The first creatures to develop human-level intelligence came to dominate all other creatures.
I am not so confident of this. There were a bunch of early hominids, other than H. Sap, whose intelligence is not well established. Suppose, say, it turns out that Neanderthals were 7% smarter on average than modern humans, but lost out evolutionarily because they had too much body hair. What would that imply about the importance of intelligence?
Actually, we have strong reason to suspect Neanderthals were smarter than Cro-Magnon man, and lost out because Cro-Magnon man traded and Neanderthals didn’t.
I am not so confident of this. There were a bunch of early hominids, other than H. Sap, whose intelligence is not well established. Suppose, say, it turns out that Neanderthals were 7% smarter on average than modern humans, but lost out evolutionarily because they had too much body hair. What would that imply about the importance of intelligence?
Actually, we have strong reason to suspect Neanderthals were smarter than Cro-Magnon man, and lost out because Cro-Magnon man traded and Neanderthals didn’t.