Sapient Dinosaurs

[Valk]

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.

Which is my point, they do not stand their ground and they have to flee. Everything else was an illustration of why having to flee is bad, or an illustration of what would happen if troodons did stand their ground against T-Rex.


Now please, adress this:

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.

Broomstick... my replies in order:
- uhhuh, so you're saying that if the old form gives 1x offspring, a new form 2x offspring and another form 3x offspring; they will evolve to the second form giving 2x offspring because it was mentioned first?
- you completely missed the point, namely: DIFFERENT CIRCUMSTANCES
- uhhuh
- troodons foolishly standing their ground against a T-Rex would be a worthwhile meal
- 'very important' for the troodons you idiot! My whole point is that different circumstances put different evolutionary pressures on our two races.
- it is what we did
- maybe I'll ease on abstractions and illustrations if you'll stop nitpicking
- [To most of spears chapter] I said it could work, and then as trivia added that ranged weapons kick ass. It just being trivia and not an argument against your traps point might have been unclear so sorry for that.
- [poo flinging] k, monkeys, our closest relative, understand throwing and might learn to understand ranged weapons. There's also a sea snail that uses a harpoon - but thank you for wasting both your and my time in pointing out there are a few exceptions which are not relevant for the argument as a whole.
- missed me! err, I mean, the point.

[Broomstick]

If you want to reply to me use the quoting feature you lazy fuck - who wants to have try to figure out what you're responding to, much less go back and forth between two pages?

[madd0ct0r]

@ Valk.

In only one case were pre-industrial humans non-nomadic.
(God that was a horrible sentence.)

The exception were one of the Native American tribes who never started farming but lived in an area rich enough for permanent settlements. Frustratingly I can't remember their name - they appear in Guns, Germs and Steel.
All other pre-agriculture groups were nomadic, following the food sources around the seasons. These migrationary routes may have been arbitrary or, more probably, they may have been highly predictable, using the same spots year after year.

In the latter case, abandoning stone tools is hardly an issue: your specialist tools will be waiting for you when you get back next year. Other tools would have short lifespans and be easily replicated as and when you need them.


However - for a purely carnivorous species I can't see permanent settlements being the first step on the technological tree.

Rather I see them domesticating grazers for food and transport - following the herds around their migrations.
Developing tanning, preserving, woodworking (sleds, carts and tents) and herbal medicines well before the first permanent settlements.

These could arise around fishing - either fish ponds, fish traps in a river or coastal fishing villages. In turn, these settlements could give rise to new technologies regarding farmed domesticated herbivores.

As the settlement is permanent, the migrationary pattern of the domesticated animals would have to be broken leading to crofting and grazing. Also smaller species may be kept much as chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs.

The technologies developed here would allow more settlements to spring up away from the original fishing sites.

[Valk]

@madd0ct0r

I didn't know that, but do you know how long these nomads stayed at the same place? Weeks or months?

In the latter case I still see some harm coming to their technological development by being chased away.

Considering the technological portion of my argument dismissed for now;
that still leaves safety for increasingly helpless young and evolutionary incentive. Humans could stand their ground when they were at any one place as a group. Everyone was simply safe, no loss of young due to a predator raid on the group.
Troodons would all have to run for their lives each time a T-Rex or other predator thinks he can get a quick bite because there are 30+ troodons gathered at the same place and there's bound to be one easy enough to be worth it. This hurts their pop growth a little as young have less chance to mature, and more importantly: they cannot neglect things such as speed to develop intelligence.

[Broomstick]

I didn't know that, but do you know how long these nomads stayed at the same place? Weeks or months?

Nomads stayed for varying lengths of time - it could be as short as days or semi-permanently. I will also note that in addition to the North American group mentioned there is some reason to think that there was likewise a permanently settled hunter-gather culture in Japan.

Considering the technological portion of my argument dismissed for now;
that still leaves safety for increasingly helpless young and evolutionary incentive. Humans could stand their ground when they were at any one place as a group. Everyone was simply safe, no loss of young due to a predator raid on the group.

Where do you get that idea? Accounts of stone-age level hunter-gatherers into the 20th Century noted concern of the group for the safety of women and children vs. predators. Kalahari natives into the mid-20th Century suffered losses due to various predators taking group stragglers, people in the middle the night (their shelters being extremely flimsy), and so on. Our ancestors must have suffered in a similar manner.

Have you actually looked into any of the documentary evidence on hunter-gatherers, or are you taking your knowledge from newspaper headlines and books aimed at 3rd graders?

Troodons would all have to run for their lives each time a T-Rex or other predator thinks he can get a quick bite because there are 30+ troodons gathered at the same place and there's bound to be one easy enough to be worth it.

