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Intelligent Humans

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The Evolution of Intelligent Systems

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Abstract

Many theorists would disparage the notion of some kind of innovative leap in the course of human evolution. For example, Richard Byrne and his colleagues warn against a ‘sterile searching for a cognitive Rubicon’ between apes and humans.1 Yet evolutionary leaps, or phase transitions, have occurred in the sense that major innovations, only nascent in a species at one time, have evolved in subsequent generations as a major adaptive strategy. The ‘new’ strategy has then accelerated evolution and species radiation. Such was the leap from prokaryotes to eukaryotes with the evolution of bounded nuclei; from single-cell to multicellular species; from invertebrates to vertebrates; from acquatic to terrestrial living and so on. In this book, I have described a series of such bridges in the evolution of complex, intelligent systems, each with remarkable consequences for further evolution.

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Notes

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Authors
  1. Ken Richardson
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© 2010 Ken Richardson

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Richardson, K. (2010). Intelligent Humans. In: The Evolution of Intelligent Systems. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230299245_10

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