The earth is a planet of life. The most primitive and simple life was born about 4 billion years ago. After a long evolution of life, life finally gave birth to intelligent life mankind millions of years ago. The emergence of mankind has brought the earth into a new chapter, upgrading from an ordinary life planet to a smart life planet. When mankind enters the era of civilization, the earth will also be upgraded to a civilization planet.
So how did humans come? According to a large number of archaeological studies, human beings actually evolved from apes. About 5 million years ago, due to the tremendous changes in the ecological environment at that time, some apes had to abandon the forest to live in the plains. It is not easy to survive in the plains. Many beasts can threaten the survival of apes. At this time, in order to adapt to the new environment and survive, the apes began to learn to walk upright and their brains began to develop rapidly.
The environment forced the apes living on the plains to evolve toward intelligent life. After millions of years of evolution, Homo sapiens was finally born, which is also the ancestor of modern humans. It can be seen that humans and apes actually have a common ancestor, but they have gone in different directions along the evolutionary path of millions of years.
So what is an important sign of the evolution of apes to humans hundreds of years ago? Some people may say that it is walking upright. In fact, this is not the most important sign. The important sign that truly represents the evolution of ancient apes to humans is the use and manufacture of tools. Only intelligent life has the ability to use and manufacture tools.
Therefore, in the world of biological evolution, when we analyze whether a species has a tendency to evolve toward intelligent life, the use and manufacture of tools is a very important criterion for judging. The earth currently has only one intelligent race, humans, but we are not sure whether there will be a second and third intelligent race in the future.
In 2017, German ecologists released a discovery. They found that on a remote island in Panama, the little white capuchin monkeys on the island would use tools to obtain fruit, which may have entered the Stone Age.
After this important discovery was published, it caused a lot of sensation in the scientific community. Many biologists have said that these Panamanian monkeys may have actually entered the Stone Age, and they use tools very much like the primitive ancestors of humans. If so, does it mean that these Panamanian monkeys already possess elementary wisdom?
Panamanian monkeys use tools to make many people think that they may have entered the path of evolution toward wisdom. Such discoveries once caused people to panic. Some people worried that they would follow the evolutionary direction of mankind and evolve higher intelligence in the future, threatening the survival of mankind and the hegemony of the earth. So is this worry necessary? In fact, it is completely unnecessary. Why do you say that?
First of all, we must understand that the important symbol of the evolution of human beings’ ancient ancestors toward wisdom is the use and manufacture of tools, of which manufacturing tools are the focus. We must know that in nature, animals that can use tools are not only the Panamanian monkeys, chimpanzees, crows and other creatures use some tools.
Although Panamanian monkeys have learned to use tools, their way of using tools is still relatively rough. They only know how to use existing tools in nature, but do not make tools. This is equivalent to the most primitive stone age of mankind. Just knowing how to use tools can only show that Panamanian monkeys are smarter than ordinary monkeys, and may be smarter than chimpanzees, but they have not yet reached the level of wisdom.
In fact, there is a kind of creature in nature that may be smarter than Panama monkeys. They are crows with very unbeautiful calls. I believe everyone is familiar with crows. Because the crows are unpleasant, so many people don’t like them. But in Japan, crows are divine birds, and they have an incomparably noble status.
Crows have such a high status, mainly because they are too smart. We all know the story of crows drinking water. In addition to crows using stones to drink water, they have many other clever examples. In terms of IQ, the IQ of a crow can be compared to that of a human child of about 5 years old. The crow will use some simple tools in the natural world, and its wisdom is no less than that of the Panamanian monkey.
So has the crow been on the path of intellectual evolution? It is estimated that it is unlikely. Only by learning to make tools can it truly represent that a species has begun to take the path of intelligent evolution. Panamanian monkeys are still far from learning to make tools. It can be seen that they have not yet embarked on intelligent evolution. the way.
Even if one day in the future, Panamanian monkeys learn to make simple stone tools, it will take a long time and hard work to eventually evolve into intelligent life like human beings. It took millions of years for mankind to walk from the Stone Age to the present. In such a long period of time, mankind has also seen many branches.
Human beings evolved from apes, but the process of evolution is not a straight line, but many branches, such as: from earth ape to Australopithecus and then to capable man, artisan, Heidelberger, Homo sapiens, etc. The path of evolution is like the branches of a tree, and each node will produce a new branch. Among them, branches that can adapt to the environment will be retained by natural selection, and those that cannot adapt to the environment will be eliminated by natural selection.
On the evolutionary path of human beings over 5 million years, many different races of intelligent humans have appeared, but in the end, only the ancient ape in Africa can survive. This ancient ape finally evolved into Homo sapiens, the ancestor of modern humans.
It can be seen that even if any race has embarked on the path of intelligent evolution, it is very difficult to eventually become a high-level intelligent being. One of the important conditions is that the number of races must be sufficient. If there is no sufficient number of races, it will be difficult for this race to evolve into intelligent life.
The number of Panamanian monkeys is not large, and the area in which they live is also very limited. The number and active area severely limit their evolution and development direction. Therefore, the possibility of Panamanian monkeys wanting to evolve into intelligent life is very small. Even in the future, Panamanian monkeys are very lucky to become an intelligent race. Can they threaten the survival and status of human beings? The answer is impossible.
Even if the Panamanian monkeys evolve into intelligent life in the future, it may at least be hundreds of thousands of years away. At that time, after continuous efforts and development, human civilization had already become a powerful interstellar civilization in the universe, and was no longer bound to a small earth, a small solar system, or even a small galaxy.
At that time, the worst possible human civilization would spread all over the Milky Way, and the earth was just one of the planets inhabited by humans. Even if the Panamanian monkeys became advanced intelligent beings at that time, they were at best a primitive civilization. It was basically impossible for them to catch up with the pace of human development.
Even in the future, human beings will find more beautiful homes in the universe, and the earth is no longer important to us. It is possible that mankind will take the initiative to abandon the earth and give it to the newly born intelligent civilization. After all, the Panamanian monkey is also a creature of the earth, and from the perspective of civilization, it is also a civilization of the earth.
It can be seen that the claim that Panamanian monkeys threaten humans is completely nonsense. As long as humans exist on the earth, they cannot threaten the survival and status of human beings. But everything is impermanent. If one day humanity ends up because of the unknown primitive, and disappears completely in the long river of history like dinosaurs, then if the Panamanian monkey continues to exist, it may replace human beings and become the new intelligent life and new overlord of the earth.