Sapient Dinosaurs

[ArmorPierce]

Do you think that a human village would stand much chance against a t-rex until the 18th century?

Nitpick: The T-rex was a scavenger among already enourmous beasts. It's unlikely to attack a village.

Doesn't mean that they aren't a selection of other predetors for our hypothetical sapient dinos to worry about.

The idea that it was purely a scavenger is idiotic. We have not seen any scavenger species that wouldn't hunt given the opportunity. Given their enormous size and strength and other slow moving dinosaurs, there was ample opportunity.

[Akhlut]

Counternitpick for ArmorPierce:

...
For Troodons, if the T-Rex was a predator then it was a predator 4 times as high as a Troodon.
...

On-topic:
Your organisation or tech must provide almost perfect safety to all individuals in your group when you don't know the predator is coming. You must be able to protect hunters and gatherers without spending an unreasonable amount of resources doing so.

Once you can master fire, you're well on your way toward keeping away most animals. Aside from a short list of domesticated animals and humans, every land animal is absolutely terrified of fire. Plus, these hypothetical troodon descendents have probably developed shovels, and can thus build pit traps against large predators. Remember that humans had to contend with extremely large megafauna as well, even if it wasn't carnivorous. Mammoths, elephants, and rhinos don't care about your puny yerts if it's right in the middle of where they want to browse in the middle of the night.

I can imagine humans being safe from lions and hyenas without much tech, just watchers, rock-throwing and tree-climbing.

Throwing rocks is not going to dissuade an elephant from attacking you, and a tree provides no defense from an animal that can topple it.

For Troodons, the latter two are not available, their predators are stronger, and their speed is less useful than tree-climbing. Also, while a lion or hyena should probably be careful dealing with a human as a human can hurt it with just a rock, I doubt a Troodon can hurt a big dinosaur.

Slings and atl-atls are fairly simple and can likely be devised with some ease. Plus, there is always the use of poisons. A few dozen poison tipped caltrops might be enough to stop a T-rex, if obtained from something like a poison-dart frog.

[Junghalli]

Is their shoulder structure capable of supporting anywhere near as much weight or giving as much power as ours? As for mobility, have you ever tried to throw a spear underhanded? How strong would their pectoral muscles be? My inborn Ape Bias says that without an arboreal-life descended wrist structure that Talking Lizard will be near useless with his hands.

From the body structure I can't see it being able to throw a spear well at all. They'd probably be limited to stabbing spears. Arrows and guns would be more difficult as well, as it would be harder for them to brace them against their shoulders. I imagine slingshots and short bows probably being their main ranged weapons prior to industrial age. The supine posture generally is worse for manipulating stuff as it doesn't give as much arm leverage (though it has its advantages, like not having your spine be a vertical column with all the back stress that causes).

I don't see this as being a showstopper though. Evolution is very much survival of the least inadequate: humans probably aren't an ideal shape for a tool-user either.

[Valk]

Once you can master fire, you're well on your way toward keeping away most animals. Aside from a short list of domesticated animals and humans, every land animal is absolutely terrified of fire. Plus, these hypothetical troodon descendents have probably developed shovels, and can thus build pit traps against large predators. Remember that humans had to contend with extremely large megafauna as well, even if it wasn't carnivorous. Mammoths, elephants, and rhinos don't care about your puny yerts if it's right in the middle of where they want to browse in the middle of the night.

I can imagine humans being safe from lions and hyenas without much tech, just watchers, rock-throwing and tree-climbing.

Throwing rocks is not going to dissuade an elephant from attacking you, and a tree provides no defense from an animal that can topple it.

For Troodons, the latter two are not available, their predators are stronger, and their speed is less useful than tree-climbing. Also, while a lion or hyena should probably be careful dealing with a human as a human can hurt it with just a rock, I doubt a Troodon can hurt a big dinosaur.

Slings and atl-atls are fairly simple and can likely be devised with some ease. Plus, there is always the use of poisons. A few dozen poison tipped caltrops might be enough to stop a T-rex, if obtained from something like a poison-dart frog.

You did considerably 'up the tech' for the Troodon. A human using an ordinary rock as a weapon is just the tiniest step ahead of the average monkey. Slings, poison and traps are much more sophisticated and require intelligence. Not to mention a proper build which the Troodon might not have as suggested by others here.
Of your mentioned weapons, slings are useless against a big dinosaur, traps are a lot of work, and unless you meant 'iron caltrops' I don't think they'll pierce the feet that allow a 6.8 ton predator to walk barefoot through forests and plains. If you say 'punji sticks' I say that's a trap.

