James Flynn

Not a day goes by when I don't marvel at the fact that life has evolved on earth.

In fact, I think about it too much. I partially blame it for the fact that I can't sleep at night. Bit extreme I know, but it really is a fascinating subject for me.

Of course, being human myself I tend to focus on human evolution rather than any other animal, not that the evolutionary paths of other animals are any less amazing mind you....

However, we do seem to have gained an evolutionary asset quite different from the rest of the animal kingdom in one aspect....intelligence.

We are not the only intelligent animal on the planet, we all know that dolphins, elephants and octopuses are very intelligent creatures, but I think most people would agree that we can not be rivalled in terms of intelligent thought.

I often wonder why it was primates that evolved to be so clever, why not other forms of life? Or maybe the better question to ask would be "how inevitable is it that a life form will gain intelligence as a tool for survival over time?

Very heavy questions I know, i'm surprised my poor brain hasn't burnt out from all the stress I put on it, but it seems I am not alone.....

Anyone heard of a bloke called Dale Russell?

Until a few weeks ago I hadn't. That was until I stumbled across a theory of his that he came up with all the way back in 1982 (or somewhere around that time).

It is probably worth noting that Dale Russel is a respected geologist and palaeontologist in america, you can read more about him here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Russell..

I was completely taken back when I saw this, and have been fascinated with the idea since reading it. This theory is critisized heavily by the scientific community for reasons I shall get to shortly, but here is the gist of it.....

Once upon a time there was a dinosaur called a "troodon". It was a relatively small, bird like dinosaur, but most importantly it had a very large brain for a creature of it's size.

Here's a picture of what the these things looked like....

Image surface vision

They certainly don't look like they have big brains to me, but i'll trust the experts on that one and leave it at that.

But here's the interesting part......

Dale Russell's opinion is that if the dinosaurs did not become extinct all those years ago, these troodons could have lived on to have evolved and inherited a very high level of intelligence.

Tantalising thought isn't it? Well it actually gets better......

Dale's opinion is that the troodon would have ended up with larger brains as the years went by. And this, in turn would have led to extended, larger skulls to accommodate this change. Dale also states that this would have caused the troodons neck to become shorter to be able to carry the weight of a larger skull, and the species would inevitably become bipedal and walk upright.

And further still, over time the tail of the troodon would have diminished as did with our great ape relatives. Dale also believes they would have of course learned to be a tool using race and basically would have followed a path very similar to ours, and may have looked like something resembling this...

Picture cracked.com

Pictures wikipedia.

It's hardly surprising that this theory has been subject to it's fair share of criticism. And I imagine that is probably quite an understatement. The reason for this is mainly down to the fact that it is so anthropomorphic. It is suspiciously humanlike.

It has been argued that the troodon would have kept it's horizontal stance and not necessarily grown to be bipedal and resemble the human form so strongly.

And however much I like this idea, I have to agree. It is a little too human looking, but it does make me wonder whether another species would have taken our evolutionary route if it didn't happen to us primates. Food for thought indeed. And he may not be miles off either, just that it's exhaggerated a little.

So far we remain the only "highly intelligent" beings we know of, so until I see a reptile inventing the wheel, or learning how to make fire, I think we have to marvel at the fact that we have been very priveliged to have followed the route that we have taken as a species.

Nevertheless, I think this is a theory worth sharing, from clearly quite a clever man.