Lions do not run after rabbits, even when there are a lot of rabbits. Lions hunt big game. Dogs chase rabbits, they do not eat worms and bugs. Troodons were unlikely to be the target prey of something as large as a T. rex, it's not cost-effective for them to pursue such small prey.

[Shroom Man 777]

There's a reason they're called Big Game Hunters

Also, I find it awesome that Broomstick leiks dinosaurs. Like InnerBrat. Where is she, anyway? Having an actual-factual paleontologist weigh in on this discussion would be really useful.

Doesn't everything Valk say about our hippotheticel Troodonts apply to prehistoric humans?

[Broomstick]

Doesn't everything Valk say about our hippotheticel Troodonts apply to prehistoric humans?

Pretty much.

[Lusankya]

Valk also seems to be making the assumption that +speed and +intelligence are mutually exclusive. Almost as if life is like The Sims and every creature gets the same amount of points to put into their characters. This completely ignores the known fact that some organisms end up being snails, while other organisms end up being James Hird (a very handsome Australian football player who also has a degree in Civil Engineering).

Also, even if we accept his assumption that +SI (+speed and +intelligence) is a disadvantageous combination (possibly through increased energy needs), even though +S and +I are advantageous individually, then that would actually be a selective factor against the least common alelle, as a greater proportion of the organisms containing it would contain the disadvantageous combination of +SI. (ie: if 90% of the organisms have +I, while 10% have +S, then there is a 90% chance for an organism with +S to have +SI, while there is only a 10% chance of organisms with +I having +SI.) Even if +S on its own was more advantageous than +I on its own, the fitness of that gene would be decreased due to its genetic environment.

[Valk]

@Lusankya:
I don't know how your mind works but it must be pretty stupid if that is the conclusion you draw.

Valk says => +intelligence = -speed
Possible reasonings
- If you keep everything else equal, it's a trade off.
- brains are big
- [something smart]
- [something stupid]
- 'he must think being smart and fast is really disadvantageous'

Later you even point out yourself that +speed and +intelligence would be for example +consumption. If you wanted to make a (smart) point maybe you should have said 'Troodons had very lush surroundings with plenty of food, they could have developed intelligence at the cost of efficiency.'

To which I would have responded.
If speed > intelligence, then trading of +2% food consumption for +2% speed is better than trading of +2% energy consumption for +1% speed and +1% intelligence. Congratualations, you're back to my earlier request to illustrate how +1% int would be better than +1% speed.

A few points to adress, assume everything not adressed as me conceding on that point unless I adress it after the quoting part of my post.

Troodons would all have to run for their lives each time a T-Rex or other predator thinks he can get a quick bite because there are 30+ troodons gathered at the same place and there's bound to be one easy enough to be worth it.

Lions do not run after rabbits, even when there are a lot of rabbits. Lions hunt big game. Dogs chase rabbits, they do not eat worms and bugs. Troodons were unlikely to be the target prey of something as large as a T. rex, it's not cost-effective for them to pursue such small prey.

We're not talking about running after, we're talking about barging in and taking one that didn't get away.

Doesn't everything Valk say about our hippotheticel Troodonts apply to prehistoric humans?

Pretty much.

Well no, what I said did not apply to prehistoric humans. After Broomsticks rebuttal much of it does, but on those points I was 'proven'* wrong and didn't contradict myself thank you very much mr. Shroom.

* As far as 'proven' applies to discussion forums.


my point al rebutted. The question that remains is why would intelligence develop. I'll get back to this later when I've looked into Troodon's prey but I will watch for responses.
(when I have time)

[ArmorPierce]

Yeah that's the thing I agree with. I don't see the troodon evolving high intelligence. However I don't think that's the argument here. I think it is a what-if experiment more than anything.

[Valk]

the last sentence is bad;

I meant, I will watch this topic while looking into the troodon's prey etc.
the latter will have to wait until I have some time (friday I think)

[Lord of the Abyss]

The question that remains is why would intelligence develop.

Internal competition within the species, quite likely. The one species that no matter how smart you get, it'll be just as smart because it's from the same gene pool.

It's probably not a coincidence that humans are both highly intelligent and highly social.

[Lusankya]

@Lusankya:
I don't know how your mind works but it must be pretty stupid if that is the conclusion you draw.

Valk says => +intelligence = -speed
Possible reasonings
- If you keep everything else equal, it's a trade off.
- brains are big
- [something smart]
- [something stupid]
- 'he must think being smart and fast is really disadvantageous'

Later you even point out yourself that +speed and +intelligence would be for example +consumption. If you wanted to make a (smart) point maybe you should have said 'Troodons had very lush surroundings with plenty of food, they could have developed intelligence at the cost of efficiency.'