To get smart enough to build these weapons they first need to evolve sufficient intelligence, however, a mutated Troodon that has +1% speed or +1% stealth will have slightly more offspring than our +1% intelligence mutated Troodon.

Finally, about Rhino's and elephants. A defensive strategy against them that works better than trees and rock-throwing is fear and caution. A rhino or elephant would prefer not to attack you, pointless waste of energy. You learn quickly enough how to behave if you don't want to anger them. Predators on the other hand generally have a net gain in energy for attacking you.

[Valk]

Fire btw is a point, but it's still higher tech than a rock.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Fire btw is a point, but it's still higher tech than a rock.

There's two aspects to fire; utilizing it, and creating it. Many anthropologists believe homo erectus was capable of harvesting burning brands from wildfires and nurturing them in campfires, but that they lacked the intellect/ability to figure out how to MAKE fire on their own, which is a very important distinction.

[Lord of the Abyss]

To get smart enough to build these weapons they first need to evolve sufficient intelligence, however, a mutated Troodon that has +1% speed or +1% stealth will have slightly more offspring than our +1% intelligence mutated Troodon.

Not necessarily. One theory for the origin of human intelligence is that it was competition with our own kind that made us smart, in an evolutionary arms race. For example, while your slightly faster or stealthier mutant Troodon is out trying to avoid those big predators, the slightly smarter one will perhaps realize that that's what they will be doing, lurk about until they go hunting, and mate with their females while they are gone. Of course, another smart Troodon may figure that might happen, fake leaving, then pounce on him; and so on in an escalating arms race against the one species that they can't evolutionarily become smarter than; themselves.

[Valk]

Post is written considering +1% to be offset by -1%

To get smart enough to build these weapons they first need to evolve sufficient intelligence, however, a mutated Troodon that has +1% speed or +1% stealth will have slightly more offspring than our +1% intelligence mutated Troodon.

Not necessarily. One theory for the origin of human intelligence is that it was competition with our own kind that made us smart, in an evolutionary arms race. For example, while your slightly faster or stealthier mutant Troodon is out trying to avoid those big predators, the slightly smarter one will perhaps realize that that's what they will be doing, lurk about until they go hunting, and mate with their females while they are gone. Of course, another
smart Troodon may figure that might happen, fake leaving, then pounce on him; and so on in an escalating arms race against the one species that they can't evolutionarily become smarter than; themselves.

The advantage the +1% intelligence Troodon gets must compensate for the -1% offspring it has compared to other Troodon.
The 'mating with their females' sounds weak though, I don't think that will work. They actually need to hunt, either for themselves, to bribe the female into mating, or to feed offspring (the latter two may not even apply to this species). Furthermore, 'mating with their females' is controlled by 'settings' in their emotions and not by intelligence.

Intelligence as we consider it is quite a useless trait actually, looking at it. It can allow you to hunt more effective, but on the other hand, instinct can make you hunt just as effective for no increase in brain size. I think every benefit intelligence offers has a more efficient alternative except for these two:
- dealing with unknown things (creatures, plants, situations that are not encountered routinely enough for instinct to do it)
- developing technology, and it sucks at first:
'Tech[this generation] = tech[previous generation] + iq'

So, for intelligence to develop, you basically need that 'Tech[this generation] = 0 + iq' offers sufficient benefits for an advantage to be had. For that, you need to be able to lose traits or powers with less worth, 'benefit(+1% speed) < benefit(+1% intelligence)' or maybe this is better: 'benefit(+1% intelligence) - penalty(-1% speed) > 0'.

I don't think Troodons could afford to lose much in speed or stealth, and that any 'benefits' are best spend in those areas. Suppose a Troodon could get away with -1% strength, he should 'spend' it to get +1% speed.

For early humans I can't really imagine what they really need. Vision was good enough for hunting and gathering, their group offered plenty of safety, ambush-predating negates the need for speed and a small group of humans don't look menacing to gazelles for instance while they sure are.

[Zixinus]

How would you lot rate this sapient dinosaur?



From: http://www.nemoramjet.com/dinowhat.html

I think it is a far more realistic look at a possible sapient dinosaur.

The idea that it was purely a scavenger is idiotic. We have not seen any scavenger species that wouldn't hunt given the opportunity. Given their enormous size and strength and other slow moving dinosaurs, there was ample opportunity.

