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Most species seemed to have evolved without much waste. Take a lion's resources for instance. It's speed, power, and stalking abilities are just about exactly what it needs to survive. No more. No less. Likewise, healthy prey seemed to have developed just enough speed, camoflauge, and defense systems to stay just ahead of the game and continue producing offspring.
But one creature seems to have an evolutionary feature which has exploded well beyond evolutionary design for survival.
Of course, I'm referring to the human brain. Among the first few posts I read on SMP had DS weighing the significance on the utter importance of what high IQ people thought the chances of God were to what average IQ people thought and I had to chuckle. Because one thing is certain. Even the lowest IQ person (who is not otherwise mentally impaired), is still light years smarter than the next most intelligent known thing in the universe!
C'mon! We could get by on just a little over half as much intelligence that the average gibbon possesses. What evolutionary purpose is served by our being intelligent enough to send one of our own to the moon? What do we gain by having the intelligence to invent and partake in games like chess, or to calculate interplanetary distances, gravitional forces, to understand quantum mechanics, etc.,etc.? Why such an excess in potency of our main survival skill? Does anyone have any guesses?
In this one respect, I have to give in to theists on this one. Man, is special, unique, and gifted like no other creature on the planet.
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One theory discussed before is memes and natural selection.
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