Why did not all monkeys become human?

"They did not do this for the same reason that not all fish came out on land and became four-legged, not all single-celled became multicellular, not all animals became vertebrates, not all arhosaurs became birds. For the same reason that not all flowers are daisies, not all insects are ants, not all mushrooms are white, not all viruses are influenza viruses, "is written in the book" Human Evolution: Monkeys, Bones and Genes. "

The above question is often asked in general in connection with the fact that they are under the authority of a certain belief that it is better to be a man than an animal who must find food and / or be saved from predators every day by the hardest efforts. Nevertheless, the question itself is incorrectly posed, since, firstly, it assumes that evolution has a certain goal, to which it invariably strives. Many believe that evolution in general is always directed from simple to complex. This is not true. Evolutionary progress (this is how biology is called the movement from simple to complex) does not happen at all with all living organisms, but only with a small part of them. Many creatures and plants in the course of evolution, on the contrary, become not more complicated, but easier, and at the same time thrive. But most often the history of life on our planet demonstrates such a picture, when the new species did not replace the old ones, but simply added to them, supplementing it. For example, our species - Homo sapiens - simply joined the primates and other monkeys, but did not replace them by themselves.

The second error follows from the first: in addition to the fact that people often believe that evolution has a purpose, they also think that this goal, the "crown of creation", is man. Unfortunately for them, biology has not found confirmation of such a presumptuous position. Despite the fact that our genealogical tree, if we trace it from single-celled ones (single-celled - the first animals - the first chordates - the first fish - the first four-legged - the ancient synapsides - the zoo-lizards - the first mammals - the placental ones - the primates - the monkeys - the humanoid ones) the species is quite "progressive" to us, the same species it has in the dolphin, bear or mosquito. And a bear, and a mosquito, and a whale, and a cat - they are all the "crown of creation" of their family tree. And also our genealogical trees coincide with all of them, and diverge only on a certain "branch" of development.

Of course, compared to other animals, we have a more developed brain (although this is not an absolute question, since some animals, such as jays or squirrels, greatly exceed us in the ability to memorize points on the terrain, a rat much faster than we will get out of the labyrinth, and some monkeys will better remember the faces of the photo), and our communication is the most difficult (speech). But it's good to remember that any kind of animal has its own "chip", each has some ability that is better developed by him than all the others. The cheetah, as you know, runs faster than all the animals on the planet. "Prove to him what to think and say is more important than running fast. He does not think so. He starves to death if he exchanges fast legs for a large brain, "writes Markov. Of course, because in order to use the brain to improve their lives, we need a culture and a long adaptation to it (our childhood and the painful process of education), and now we want to eat a cheetah.

Apart from us, cetaceans and elephants also have a large brain, but their dimensions are much larger than ours, so their brain is less than the human brain in percentage terms. Nature in general rarely "created" species with as large a brain as we have. This is due, first of all, to the fact that the possession of such a body is very expensive - the brain needs calories, not just a lot, but a huge amount. The second disadvantage of the large brain is the difficulty of obstetric care. That is why before the appearance of medicine our ancestors had such high maternal and child mortality at birth. In this regard, the "young" Homo sapiens are born literally prematurely and require a long period of withdrawal. "And most importantly, there are many ways to live well without a big brain, which is evidenced by the living nature around us." In order for our brain to grow rapidly in size, it was necessary to confluence some very good circumstances. What exactly - science is trying to learn so far (although a lot of plausible and well-known hypotheses, of course, exist).

What about the other animals? Can they also become reasonable during evolution? "If we humans do not interfere with them, we do not exterminate them and let them calmly evolve, then this is not out of the question." But the fact is that evolution is an incredibly slow process. To note at least some significant evolutionary shifts, for example, in monkeys (and not in a colony of rapidly multiplying and "maturing" bacteria), centuries or even millennia of observations will be needed. We started observing chimpanzees in their natural conditions just a few dozen years ago. So if chimps "get smart" - we will not see it. Although, of course, they hardly get smart. Although, he said, if now all of Africa has become some kind of impregnable reserve in which nothing human would prevent the primates from developing, then the descendants of today's monkeys, like gorillas, bonobos or chimpanzees, could well become reasonable and in no way inferior us. Of course, this would no longer be Homo sapiens, but a completely different kind of sentient beings, though descended from primates. However, to look at it - will have to wait, maybe 10 million years, and maybe all 30.