If there'd been no K-T Asteroid Strike - What Would Have Happened?

[Jimmy Higgins]

They have language, excellent hunters, communal set up, and a vibrant art scene.

The oddity for human evolution was possibly a failed negative mutation that had a long-term benefit. And maybe it was the ability to make with tools that allowed the negative mutation to not influence things as much. If an animal has a communal organization, it provides a stability that allows the negatives to be over looked as well and then the good mutations carry greater weight.

There are no "good" or "negative" mutations, just those that lead to continued existence and those that lead to extinction.

Do we need to be pedantic? There are mutations, and they can have differing outcomes, and ones, like the one that may have led to lesser jaw strength, but oddly provided the capability of larger skulls, was a negative turn positive change, that required other influences to allow a negative to turn positive, where again, community is definitely a friend of evolution, which allows changes that could have initially negative effects to in the long run, provide a much larger benefit.

Evolution is not purposeful nor targeted. It just is.

Evolution is a mistake. Some mistakes work out for the better, others for the worse, though most go unnoticed.

They don't use tools or have the ability to manipulate macroscopic objects, but the smart long-term money is still on the bacteria. The bacteria always win in the end.

If you call that living.

Honestly, life on Earth is remarkable, especially intelligent life. The steps that got the animal kingdom to where it is just remarkable. And we still are unsure of the outside pressures that led to it as well. Like how much is Jupiter responsible for life on Earth, and how much is a larger star system by ours is responsible?

And of course, when we discover life on a (some) Moon(s) around Jupiter or Saturn, that'll be quite remarkable as well because it'll tell us how not-unique life on Earth actually is.

 

[Politesse]

Evolution is not a "mistake", because perfect reproduction off the previous generation's genes is not a "plan". Occasional variations in the gene pool have been a factor in the reproduction of living things since life first began to diversify, and the rate of this process accelerated when sexual reproduction developed. If there is a "grand master plan" to the universe, gene flow and unexpected variations are a part of that plan.