:rolleyes:

Oh go fuck yourself and stop riding the wagon, would you? I already conceded that the T-rex was more then just a scavenger and it was safe to assume that it was a predator.

If you were the first to point this out to me, then I would have agreed with you but there have been at least three others that did so and I already admitted that I was wrong. Can we move on?

[Darth Raptor]

That's one of the better designs I've seen and it addresses the issues raised in this thread nicely. The forelimbs would be used for the fine manipulation of small objects while the jaws would do the heavy lifting. Assuming it's an omnivore that species might produce a(n) (entirely alien) civilization.

[ArmorPierce]

The idea that it was purely a scavenger is idiotic. We have not seen any scavenger species that wouldn't hunt given the opportunity. Given their enormous size and strength and other slow moving dinosaurs, there was ample opportunity.

:rolleyes:

Oh go fuck yourself and stop riding the wagon, would you? I already conceded that the T-rex was more then just a scavenger and it was safe to assume that it was a predator.

If you were the first to point this out to me, then I would have agreed with you but there have been at least three others that did so and I already admitted that I was wrong. Can we move on?[/quote]

Alright retard. You responded to my post and responded to yours. Second I wrote that before I read the others. If you don't want me to respond to your incorrect information regarding my post then don't post a retarded comment that you should have done some research on first. Now please walk away with your tail between your legs please, you have no standing to be mad that someone made a reply to your reply of his post when you were wrong.

[Zixinus]

Alright retard. You responded to my post and responded to yours. Second I wrote that before I read the others. If you don't want me to respond to your incorrect information regarding my post then don't post a retarded comment that you should have done some research on first. Now please walk away with your tail between your legs please, you have no standing to be mad that someone made a reply to your reply of his post when you were wrong.

Oh how I tremble!

[/sarcasm]

Okay, first, this is a massage board not a formal debate. I am not expected to carefully research every fucking point I make. I did admit that I was wrong. What you did was driving the point not just to home, but to the fucking basement and writing it out on the roof with Christmas lights.

Second, again, if you would have been the first to point it out, you would be right. But the thing is, that three other fucking people did that already and I admitted that I was wrong. There was no point in pointing out I was wrong (yet again), except self-esteem wanking at how much smarter you are. In this case, you were. Thing is, three fucking people already did that. Four actually, counting the one that driven the point home after I admitted I was wrong.

You responded to my post about your post. Great. So did three other people before I admitted I was wrong. You were not just correcting me, but joining the parade.

So, please, can we fucking move on already?

[Zixinus]

Oh how I tremble!

[/sarcasm]

Okay, first, this is a massage board not a formal debate. I am not expected to carefully research every fucking point I make. I did admit that I was wrong. What you did was driving the point not just to home, but to the fucking basement and writing it out on the roof with Christmas lights.

Second, again, if you would have been the first to point it out, you would be right. But the thing is, that three other fucking people did that already and I admitted that I was wrong. There was no point in pointing out I was wrong (yet again), except self-esteem wanking at how much smarter you are. In this case, you were. Thing is, three fucking people already did that. Four actually, counting the one that driven the point home after I admitted I was wrong.

You responded to my post about your post. Great. So did three other people before I admitted I was wrong. You were not just correcting me, but joining the parade.

So, please, can we fucking move on already?

Okay, in retrospect this is not going to go anywhere with a point.

ArmorPierce? I forgot you wrote that bit originally. When you corrected me, I thought it was someone wanking off. I'm sorry for getting mad and you are right, I had no proper right at getting mad at you.

So, can we move on finally?

[Lord of the Abyss]

The advantage the +1% intelligence Troodon gets must compensate for the -1% offspring it has compared to other Troodon.

Um; you assume that it WILL have -1% offspring.

The 'mating with their females' sounds weak though, I don't think that will work.

Actually, I used that example because it's the sort of thing that happens in nature.

Intelligence as we consider it is quite a useless trait actually, looking at it. It can allow you to hunt more effective, but on the other hand, instinct can make you hunt just as effective for no increase in brain size.

Incorrect. For example, pack hunters can hunt better than solo hunters, which requires a bigger brain to handle pack society. Or, a dumb creature that loses a scent trail has lost the prey; a smarter one may figure out where the prey was headed and pick up the trail further on.

Really, if you were right nothing would evolve intelligence past pure-instinct critters like insects.

