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The evolution of human intelligence is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain and to the origin of language. The timeline of human evolution spans approximately seven million years, [ 1 ] from the separation of the genus Pan until the emergence of behavioral modernity by 50,000 years ago.
The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that planets with complex life, like Earth, are exceptionally rare.. In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity, such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth, and subsequently human intelligence, required an improbable combination of astrophysical ...
The evolution of cognition is the process by which life on Earth has gone from organisms with little to no cognitive function to a greatly varying display of cognitive function that we see in organisms today. Animal cognition is largely studied by observing behavior, which makes studying extinct species
The different ways that animals communicate: sound, vision, smell, and what might lead these same channels to be used by alien life to communicate. 6. Intelligence (Whatever That Is) How different forms of intelligence evolved on Earth, and how similar intelligences might evolve on other planets. 7. Sociality – Cooperation, Competition and ...
They first appeared in the fossil record around 66 million years ago, soon after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that eliminated about three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth, including most dinosaurs. [25] [26] One of the last Plesiadapiformes is Carpolestes simpsoni, having grasping digits but not forward-facing eyes.
Cephalopods like the octopus or giant squid represent "an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behaviour" predicated on the same neural systems as our closer mammalian relatives. Neither language nor a worldview is needed for a measure of intelligence in these "other minds" that share planet Earth. [2]
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Astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and William Bains, reviewing the history of life on Earth, including convergent evolution, concluded that transitions such as oxygenic photosynthesis, the eukaryotic cell, multicellularity, and tool-using intelligence are likely to occur on any Earth-like planet given enough time.