Of all the species on the planet. why is primate the only one that has intelligence?

[Grimjak]

Because we have a brain that doesn't rely strictly on instincts to survive. Did I answer the question?

[Deleted]

who is to say that a branch of the dinosaurs didn't evolve into a super-intelligent reptilian species leaving the planet taking all trace of there society with them ?

[Gamdwelf]

who is to say that a branch of the dinosaurs didn't evolve into a super-intelligent reptilian species leaving the planet taking all trace of there society with them ?

Called birds, and some of them are highly intelligent, and we are trying to figure out how smart they really are, when their brain mass/inteligence is much smaller than ours.

[Puck]

Because they needed intelligence to survive.

[Morogoth]

Maybe intelligence is relative?

[Kezotar]

I have my thoughts Blizzard RNG took a spot here..

[Kezotar]

who is to say that a branch of the dinosaurs didn't evolve into a super-intelligent reptilian species leaving the planet taking all trace of there society with them ?

traces say otherwise, but good one. made me giggle

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 04:33 AM ----------

I have thought about this too. The meteor (or whatever killed them off, really) would have destroyed all trace of their civilization.
It's interesting to think about :P

So why do we still find traces of their existence? But let's give that idea a thought. Maybe that was their 2012. The dinosaurs left earth and the remaining is the part of dinosaurs that were left. Such as in the video 2012. Who knows? Haha, i'd be funny xD. Who's next time time?

[apepi]

RNG and adaptability.

[Powerogue]

we killed anything that competed. o_O

actually possible, but who knows. some super intelligent weasels might be hiding somewhere.

[Mormolyce]

It is likely due to our opposable thumbs, our ecological niche and our upright posture. The jury is still out on which exactly came first.

[WarpKnight]

That's the way the evolutionary arms race happened with the species in our little ecological niche.

As we all know, even if your opponent has more brute strength, you can still outwit them, or devise a technology to defeat them. So your opponent tries to outwit you, tries to develop their own countermeasure for your technology.

Conflict drives innovation, and still does to this day.

[herpecin]

because primates were one of the last families to evolve.

other things had us beat in speed, strength, claws, teeth, fur, flight, etc. we got stuck with the last piece of paper in the hat, just so happens it was the best.

yes there are other animals that are smart, but so far as we know we are the only species that has reasoning.

[Lysah]

That simply isn't true, may I direct you towards crows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ-i92ov5O8

This video has made me want a falcon or hawk so much more than I already did.

[Deleted]

Because we happened to be in the right place at the right time in the right age...wich caused us to evolve into something that led us to where we are.

I can't give specifics as I simply don't know or care for them, but I find the OP's question rather stupid. I thought we all knew how evolution works.

[Goremonger]

One word, extraterrestrials

[Deleted]

Humans got big brain from walking upright and eating meat. Speech was great for communicating information which was needed for hunting. Being social animals they formed communities where being smarter could be of evolutionary value.
Our close cousins the primates didn't walk upright or eat meat like us and they never developed speaking. Intelligence hardly could evolve in the water to the extenct it could form cultures.

[Rork]

First all animals are "inteligent" to a certain extend; off course we can say that homo sapiens is the most intelligent species that has ever lived on this planet without too much risk.

Second there is no such thing as why in evolution... How man became the most inteligent species? because man had to be inteligent to survive and reproduce.

The raptor didn't need to build rocketships to survive and reproduce he had claws and theet.

[Madness20]

Every single animal in the world has intelligence as a basis, even a bacteria might learn how to react or adapt to situations and it does, that´s intelligence above all.
Intelligence on other animals might just not be up to the level where they can think as humans, but surely it doesn't make them non-intelligent.
Even dogs have quite a great personality and intelligence in the end, they just can't think as deeply and efficiently as we do.

[Deleted]

Actually it is quite ignorant, to think, that humans are the most intelligent race on this planet.

Maybe we are just too dumb to understand other races.

And our intelligence actually wasn't that good for Mother Earth ;-) If I were her I would try to find a solution, to get rid of us^^

[Rotted]

I present the Corvus family, which includes the second-most intelligent species on this planet: The European Magpie.

But the answer why human intelligence is so dominant can only be answered with: Because we brutally murdered any competition along the way. We weren't brilliant before, but we were really good at killing things. With nobody to argue, and hunting to take less and less time, we grew bored. With boredom came innovation as well as culture.
We're intelligent because we (or at least: our ancestors) were the best at punching things to death.

Exactly this, there was another "humanoid" if you want to use that term for simplicity, that evolved as well, but they were smaller and not as strong as "us" they were decimated and wiped out,

Natural selection, survival of the fittest and all that