I think every benefit intelligence offers has a more efficient alternative except for these two:
- dealing with unknown things (creatures, plants, situations that are not encountered routinely enough for instinct to do it)
- developing technology, and it sucks at first:
'Tech[this generation] = tech[previous generation] + iq'

You are forgetting dealing with members of your own kind. In social species, being smarter than your rivals or enemies has many advantages.

For early humans I can't really imagine what they really need. Vision was good enough for hunting and gathering, their group offered plenty of safety, ambush-predating negates the need for speed and a small group of humans don't look menacing to gazelles for instance while they sure are.

They needed the intelligence to get one up on each other. Even apes do that.

[Akhlut]

To get smart enough to build these weapons they first need to evolve sufficient intelligence, however, a mutated Troodon that has +1% speed or +1% stealth will have slightly more offspring than our +1% intelligence mutated Troodon.

Troodons are assumably social animals. Increased social networks require more brains to figure out intragroup dynamics. Thus, if troodons live in increasingly larger groups with associated group politics, then they will, by necessity, evolve larger brains. This probably necessitates language once groups reach a certain level. Language then opens up entirely new avenues of technology and the transfer of technology.

Finally, about Rhino's and elephants. A defensive strategy against them that works better than trees and rock-throwing is fear and caution. A rhino or elephant would prefer not to attack you, pointless waste of energy. You learn quickly enough how to behave if you don't want to anger them. Predators on the other hand generally have a net gain in energy for attacking you.

There's also the fact that most larger predators attacking troodons are probably going to get a single troodon, then lose all the others. While this will be unfortunate for the troodons, it will not be completely crushing to the group, depending on how large it is. The troodons scatter once the predator comes into view, perhaps one dies, then the troodons come back together and move on. Humans probably did much the same when prides of lions moved into the neighborhood prior to the development of, say, slings and bows.

[Valk]

The advantage the +1% intelligence Troodon gets must compensate for the -1% offspring it has compared to other Troodon.

Um; you assume that it WILL have -1% offspring.

Well, I implied that all Troodons got a +1%, so the Troodons that do not take the advantageous trait of +1% speed or +1% stealth that offer +1% offspring get -1% offspring compared to the others.

The 'mating with their females' sounds weak though, I don't think that will work.

Actually, I used that example because it's the sort of thing that happens in nature.

Yes but not as a result of intelligence.

Intelligence as we consider it is quite a useless trait actually, looking at it. It can allow you to hunt more effective, but on the other hand, instinct can make you hunt just as effective for no increase in brain size.

1. Incorrect. For example, pack hunters can hunt better than solo hunters, which requires a bigger brain to handle pack society.
2. Or, a dumb creature that loses a scent trail has lost the prey; a smarter one may figure out where the prey was headed and pick up the trail further on.

3. Really, if you were right nothing would evolve intelligence past pure-instinct critters like insects.

1. Agreed, population size growth requires bigger brains for most species including hypothetical advancing Troodons.
2. Depends, if a few simple basic search patterns will do then no, if they encounter smart or varied prey and their increased brain capacity helps elsewhere aswell then yes.
3. Agreed, I considered too many factors negligible.

To get smart enough to build these weapons they first need to evolve sufficient intelligence, however, a mutated Troodon that has +1% speed or +1% stealth will have slightly more offspring than our +1% intelligence mutated Troodon.

Troodons are assumably social animals. Increased social networks require more brains to figure out intragroup dynamics. Thus, if troodons live in increasingly larger groups with associated group politics, then they will, by necessity, evolve larger brains. This probably necessitates language once groups reach a certain level. Language then opens up entirely new avenues of technology and the transfer of technology.

I think every benefit intelligence offers has a more efficient alternative except for these two:
- dealing with unknown things (creatures, plants, situations that are not encountered routinely enough for instinct to do it)
- developing technology, and it sucks at first:
'Tech[this generation] = tech[previous generation] + iq'

You are forgetting dealing with members of your own kind. In social species, being smarter than your rivals or enemies has many advantages.

No I wasn't. If outside threats are serious enough, such as for the Troodon, the arms race will not begin because the stupid ones have plenty of opportunities to benefit from their superior speed for instance.

There's also the fact that most larger predators attacking troodons are probably going to get a single troodon, then lose all the others. While this will be unfortunate for the troodons, it will not be completely crushing to the group, depending on how large it is. The troodons scatter once the predator comes into view, perhaps one dies, then the troodons come back together and move on. Humans probably did much the same when prides of lions moved into the neighborhood prior to the development of, say, slings and bows.

