Why are humans the most evolved creatures on the planet?

Question

Since reptiles existed long before mammals, and the characteristics that make humans so intelligent could also occur in reptiles, wouldn't reptiles be more likely to evolve to the point of civilization than mammals?

Answer 1

We aren't. We are the best created. Us and bacteria.

Roaches are the best evolved.

Answer 2

we know how to invent, wonder and develop into something better, unlike other animals hu live the way they do , no development. We are the higher from the other creatures , because God made us so.

Answer 3

Most evolved is a misnomer.  All current life on Earth is roughly equally evolved.  Certain features of mammalian evolution resulted in the adaptations that made intelligence a survival trait.  While it might have happened to reptiles, it didn't.  A major factor may include the strict warm-blooded status of mammals.  This is not a strict trait.  Some reptiles may be as intelligent as some mammals.

Answer 4

Dinosaurs may have been on their way to evolving to the point where they could control their own evolution but as we are all aware they had a meteor crash into the planet at a critical time in their development and only us small homeotherm mammals were left as representatives of the warm bloods.  Of course fish have existed for much longer than reptiles and mammals  and bacteria longer than all three combined.  As far as research into our past can tell, our evolved intelligence is a freak genetic mutation that happened to occur in primates.

Answer 5

Who says that?  we kill for fun and devise more to kill more efficiently etc. We must be the most devolved and the dumbest of all animals.

Humans are pathetic.  Just my opinion

Answer 6

Every species alive today is exactly as evolved as every other, because they all descended from a single species.  The only way to quantify the amount of "evolvedness" a species has is to calculate how long the species has existed.  And since there is never a single point where a species suddenly becomes another species (the change is always gradual), our species has existed since life existed.

However, if you were referring to intelligence levels, then humans are definitely ahead of reptiles.

Answer 7

Humans are NOT the most evolved creatures on the planet!

This is a common misconception from people who think that "evolved" means "most technologically advanced" or "most humanlike intelligence" ... in short "most like us."

Every organism on the planet is the result of exactly the same number of years of evolution as any other organism.   We are all equally "evolved."

Answer 8

Humans are NOT the most evolved animal on the planet - every organism is just as evolved as every other.

In terms of civilisation, it is a reasonable supposition that an animal should be warm-blooded in order to become as intelligent as humans (warm blooded = high metabolism = able to power a high-energy brain).

Other than mammals, the only other warm-blooded animals on the planet are birds. They have wings instead of grasping limbs for their forelimbs. Another hypothesised prerequisite for human-scale intelligence is the ability to manufacture and use tools. Without grasping limbs, this is not feasible - so birds are not a possibility either.

Answer 9

<<Why are humans the most evolved creatures on the planet?>>

They aren't.  The phrase "most evolved" is meaningless.

<<Since reptiles existed long before mammals...>>

Mammals happen to belong to a wider group called synapsids, although non-mammalian synapsids seem to have finally gone extinct during the Lower Cretaceous (eg. /Xenocretosuchus).  Synapsids and reptiles both have fossil records extending back to about 315 million years ago.  That's the Upper Carboniferous.  Reptiles and synapsids have existed for about the same legnth of time.

<<... and the characteristics that make humans so intelligent could also occur in reptiles...>>

They never have with the exception of "warm-bloodedness" (endothermy).  Birds are endothermic reptiles.  What 'could have occurred' isn't as significant as what actually did occur.

<<... wouldn't reptiles be more likely to evolve to the point of civilization than mammals?>>

Probability isn't of any great relevance.  What are the odds of somebody taking a job in a Vienna bank, and getting killed by a tram on their first day at work while eating sandwiches during their lunch break inside the building?  After all, how often has anybody seen a tram inside a building?  According to one seriously intended book I've got, one sighting was enough as that scenario actually occurred*.

(* I've not yet been able to find confirmation, so I've only got the author's assertion that the scenario outlined is true.  Should it not be, it's an entertaining illustration of the fact that very improbably things do indeed happen.)

Answer 10

It is a fallacy to view evolution as progressive. It is also a fallacy to be human-centric (I forget the word for this). In other words, evolution does to progress backwards or forwards, and species are not more or less evolved than each other.

This may come off sounding like some kind of like a hippie answer (ahaha), but the fact is we evolve according selection pressures on characteristics in our population.

Humans evolved to be intelligent because of selection pressures for walking upright, for larger craniums, for social behavior, etc.

It must also be noted that bacteria are quite 'simple' organisms and yet they dominate in numbers compared to all other organism on Earth. They are certainly not as 'intelligent' as humans.

Answer 11

I think the evolv rate is like an exponential funtion,

We are at a point where the evolutoin is more refined.

some time we where at the point where reptiles are now, in term of evolution. but now we are at a pont where the evolution is mor complex.

Is really hard to explain my point, my enlish need to be emproved.

Answer 12

We are the most evolved creatures on this planet because we can change our enviorment to suit our needs.

Answer 13

Because our brains are probably the most complex things in the Milkyway Galaxy.  I think a large part of it is our ability to communicate as well as our ability to reason.  We also have the gift of being able to stand upright and were given the gift of the precision hand allowing us to write and record information.

If you don't think evolution was trying things at random to see which would make the best combination of biology to produce the greatest brain through Darwin's Theory of Evolution or the selective process than I guess you should ask you church.