Why didn't the dinosaurs, which ruled the earth for more than 100 million years, add skill points to wisdom?

Review expert: Zhu Guangsi, member of Beijing Science Writers Association

The ferocious dinosaurs, once the overlords of the earth, lived on the earth for hundreds of millions of years, but until the last moment of their extinction, they still lived a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood. However, the relatively fragile human beings, in just millions of years, have developed a brilliant civilization, and their power is so strong that they can even influence the ecological environment of the earth.

What exactly is the difference between dinosaurs and humans that led to this result?
1

Why can humans develop civilization?

Judging from the current situation on Earth, highly developed intelligence is a prerequisite for a type of creature to develop civilization. In nature, there are many smart animals, but it is unheard of that they can reach the level of humans. Because developed intelligence is a luxury in nature, the cost of maintaining high intelligence is huge energy consumption .

Even if a modern adult lies still all day, the brain will consume nearly a quarter of the energy needed by the human body throughout the day, which is unacceptable to most creatures in nature. Why do humans want to be different and evolve the skill of "high intelligence"? This is actually influenced by the environment in which human ancestors originally lived.

When we were still in the Australopithecus stage, our ancestors were a group of apes active in the tree canopy. Living in the tree canopy not only allowed them to avoid ferocious predators on the ground, but the fruits and insects in the trees also provided our ancestors with abundant food.

Due to the need to avoid natural enemies and collect food, the spatial perception ability of ancient apes became very strong and the grasping ability of their hands was also improved, which laid an important foundation for the ancient apes to adapt to the ground environment and liberate their forelimbs.

Source | szmag.org

35 million years ago, due to the crustal movement of the African continental plate and the Indian Ocean plate, the famous East African Rift Valley was formed at the junction of the two. The huge changes in the landform also brought about huge changes in the environment. The originally dense forest gradually turned into endless grassland.

In the grassland, because the lush grass blocked the view, the ancient apes began to try to stand upright and gradually learned to walk upright, which freed their forelimbs; the free forelimbs became flexible, gradually becoming our hands today, and they began to learn to make crude stone tools for hunting.

The ferocious beasts everywhere also made them learn to work together and help each other, and even developed a rudimentary language system.

There is also the use of fire. Fire can not only drive away wild beasts, but also effectively kill bacteria in food, making cooked food easier to digest.

Source | Baidu Encyclopedia

Through these changes, humans began to be able to obtain more energy. After meeting the needs of survival, there was still energy left. The brain then absorbed the excess energy without hesitation, becoming larger, more complex , and better at thinking.

In nature, the average brain capacity of an ordinary mammal weighing about 60 kg is 200 ml, but as early as 2.5 million years ago, the average brain capacity of humans was 600 ml, and the brain capacity of modern Homo sapiens is as high as 1200~1400 ml, which is enough to reflect the energy humans have spent on the evolutionary path of "intelligence".

However, in the early stages of evolution, the advantage of a large brain capacity was not realized. Humans still lived like most animals, eating raw meat and drinking blood and always worried about the arrival of predators. It was not until 70,000 years ago that the human race underwent a "cognitive revolution". From then on, humans began to have a more mature language system and a more stable social mechanism, and their survival ability was greatly improved. Almost all large animals could be hunted by humans wherever they went.

2

Differences in Environment

Looking at the evolutionary history of life on Earth, it is not difficult to find that the evolution of species is always the survival of the fittest, or more directly, "just get by". Evolving redundant abilities can easily lead to being unable to adapt to the current environment and going extinct. So if the current body of an organism can adapt to the current environment, then they will hardly waste energy to evolve other organs or functions .

Compared to the period of human evolution, the climate in the period of dinosaurs was warm, and gymnosperms and tender and delicious ferns were all over the earth. Herbivorous dinosaurs only needed to lower their heads to eat a large number of plump and juicy leaves, so their bodies became very large and their movements were relatively slow. The difficulty of hunting for carnivorous dinosaurs was therefore greatly reduced.

The huge amount of energy consumed by dinosaurs was almost all used to increase their body size and muscle strength. Their living conditions were like pigs in farms today, eating, growing fat, and sleeping every day . In the environment at that time, this way of survival was the best solution for most dinosaurs: carnivorous dinosaurs relied on their strong strength to hunt more easily, and herbivorous dinosaurs ate enough to scare off predators or compete with them.

Source | Walking with Dinosaurs movie poster

Dinosaurs ruled the earth for a long time. With their huge numbers and various species, it is possible that some dinosaurs chose to evolve intelligence under special circumstances. However, due to the high energy consumption brought by high intelligence , the size of such dinosaurs could not be too large. A smaller size would make them more likely to become prey for carnivorous dinosaurs and they could not grow large enough, so they quickly became extinct.

Source | guayunfan.org

In short, in the natural world where survival is paramount, the evolution of organisms is ultimately aimed at survival.

In the environment where dinosaurs lived, intelligence could not provide the most direct convenience for their survival. The brain is a very energy-consuming organ, which means that more food is needed and higher sensitivity is maintained. Even if dinosaurs mutated to have a high-IQ brain, there is no need to preserve this trait. And due to the lack of "high intelligence" as a prerequisite for civilization, it is difficult for dinosaurs to develop their own civilization.