This IS a problem. When a large predator can ignore your group and just get a single Troodon and leave the rest in peace, then 10 large predators can do the same and get 10 Troodons. There need not be 10 though, if a single predator can effortlessly invade your village and take a single Troodon then you must breed agaisnt that, forcing the Troodons to get +x% litter size at the cost of -x% something. No leftovers for intelligence.
Also, after a year that one predator will have reproduced making more hungry predators and if you cannot stop them you will eventually perish.

Hyenas can get a bite of human from a village, but they risk considerable losses.

If you, the evolving species, can hurt one attacking individual then they have reason to fear you. Hurting a 100 kg hyena or even a 250 kg lion is much easier than hurting a 6800 T-Rex. Once you can't hurt them, they can ignore you and just take what they want. Also equal* individuals have never shown great tendency to sacrifice their lives for the rest of their species.

* meaning no bees or ants where you have queens and workers

[Akhlut]

No I wasn't. If outside threats are serious enough, such as for the Troodon, the arms race will not begin because the stupid ones have plenty of opportunities to benefit from their superior speed for instance.

A troodon that is smart AND fast is going to benefit from both of those traits than one that is only fast.

This IS a problem. When a large predator can ignore your group and just get a single Troodon and leave the rest in peace, then 10 large predators can do the same and get 10 Troodons. There need not be 10 though, if a single predator can effortlessly invade your village and take a single Troodon then you must breed agaisnt that, forcing the Troodons to get +x% litter size at the cost of -x% something. No leftovers for intelligence.

Why the hell would 10 T-rexes band together to eat 10 troodons when they could take down a sauropod and get a much larger net gain? And that leads to a further question: why the hell would something specialize on troodons? Predators that eat other predators tend to be rather low in numbers because the food chain can only go so high. For instance, a bird that hunted eagles would need a range the size of Scotland; so, assumably, a predator that specialized in troodons would need an enormous fucking territory. That's not to say that there wouldn't be opportunistic feeding, but generally, few things hunt for smart and fast animals that likely have low population densities. See, for instance, cheetahs, jackals, and the like. Sure, lions will eat them, but they would much rather eat wildebeests and zebras. This would indicate that while, yes, there would be the worries of a T-rex munching on troodons, it would not necessarily depress the evolutionary strengths of increased intelligence down to the point that it is unable to evolve.

Also, after a year that one predator will have reproduced making more hungry predators and if you cannot stop them you will eventually perish.

Large predators, outside of cephalopods, take much longer than one year to grow to a size to be threatening.

Hyenas can get a bite of human from a village, but they risk considerable losses.

Hyenas also get more nutrition from larger prey animals, like zebras and wildebeests.

Also equal* individuals have never shown great tendency to sacrifice their lives for the rest of their species.

Wildebeests also don't notably present noble sacrifices to lions, it just happens than an old one, a sick one, or a slow one happens to be run-down and the rest of the herd lives. That is what I was implying.

[Lord of the Abyss]

The 'mating with their females' sounds weak though, I don't think that will work.

Actually, I used that example because it's the sort of thing that happens in nature.

Yes but not as a result of intelligence.

Oh, really ? No male animal has every outwitted another male's attempt to guard his harem, say ? Or taken his place as alpha male and got all the females because he built better alliances ? Animals manipulate and outwit each other all the time; you seem to think that all creatures are either humans, or insect-like automatons.

I think every benefit intelligence offers has a more efficient alternative except for these two:
- dealing with unknown things (creatures, plants, situations that are not encountered routinely enough for instinct to do it)
- developing technology, and it sucks at first:
'Tech[this generation] = tech[previous generation] + iq'

You are forgetting dealing with members of your own kind. In social species, being smarter than your rivals or enemies has many advantages.

No I wasn't. If outside threats are serious enough, such as for the Troodon, the arms race will not begin because the stupid ones have plenty of opportunities to benefit from their superior speed for instance.

That's not how evolution works. If faster Troodons do well, that doesn't mean evolution will "decide to concentrate" on fast Troodons; evolution doesn't have a direction or confine itself to single factors. If Troodon A does better because it's faster than a predator, and Troodon B does well because it's smarter than it's sexual/social rivals, both the 'fast' genes and 'smart' genes will have an edge in the next generation. No matter how bad the threat is ( and there's no reason to automatically assume it would be all that bad ), that won't stop evolution from occurring in a wide number of areas that have nothing to do with it. Remember, from an evolutionary perspective, failing to breed because you are cuckolded is just as much a failure as getting eaten before breeding.

