin studied were successful NOT because they 
reproduced; that's the mechanism, not the goal.  Their success was that 
they *radiated* into all the available ecological niches on those islands.

That's how they survived in order to reproduce.

Using
that paradigm I conclude that intelligence, however defined,
is totally useless for evolutionary success.

The value of intelligence is it gives the species the ability to quickly 
occupy new ecological niches without needing to evolve genetically. 
Humans became the top predator on Earth without taking millions more 
years to evolve bigger fangs and larger size and faster legs than 
saber-toothed cats and other existing predators.  We did it by 
outsmarting the saber-tooths and any other species vying for the top 
predator niche.

Intelligence has value in our world, no doubt about it.  It is
just the simple observation that by any criteria, numbers, mass,
length of existance, whatever, we are not all that successful,
intelligent or not.

What intelligence did for humans was NOT to produce more offspring than 
beetles.  It enabled humans to become farmers (herbivores); hunters 
(carnivores); SCUBA divers (deep-sea swimmers); fliers; and most 
recently, outer space explorers.  We did all that without needing to 
wait millions of years to evolve wings, gills, carapaces, etc.  Thus 
humans colonized the entire planet, including the oceans and the air and 
soon outer space.  All ecological niches.  All by the same genetic humans.

Producing many offspring is one way to keep reproducing.  Producing
them selectively is another.  So is changing their gender and the
time to sexual maturity.  All these exist.

And we don't occupy all ecological niches.  In fact, we spread by
destroying niches and converting them to the kind of niche we
like.  This is not intelligent behavior.

If we were truly intelligent, we'd be far better able to judge
risk and to understand contingencies.

-- 
   --- Paul J. Gans