From an evolutionary standpoint, it is by no means obvious that intelligence is an advantage. In nature, a trait is advantageous only if it maximizes reproductive success and long-term survival. Long term (and that does not mean a few thousand years).
Logical–mathematical intelligence has allowed us to colonize almost every terrestrial ecosystem and has even propelled us into space. It has enabled us to radically reshape the environment, to accumulate knowledge, and to develop advanced technologies.
At first glance, this looks like the triumph of Homo sapiens sapiens: the most numerous, long-lived, and dominant species on the planet, capable of controlling animals, plants, and even the climate.
But that same ability to design tools has also produced weapons of mass destruction, anthropogenic climate change, and ecological imbalances that are now undermining the foundations of our society—and our very existence.
We are the only species capable of self-destruction on a planetary scale, with atomic bombs and other weapons able to render the planet uninhabitable within a few hours.
This uniqueness is not something to boast about, but a warning: the intelligence that creates absolute power also amplifies the instinct to use it badly, turning innovation into a potential apocalypse.
And worse still, selfishness and greed (traits typical of our species) are the exact opposite of authentic intelligence. A truly evolved mind should be able to compute global interdependencies across long time horizons and large scales, rather than maximizing the immediate “mine” at the expense of the “ours,” and of the future.
Instead, we plunder resources out of individual or group greed (countries, multinational corporations…), ignoring that collective survival is the ultimate evolutionary key.
Selfishness is simply shortsightedness disguised as cleverness: the ultimate cognitive failure. This lethal combination—power plus selfishness—reduces our supposed evolutionary “advantage” to an open existential gamble. Evolution does not judge: it tests and, above all, it selects.