[Molyneux]

Is their shoulder structure capable of supporting anywhere near as much weight or giving as much power as ours? As for mobility, have you ever tried to throw a spear underhanded? How strong would their pectoral muscles be? My inborn Ape Bias says that without an arboreal-life descended wrist structure that Talking Lizard will be near useless with his hands.

From the body structure I can't see it being able to throw a spear well at all. They'd probably be limited to stabbing spears. Arrows and guns would be more difficult as well, as it would be harder for them to brace them against their shoulders. I imagine slingshots and short bows probably being their main ranged weapons prior to industrial age. The supine posture generally is worse for manipulating stuff as it doesn't give as much arm leverage (though it has its advantages, like not having your spine be a vertical column with all the back stress that causes).

I don't see this as being a showstopper though. Evolution is very much survival of the least inadequate: humans probably aren't an ideal shape for a tool-user either.

Unfortunately, it appears that the shoulder structure that allows us to throw well at all is a holdover of our brachiating past...so any species that has NOT undergone a tree-climbing stage is unlikely to be able to throw spears effectively.

[Broomstick]

Is a spear-chucking stage a necessary precursor to higher intelligence and civilization?

Part of the problem with this discussion is that we only have the one known example of higher intelligence evolving. We don't know what other alternate paths are possible.

For example - could such a species start to rely on traps for food rather than thrown spears and rocks? Strong legs/feet could dig pits, delicate arms/hands could make snares out of various plant and animal fibers.

For that matter, before the re-introduction of the horse to North America the natives used to hunt bison by making them stampede off cliffs, something just about any pack animal could learn to do.

[Valk]

For the troodon to evolve intelligence it must be beneficial compared to all other possible evolutions. I ask you to illustrate how a +1% smarter troodon does better than a +1% faster troodon. It is pretty clear how speed saves you from the big predators around you and helps you to catch prey yourself. Knowing where prey will flee can be useful, but if you know it will flee away from you in a straight line that does little to you other than predict the outcome.

Regarding villages or groups, for a developing intelligence race abandoning your village/location sucks. Fleeing means often that you leave behind any tools or potential tools you were just about to discover. It might also mean abandoning eggs, and maybe even babies. If you are not sitting at the same place for years on end you are far less likely to discover that plants grow from seeds. Note that as brains get bigger young need more time to develop and may be helpless for far longer.

Big predatos that force you to flee just ruin both. First of all, speed is made a very important ability, and secondly staying at the same place is very helpful for developing tools, knowledge and thus intelligence.
Spending your life on the run makes you watch for predators, while spending your life in a village gives you time to look around and do stuff.

That's not how evolution works.

No, it was an abstraction that makes it easier to describe and work with. I'm also not the first to use it, ever read a book about evolution from Richard Dawkins?


I first took the posts one by one but it seemed a waste of (your) time and too big a post. If interested:

