We think of aliens that are thousands or millions of years ahead of us in terms of evolution and we, therefore, translate that as them being that much more intelligent than us. We think that the fact that their evolutionary journey so long means that they must have reached the point where they become intelligent as if intelligence is the ultimate goal of evolution.

Well, let me tell you something. The universe can care less about our intelligence.

Our self-importance as humans makes us believe that we are special and superior to other animals because we are more intelligent and self-aware. But in the macro, the universe doesn’t give a dam about my intelligence.

Believe me when I say: crocodiles don’t daydream about becoming more intelligent. They have been here for millions of years before us and they’ll probably continue after we are gone, whereas we humans have been here for around 200,000 years. This is a blink of an eye compared to crocodiles.

Our slightly more complex brains have evolved as compensation for our physical weakness. We are not fast or strong. Crocodiles kill animals with their face. We can’t do that. And this strategy doesn’t work for species as soft as we are. We had to plan and think and make weapons to allow us to kill animals and made fire to cook the food.

This understanding of evolution though is very tricky. It leads us to think that evolution somehow has an agenda to make individual species adapt. But it’s not like that.

We can see our evolutionary process because we are here, but that doesn’t mean that mother nature intended for us to become smart. For evolution to take place mother nature has to flex its muscles and present stressors on species. 99.9% of species that existed on earth went extinct and they aren’t here anymore. Mother nature didn’t have plans for them to evolve and neither it did have plans for us. It’s fair!

Mutations don’t mean evolution. Mutations happen randomly and blindly. No agenda. They occur every day but almost all of them don’t survive. The minority that survives is by sheer luck happen to have the mutation that allows them to do so. All by accident.

If you read the book “the selfish gene” by Richard Dawkins you’ll understand clearly. It’s all about the survival of our genes, not bodies. So we reproduce to have new bodies to carry on with our genes.

But don’t cheer yet. We’ve only been here for 200,000 years. We haven’t proven our success. Our intelligence helped us survive so far but it’s negligible compared to other species like crocodiles.

What I’m trying to get into your head that evolution is very random and it doesn’t have an agenda. Nature doesn’t care if we vanish today. Our intelligence has helped us survive just like strong teeth and jaws helped lions survive. If our planet gets hit by a solid asteroid, we will disappear and our short story of 200,000 will be forgotten, and species like rats or cockroaches may prosper and take over the planet.

So why are we so obsessed with intelligence?

When we think of alien life we imagine them being so intelligent and technologically advanced. We think that if their life journey started millions of years before us, the force of evolution will have pushed them to become smarter.

When we study other ancient species, the ancestors of today’s species, we think of them as a transitional species, as if they are primitive. Like they’ve been waiting to become today’s more advanced species.

A clear example of this flawed understanding of evolution is common when we look at our story. We look at Homo Erectus as this awkward species that are not ripe yet. As if they’re daydreaming about becoming us one day. But they were fine and they could care less. We live too short to understand evolution. Thousands and millions of years lose their meaning. We can’t grasp it.

So aliens don’t necessarily have to be smart.

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