Are Humans the Most “Evolved” Species?

The most common trope in biology debates is anthropocentrism versus non-anthropocentrism: “Humans must be dethroned!” vs. “humans are special!” The traditional understanding of evolution is much like the diagram of a fish that crawls on land and becomes a reptile, then a mammal, then a chimp, and finally an upright, enlightened human. The diagram suggests that evolution has been working towards us. The new, countervailing voice says that such a view is human-biased, and that the diagram of nature is more like a wheel, with different intelligences radiating out [1]. After all, roaches and ants outnumber us in quantity and biomass, so what’s to say that we are “more evolved?”

Perhaps, like most dialectics, the answer lies somewhere in between. Anthropocentric bias has been so often on the wrong side of history that my intuition has been primed towards skepticism. However, the idea that we’re just as “good” as ants boggles another intuition. Obviously we’re more intelligent than ants, and obviously, we’re more complex, and yet it seems like a stretch to say we’re more evolved. Technically, every species is equally evolved because their DNA survived the same billions of years to arrive at the present. And smart people are leery of words like “evolved” because they sound too much like “good” and other value judgments, which is a good thing to be leery of if the goal is objectivity.