quote tags broken to facilitate size reduction
[quot="Akhlut"]A troodon that is smart AND fast is going to benefit from both of those traits than one that is only fast. [/quot]
Well unfortunately for that troodon, being 'really fast' and just as smart is even better.
[quot="Akhlut"]1. Why the hell would 10 T-rexes band together to eat 10 troodons when they could take down a sauropod and get a much larger net gain? And that leads to a further question:
2. why the hell would something specialize on troodons?
...
3. Large predators, outside of cephalopods, take much longer than one year to grow to a size to be threatening.[/quot]
1. Obviously I meant, 10 individual T-Rexes prey on the troodons, not together. One T-Rex can walk in and get a bite, walk out, at no risk to himself. If enough T-rexes do this individually their total consumption will be the end of this troodon group.
2. Where did I say that? Just saying the predators take the easiest prey they can find and a group of troodons that is no threat and always at the same place will attract predatos.
3. A year was a bit short, my point is, troodons are not going to survive this by standing their ground. Maybe they can outbreed the local predators now, but outbreeding them means that the predators have all the food they need and can grow in numbers at their maximum reproductive (= exponential growth) speed until the troodons can no longer outbreed them.
[quot="Akhlut"][quot] Also equal* individuals have never shown great tendency to sacrifice their lives for the rest of their species.[/quot]
*wrong interpretation*[/quot]
What I was implying was that no hyena is eager to be 'first wave' when attacking prey that can hurt the hyena even if the pack as a whole would benefit.
[quot="Lord of the Abyss"][quot="Valk"][quot="Lord of the Abyss"][quot="Valk"]The 'mating with their females' sounds weak though, I don't think that will work. [/quot]
Actually, I used that example because it's the sort of thing that happens in nature.[/quot]
Yes but not as a result of intelligence.[/quot]
Oh, really ? No male animal has every outwitted another male's attempt to guard his harem, say ? Or taken his place as alpha male and got all the females because he built better alliances ? Animals manipulate and outwit each other all the time; you seem to think that all creatures are either humans, or insect-like automatons.[/quot]
Whether or not to steal females is not a result of intelligence, intelligence may just facilitate it but so does strength.
Also consider that females are usually as picky about males as they can afford to be, you need not trick just the other male.
[quot="Lord of the Abyss"][quot="Valk"][quot="Lord of the Abyss"][quot="Valk"]I think every benefit intelligence offers has a more efficient alternative except for these two:
- dealing with unknown things (creatures, plants, situations that are not encountered routinely enough for instinct to do it)
- developing technology, and it sucks at first:
'Tech[this generation] = tech[previous generation] + iq'[/quot]
You are forgetting dealing with members of your own kind. In social species, being smarter than your rivals or enemies has many advantages.[/quot]
No I wasn't. If outside threats are serious enough, such as for the Troodon, the arms race will not begin because the stupid ones have plenty of opportunities to benefit from their superior speed for instance. [/quot]
That's not how evolution works.
...[/quot]
Oh please.
I thought this small abstraction should have been easy to follow. It's often easy to personify evolution to be able to talk quicker, and I'm certainly not the first to use it. I'm know Richard Dawkins does it in his books about evolution.
Offcourse no decisions are being made, but watching it that doesn't matter.
What really happens is that troodons mutate in every direction. Of all those random mutants (in this example/suggestion) only some that lost strength did better than the non-mutant normal troodons. From this group that lost strength, those that gained speed got more offspring than those that gained intelligence.
I say that troodons get a bonus point (from dropping strength) to spend on something else, and that those that spend it on speed are better off than those spending it on intelligence.

[Valk]

Is a spear-chucking stage a necessary precursor to higher intelligence and civilization?

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For example - could such a species start to rely on traps for food rather than thrown spears and rocks? Strong legs/feet could dig pits, delicate arms/hands could make snares out of various plant and animal fibers.

...

I think it isn't, traps could work as well.

That said, spears and their precursors: rocks; kick ass. Ranged weapons increase your safety by their range and are a big help in more ways than immediately apparant.

You throw a spear while stationary at a stationary target, eliminating any speed the target may have as an advantage and putting much lower demands on your body. With a spear, all you need to evolve or not devolve (if that's a word) are the parts of the body you use to throw it: strength in the arms, sight, targetting (brain). Thus giving you further body parts you can devolve to devote more resources to your brain.

Not even mentioning that animals lack any concept or understanding of ranged weapons.

[Valk]

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While animals do understand traps more or less, they don't expect the ground to give way but they do expect a lurking predator and they are somewhat the same in that if you just avoid that one spot you are safe.

[Broomstick]

For the troodon to evolve intelligence it must be beneficial compared to all other possible evolutions.

No, not better to possible alternatives, just better than the past.

I ask you to illustrate how a +1% smarter troodon does better than a +1% faster troodon. It is pretty clear how speed saves you from the big predators around you and helps you to catch prey yourself.

Humans aren't particularly fast - why are we still here?

Troodon's may or may not have been the prey of a particular big predator. As an example, while a lion could easily kill a vulture they usually don't - they aren't interested in eating them, for whatever reason. A wolf pack could down a human, but humans aren't their usual prey. A troodon could evolve to taste bad, or smell bad (like a skunk - which has very few predators). There are alternatives to sheer speed alone.

Regarding villages or groups, for a developing intelligence race abandoning your village/location sucks. Fleeing means often that you leave behind any tools or potential tools you were just about to discover. It might also mean abandoning eggs, and maybe even babies. If you are not sitting at the same place for years on end you are far less likely to discover that plants grow from seeds. Note that as brains get bigger young need more time to develop and may be helpless for far longer.

You've just said we can't have evolved - humans have only lived in settled villages for the past 10,000 years. Prior to that is 90,000 years (approximately) of being nomadic H. sapiens and prior to that all of our ancestors were nomadic, back millions of years. This line of reasoning does not hold up.

Big predatos that force you to flee just ruin both.