To which I would have responded.
If speed > intelligence, then trading of +2% food consumption for +2% speed is better than trading of +2% energy consumption for +1% speed and +1% intelligence. Congratualations, you're back to my earlier request to illustrate how +1% int would be better than +1% speed.

Clearly you have not idea how the genetic environment affects gene selection.

Let's say that we have a population of Torodons which already has about 90% of the population with the +Intelligence allelle. How did they get this? Well, the mutation occured, and since it gave an advantage, it was selected for. The +Speed mutation is not within the population, because it hasn't mutated yet. So the +intelligence mutation occured first.

Now, let's say that after the +intelligence mutation reaches a 90% saturation point in the population, the +Speed mutation occurs. So the +speed mutation occurs well after the +intelligence mutation. Remember, evolution is random mutation + natural selection. Note the "random". This means that the Torodons don't choose the order in which the mutations occur.

At this point, YOU will say that clearly the +speed mutation will begin to dominate the population. However, you would be wrong. If we assume that the +Intelligence mutation has fitness factor of 2, the +Speed mutation has a fitness factor of 3, and the combination of speed+int has a fitness factor of 0, then simple mathematics will show us that in this population, Intelligence will win out. Have a look.

Here are the facts:
- +Speed has a fitness factor of 3
- 90% of individuals with the +speed mutation also the +intelligence mutation.

So overall fitness of +speed =1/10*3 + 9/10*0 = 0.3

Also:
- +Intelligence has a fitness factor of 2
- at this stage, only a negligible number of individuals with +int also have +speed, so this combination can be ignored.

So overall fitness factor of +Intelligence is 2.

Now that I've done all of the hard maths for you (oooh! fractions are scary!), tell me: which is a higher number? 2 or 0.3? So which mutation has the greater evolutionary fitness?

As a matter of fact, I don't have to even use such an extreme example to give +Intelligence a greater advantage than +speed. So long as +intelligence has more than a 50% greater saturation within the population than +speed, then it confers a greater advantage on average.

[CaptainZoidberg]

Valk also seems to be making the assumption that +speed and +intelligence are mutually exclusive. Almost as if life is like The Sims and every creature gets the same amount of points to put into their characters. This completely ignores the known fact that some organisms end up being snails, while other organisms end up being James Hird (a very handsome Australian football player who also has a degree in Civil Engineering).

Not quite. Even though there's no conservation of speed or intelligence, there is conservation of time and energy. Perhaps James Hird is much faster and much smarter than a slug - but he also requires much more energy than a slug. In addition it takes more time for him to grow and mature than a slug. His ability to be a civil engineer required years of education and training.

[Kuroneko]

What exactly is the debate about? If it's still about Valk's "[f]or the troodon to evolve intelligence it must be beneficial compared to all other possible evolutions", how in the world did something so obviously wrong expand to such proportions? (Well, perhaps that overstating things...) I'm not anywhere near qualified to substantially comment on either paleontology or biology, but even the very existence of refrigerator magnets prove that this sort of thinking is incorrect.

Functions can have a local extremum quite different from the global one (if it even exists); a process may get "stuck" in such an extremum. What's "most fit" locally may be dependent on the entire prior history of development, and so may be quite different from what's the "most fit" out of the entire space of possibilities. And examples from the natural world are everywhere: phenomena that exhibit metastability and dependency on prior history are commonplace. Re-interpreting "fitness" appropriately, such as "state of lowest potential energy", gives plenty of examples from physics and chemistry, e.g., permanent magnets staying magnetized (hysteresis) or the native state of proteins or other molecules frequently not being the one of (absolute/global) minimal energy.

[LadyTevar]

I want to know how Valk assumes that a bonus to Intelligence automatically means a minus to Speed, Strength, or any other feature.

[Surlethe]

In fact, every sort of design 'flaw' that we find in nature is an example of a local fitness maximum that is not a global maximum (and probably vice-versa as well). Case in point: cetaceans, which live in water but must breathe air.

[Lusankya]

Not quite. Even though there's no conservation of speed or intelligence, there is conservation of time and energy. Perhaps James Hird is much faster and much smarter than a slug - but he also requires much more energy than a slug. In addition it takes more time for him to grow and mature than a slug. His ability to be a civil engineer required years of education and training.

So? His ability to procure resources is also much greater than a slug's. I never claimed that James Hird required the same amount of resources as a slug - I just claimed that he is bigger, stronger, faster, more intelligent and better looking than a slug. And he evolved to be that way. Thus giving a real-life example how some individuals can be slow and stupid while others can be speedy and intelligent, without impacting their evolutionary fitness.

