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Divergent Files · August 25 · 12 min

Did Extinction Make Human Intelligence Possible? | Mass Extinction, Evolution & Human Survival

What if human intelligence wasn’t evolution’s inevitable destination—but an adaptation to a planet that kept changing the rules? We explore mass extinctions, Snowball Earth, dinosaurs, environmental instability, and the rise of human flexibility and culture to ask a provocative question: did catastrophe help create the conditions that made human intelligence valuable?

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What if human intelligence wasn’t evolution’s inevitable destination—but an adaptation to a planet that kept changing the rules?

We explore mass extinctions, Snowball Earth, dinosaurs, environmental instability, and the rise of human flexibility and culture to ask a provocative question: did catastrophe help create the conditions that made human intelligence valuable?

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