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Mforti's avatar

Being intelligent enough to understand and develop theoretical physics helps you not one bit to take down that woolly mamoth. For most of human history we needed street smarts and practical abilities. It's only in modern times that abstract thinking has been of such great value relative to physical abilities. Who needs to be able to conceive of and construct water works when you live in an area of ample fresh water resources. Who needs to develop systems of agriculture or even cities when you live in a land of abundance for everyone all year round.

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Simon Laird's avatar

The premise of this post is wrong because humans are not in an evolutionary equilibrium (and haven't been for millions of years). Hominid brain size has been increasing exponentially for at least three million years. (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-crude-plot-of-average-hominid-brain-sizes-over-time-Although-after-an-initial_fig2_265057343)

So evolution is making humans as smart as possible and some of us are just farther along that evolutionary path than others.

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