THE MAIN DRIVING FORCES AND STAGES OF HUMAN BECOMING AN INTELLIGENT BEING

 

Humans became intelligent beings through three leaps resulting from the influence of three main driving forces.

Three Main Driving Forces

1. Variations (genetic diversity)

2. Natural selection pressure

3. The skeletal transformation triggered by standing upright seven million years ago, continuing throughout all hominin stages and still ongoing today

 

Three Leaps

1. The leap to bipedalism that occurred seven million years ago

2. The intelligence somersault leap that occurred around two million years ago

3. The intelligence-threshold leap, in which humans reached the mental capacity to create tools by attaching a stone to a stick—a type of object never before produced by nature under natural conditions

 

 The Three Main Driving Forces and Their Functions

 

1. Variations

Evolutionary scientists say that if natural selection is the engine of evolution, then variations are its raw material. Every newborn organism is a variation. In other words, no two organisms on Earth have identical genomes.

 

Every individual within a primate (chimpanzee) population forced to stand on two feet is a variation. Some of these variations possess genomes more suited to bipedalism, or such genomes will emerge in later generations. If individuals with genomes predisposed to bipedalism do not arise within this population, then the population cannot survive as a bipedal species, and no bipedal primate speciation can occur.

 

 2. Natural Selection Pressure

The main mechanism of general evolution—that is, speciation—is natural selection pressure. Natural selection consists of the pressures exerted by geographic location, climate conditions, diseases, predators, food varieties and methods of obtaining them, and population security. Collectively, these can be called habitat pressures.

 

Variations and natural selection pressure are the mechanisms of general evolution. These two parameters account for the evolution and speciation of all living organisms other than humans. Human evolution and the emergence of the human species cannot be explained solely by these two driving forces.

 

3. The Skeletal Transformation Triggered by Standing Upright Seven Million Years Ago, Continuing Through All Hominin Stages and Still Ongoing Today

Humans are the only mammalian species on Earth that is both bipedal and vertically bodied. This third driving force is the determining parameter in humanity’s becoming an intelligent species. The mechanisms and processes of human evolution have not been adequately explained because this reality—the skeletal transformation that began seven million years ago and continues today—has not been recognized.

 

There are many hypotheses concerning human evolution, but these hypotheses are often mutually exclusive and far from convincing. Skeletal transformation has progressed from the toes to the leg bones, pelvis, rib cage, arm lengths, finger bones, and, for the last two million years (after the intelligence somersault), facial reduction and skull (brain) enlargement.

 

The Three Leaps Produced by the Influence of These Driving Forces

 

 1. The Leap to Bipedalism Seven Million Years Ago

Since I have discussed this in detail in many previous articles, I will summarize it briefly here. Human bipedalism has traditionally been attributed to prolonged and widespread life in the savanna. However, this hypothesis has now largely been abandoned.

 

My proposal is that a primate population became trapped somewhere in the Rift Valley due to natural events and environmental changes and was forced to search for and obtain food in wetland environments. The fact that hominin fossils are predominantly found in dried lake and river deposits, and that carbon isotope analyses of fossil tooth enamel indicate a diet rich in aquatic resources, can be cited as evidence supporting the hypothesis that upright posture originated in wetlands.

 

2. The Intelligence Somersault Leap Around Two Million Years Ago

Once bipedalism became necessary seven million years ago, gradual torso straightening began over a very long period (approximately five million years). The driving force behind this straightening was the necessity of keeping the body's center of gravity within the area of the feet. Otherwise, a creature unable to locomote optimally could not sustain its life or species.

 

Indeed, fossil skeletons from every stage of the last seven million years show this gradual change toward the modern condition.

 

Around two million years ago, after five million years of accumulated quantitative torso straightening, the embryo in the womb produced an adaptive response to this vertical body structure. Everything that occurred followed the laws of physics. The embryos of all horizontally bodied mammals develop and are born facing the mother’s abdomen, with their heads toward the birth canal and with limited freedom of movement.

 

The human embryo, however, had to orient its head toward the mother's diaphragm. As a result, it was forced to bear the weight of the mother's internal organs upon its skull. This led to enlargement and rounding of the skull. It was this necessity of bearing weight that triggered skull growth and consequently brain growth.