But we are not the primary prey of any big predator, although Africa certainly has big predators that are capable of hunting and killing humans.
Really, a T. Rex eating a troodon (or human) is like a mouse eating a lion. While it might do so if the opportunity presented itself, lions do not hunt mice - it's not enough meat for it to be cost-effective for them. Mice killed by lions is not a common occurrence and I doubt it's a driving force of mouse evolution. Troodon predators would most likely be lion-sized, not T. rex.

First of all, speed is made a very important ability

And yet humans are pathetic runners yet still exist.

and secondly staying at the same place is very helpful for developing tools, knowledge and thus intelligence.

But that's not what we did, and we developed tools, knowledge, and intelligence.

Spending your life on the run makes you watch for predators, while spending your life in a village gives you time to look around and do stuff.

But most of humanity through most of history have NOT lived in villages, that is NOT where we evolved our intelligence.

I think it isn't, traps could work as well.

That said, spears and their precursors: rocks; kick ass. Ranged weapons increase your safety by their range

Digging a pit trap and being elsewhere when the Big Bad Monster falls in is even safer than using a primitive ranged weapon.

You throw a spear while stationary at a stationary target, eliminating any speed the target may have as an advantage and putting much lower demands on your body.

Then why do spear hunters typically charge while throwing? Even where it is reduced to mere athletics - such as javelin throws - running is typically incorporated into the throw. Adding your speed increases the momentum of the spear and the impact.

With a spear, all you need to evolve or not devolve (if that's a word) are the parts of the body you use to throw it: strength in the arms, sight, targetting (brain). Thus giving you further body parts you can devolve to devote more resources to your brain.

While that's great it requires arms that have the potential to evolve along that path... something we have been debating with troodons.

Not even mentioning that animals lack any concept or understanding of ranged weapons.

You've never heard of poo-flinging monkeys?

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While animals do understand traps more or less, they don't expect the ground to give way but they do expect a lurking predator and they are somewhat the same in that if you just avoid that one spot you are safe.

That's why people who build traps and snares don't always use the same spot, they move them around.

[Akhlut]

1. Obviously I meant, 10 individual T-Rexes prey on the troodons, not together. One T-Rex can walk in and get a bite, walk out, at no risk to himself. If enough T-rexes do this individually their total consumption will be the end of this troodon group.

If it walks in, then all but the sickest of troodons are going to get out, and, thus, the T-Rex is going to have to expend a lot of energy chasing down relatively small, flighty prey. It's like a lion chasing a rabbit, or, more accurately, a jackal. Yeah, it happens, but the lion goes for something that, while a bit harder to kill, gets a much larger net gain of energy, like zebras or wildebeests. It is almost certainly the same with T-rexes; they'd probably hunt sauropods and duck-bills. If you're a 7 ton predator, why are you hunting for a hundred pound piece of meat and bone when you can kill a 4 ton duck-bill and be able to fend off nearly all other animals wanting to eat that kill?

That's what I'm saying. Not that troodons aren't going to be eaten, just that the number of large predators actively hunting a large population of troodons is going to be so low as to not put a real strain on troodon evolution toward larger brains and tool usage.

2. Where did I say that? Just saying the predators take the easiest prey they can find and a group of troodons that is no threat and always at the same place will attract predatos.

Troodons will not just hang around the same place though, in all likelihood. You forget that troodons are predators themselves and are thus going to following their own prey sources, which might not even follow the same prey that a T-rex would prefer. Hell, we're not even certain of the habitat overlap of T-rex and Troodon.

Which leads to another point: troodons and large predatory dinosaurs might not even live in the same space either physically or temporally. The T-rex might inhabit an area in the wet season or winter, while the Troodon is in the same area in the summer or dry season. The T-rex is going to be following big animals, the troodon is going to follow small ones.

3. A year was a bit short, my point is, troodons are not going to survive this by standing their ground. Maybe they can outbreed the local predators now, but outbreeding them means that the predators have all the food they need and can grow in numbers at their maximum reproductive (= exponential growth) speed until the troodons can no longer outbreed them.

A T-rex probably isn't going to be able to feed its offspring on a diet of nothing but troodons. It is probably going to hunt down duck-bills because mommy and/or daddy can eat its fill, then it can feed some to baby, and then they can hang around the damn thing for several days, whereas they would need to be constantly hunting troodons to sustain themselves and their babies. A troodon only weighs about 150 pounds, and lions, not t-rexes, but lions need to eat at least that much a week, so a predator that is 20 times their size is going to need thousands of pounds per a week. No large predator can sustain themselves on small fry without a lot of work.