[Elfdart]

One problem with human-like dinosaurs is in the skulls. Diapsids (including reptiles, birds and dinosaurs) have jaw muscles that slide inside the skull as well as outside. Synapsids (mammals and proto-mammals) have jaw muscles that fit through a loop on the outside of the skull. This essentially frees up several bones to become the ear, and it also frees up extra space inside the skull.

Any archosaur is going to be severely handicapped since muscles will be competeing for space inside the skull.

[Elfdart]

At what point in human evolution did we stop having to worry about predators?

If that is a factor in evolving intelligence, it makes it much harder for Troodons to evolve it. As they faced much stronger predators than humans did.

People are killed and eaten by predators today. It probably stopped being common a few thousand years ago. See Blood Rites by Barbara Ehrenreich.

[Omega18]

@ Valk.

In only one case were pre-industrial humans non-nomadic.
(God that was a horrible sentence.)

The exception were one of the Native American tribes who never started farming but lived in an area rich enough for permanent settlements. Frustratingly I can't remember their name - they appear in Guns, Germs and Steel.
All other pre-agriculture groups were nomadic, following the food sources around the seasons. These migrationary routes may have been arbitrary or, more probably, they may have been highly predictable, using the same spots year after year.

You're incorrect, and I believe Jared Diamond in fact makes it clear that it was more than one Native American tribe where this was the case. To throw out another example, you have the old site of the village of Kijik up in Alaska where you're looking at a permanent settlement and the villagers heavily relying upon spawning fish. They certainly were not related to the tribes you're thinking of, who were probably in the Pacific Northwest around Oregon and Washington State. While we probably know more about the Native American tribes because they had permanent settlements without agriculture much more recently, I am pretty certain that at one time there must have been a few of these sorts of villages in select places in Europe for instance as well with abundant spawning fish right by the right river location. Basically while permanent settlements are much more limited without agriculture there are places where they can exist.

[Junghalli]

I want to know how Valk assumes that a bonus to Intelligence automatically means a minus to Speed, Strength, or any other feature.

He's probably going off the idea that a big brain requires energy, and assuming constant food intake and metabolism this must come at the cost of less energy to other parts of the body.

Of course, this isn't true if we assume the added intelligence allows it to procure more food thus making up the gap.

[Broomstick]

Or if an animal shifts its diet to more energy dense food - for example our own ancestors' shift from almost (although not quite) exclusively vegetarian to hunters/scavengers that consumed more protein and fats on a regular basis.

Or if there is some other compensatory mechanism, such as hummingbirds spending the night in torpor, a drastic slowing of their very high speed metabolism.

[Akhlut]

One problem with human-like dinosaurs is in the skulls. Diapsids (including reptiles, birds and dinosaurs) have jaw muscles that slide inside the skull as well as outside. Synapsids (mammals and proto-mammals) have jaw muscles that fit through a loop on the outside of the skull. This essentially frees up several bones to become the ear, and it also frees up extra space inside the skull.

Any archosaur is going to be severely handicapped since muscles will be competeing for space inside the skull.

They can reduce their jaw muscles once they develop tools. That's probably what happened to humans, since now our "teeth" are outside our bodies, in the form of steak knives and fire, which makes food a lot less tough. So, once they can master fire and knives, then they are free to reduce the hell out of their jaw muscles and free up all that room for brains.



As for Valk: why the hell is it mutually exclusive for speed and intelligence to coexist? A smart, quick hunter can obtain more calories than a dumb, quick one or a smart, slow one. Thus, the smart, quick hunter can sustain its increased intelligence and its huge leg muscles. Especially since the planet is going to have more than enough food for them to utilize until they develop agriculture AND they become a world spanning species.

Further, why do you keep bringing up T-rexes like they are the most populous damn species on the planet AND they have an insatiable hunger for troodons? A T-rex is going to want to hunt something bigger than a mouthful. They are going to hunt duckbills, sauropods, and various triceratops species because they can make a damn meal out of the things. Seriously, unless you were desperate, how often would you hunt mice and small birds? Almost never? Same damn thing with T-rexes, most likely. If they are starving, then, yes, they would hunt troodons, but, otherwise, they are going to focus on big prey.

What will hunt troodons are creatures that are slightly smaller than troodons to something maybe five times a troodon's size. A troodon can handle those predators with tools, with fire, and with teamwork.

[madd0ct0r]

@ Omega18

Good catch.
Yup I was thinking of the northwest pacific settlements.
It's intruiging my theory for early troodon permenant settlement has been shown valid for humans too. never even considered that.