 

This proposal could theoretically be tested by implanting a chimpanzee embryo into the womb of a modern human female whose body has fully acquired vertical posture through seven million years of torso straightening. Pure chimpanzees born from human wombs could then be bred with one another for 10–15 generations, with all gestation and births occurring in human wombs. The results might surprise everyone. One might encounter a hairy chimpanzee with a smaller face and a larger skull saying “good morning” to you.

 

An objection is often raised that such an experiment cannot be performed for ethical reasons. However, the inability to conduct the experiment does not falsify the hypothesis.

 

At the Homo habilis stage around two million years ago, a sudden increase in brain size is observed (from 350 cc to 700 cc). For this reason, I argue that the intelligence somersault occurred around two million years ago.

 

 3. The Intelligence-Threshold Leap: Reaching the Mental Capacity to Create Tools Such as a Stone Attached to a Stick

The intelligence-threshold leap occurred when the brain growth initiated by the intelligence somersault reached a certain size, enabling the mental capacity to create tools not naturally found in nature.

 

The ancestor of the spacecraft that carried modern humans (the Homo sapiens stage) to the Moon was that first stone attached to a stick.

 

Beginning with *Sahelanthropus tchadensis*, which stood upright seven million years ago, the skeletal transformation within hominins has continued in the same form and at the same rate regardless of the habitat in which they lived or the geographic adaptations they underwent. The primary cause of differences in appearance among hominins is skeletal transformation. Geographic adaptations also contribute to these differences, though they are not the determining factor.

 

All hominins have undergone the same skeletal transformation at the same rate, speed, and manner. Once hominins reached a certain level of mental capacity, they began moving into different parts of the world. This mental capacity gave them the ability to imagine what lay beyond a mountain—in a sense, to “see” beyond it. Animals live according to what they see or perceive through their senses, whereas hominins additionally possess imagination.

 

Throughout the seven-million-year process of bipedalism, hominins exchanged genes both horizontally and vertically, assimilated one another, and ultimately reached the final hominin stage, *Homo sapiens sapiens*.

 

In recent years, genetic sequences obtained from approximately 40,000-year-old fossils have demonstrated that Neanderthals, Denisovans, *Homo floresiensis*, and *Homo sapiens* exchanged genes horizontally—that is, they interbred. Likewise, Chinese scientists have recently demonstrated vertical gene transfer using sequenced proteins obtained from 400,000-year-old *Homo erectus* fossil teeth. Vertical gene transfer means that genes acquired from *Homo erectus* by Denisovans through interbreeding 400,000 years ago were carried forward through generations and transmitted to the present.

 

Considering all this, it should be assumed that mechanisms of horizontal and vertical gene transfer operated throughout the hominin period. In other words, hominins were not separate species but rather a single species exhibiting minor phenotypic differences resulting from accumulated quantitative skeletal changes and geographic adaptations. Every hominin shared a common skeletal structure that changed simultaneously and in parallel.

 

The skeletal transformation triggered by standing upright seven million years ago has continued until today and is still ongoing. This transformation produces accumulations of quantitative skeletal changes over long periods. These accumulations of quantitative change lead to qualitative leaps and transformations. As a result of these quantitative accumulations and qualitative transformations (leaps), hominins with only slight phenotypic differences emerge.

 

In other words, after *Sahelanthropus tchadensis*, accumulated quantitative skeletal changes produced a qualitative transformation that gave rise to *Orrorin tugenensis*. The accumulated quantitative skeletal changes in *Orrorin tugenensis* then produced a qualitative transformation resulting in *Ardipithecus ramidus*. The accumulated quantitative skeletal changes in *Ardipithecus ramidus* produced a qualitative transformation resulting in the australopithecines, and so on. This mechanism continued throughout all hominin stages.

 

According to research, these accumulations of quantitative skeletal changes, which continue even today, are still operating in *Homo sapiens* and are transforming it toward another hominin form.

 

In conclusion, hominins are not separate species. Rather, they are the same species exhibiting phenotypic differences caused primarily by skeletal transformations that have continued for seven million years, together with geographic adaptations.