In the terrestrial biological world, there are two types of animals, one is a herbivorous animal, which can also be called a vegetarian animal, and the other is a carnivorous animal, which mainly eats meat. So which of these two animals has a higher IQ? Many people may say that of course carnivores have higher IQs.
The reason why people generally believe that carnivores have higher IQ is mainly judged by the food chain. It is believed that herbivores are the prey targets of carnivores, so carnivores have higher IQs. Is that true? If you make such a simple generalization, you are wrong. Scientific research shows that herbivores have a higher IQ than carnivores.
Are carnivores smart? The answer is yes. If they are not smart, they will not form a team to hunt for food, especially the lions on the African savannah are very smart, and the wolf, a carnivore, is also very smart. There are many clever carnivores. They use various means to capture herbivores with a very simple purpose, that is, to survive.
So are herbivores stupid? Of course not stupid. You must know that in the hundreds of millions of years of evolution and evolution of the earth, there have been five mass extinction events, and in each mass extinction, the first to survive is often the herbivore. In the long years of life, compared with the extinction of herbivores, many carnivores have disappeared.
In today’s earth’s biosphere, many ancient creatures are basically herbivores. It can be seen that the survival ability of herbivores is relatively stronger than that of carnivores. In the biological chain of the weak and the strong, if the herbivore had a lower IQ, it may have been extinct and disappeared long ago, and it may not continue to the present.
Therefore, herbivores are relatively higher in IQ than carnivores. The main reason why they cannot beat carnivores is that they have not evolved a powerful attack ability. We must know that carnivores have sharp teeth and claws, and herbivores basically do not have them. In addition, herbivores are inherently weak and do not have strong fighting ability.
Therefore, under this disparity of power, even if the herbivore has a higher IQ than the carnivore, once they meet, the herbivore can only choose to run away, rather than confront it head-on. This is the same as when humans encounter tigers and lions. Human beings are intelligent life, and their IQ is undoubtedly top. But when we face tigers and lions, can we fight them head-on? Of course not, because we can’t fight with bare hands. All we can choose is to escape.
The best herbivore IQ is undoubtedly the orangutan. They are primates and share the same primitive ancestors with humans. Orangutans are vegetarian animals, and their IQ is undoubtedly the highest in the animal kingdom, especially chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos among primates have higher IQs.
The example of chimpanzees tells us that vegetarian animals may have higher IQs. If so, why do humans eat meat? Isn’t it better to be vegetarian? In fact, to unravel this mystery, we need to find the answer from two reasons.
We all know that human beings evolved from ancient apes, and ancient apes were vegetarians. When some ancient apes came down from the tree and embarked on the path of intelligent evolution. The habit of eating vegetarian food has slowly changed. The original vegetarian animal has become an omnivorous animal and started to eat meat.
Why did the ancient ancestors of mankind eat meat? In fact, there is no way. You must know that the biological environment of the grassland is very complicated and cruel. There are a lot of plants and there are also a lot of animals. There are herbivores and carnivores. The ancient apes live on trees for a long time without natural enemies. In addition to being vegetarian, their physical fitness is relatively weak.
On the grasslands, the weak physical fitness sometimes can’t even beat the herbivores, let alone the carnivores. What to do at this time? Only continuous improvement of physical fitness will do, and this requires a lot of energy. These energy plants cannot be provided, only animals can do it, so in order to survive, the ancient apes have to hunt some weak herbivores and start to eat meat.
And the beginning of eating meat also allowed human ancestors to develop their brains quickly, which evolved into intelligent life step by step. Therefore, the development of the human brain is inseparable from meat. It can be seen from the inclusion structure of humans that protein, fat and carbohydrates are the three necessary items. The most important of these is protein, and human brain development requires animal protein, not plant protein.
Insufficient protein intake will lead to protein-energy malnutrition. Such a condition in infancy will affect brain development. Children with severe malnutrition have more learning and behavior problems than normal children. Therefore, if human beings want to maintain the advantage of wisdom and make the brain smarter, they cannot do without eating meat, which can replenish the brain and promote the development of the brain.
Another reason is that eating grass will seriously affect human work. In the earth’s biological chain, plants are at the bottom, so the energy contained in plants is relatively low. Human beings are different from herbivores. We are intelligent lives and have formed human civilization. Especially with the rapid development of science and technology, human beings will need to do more and more work, and more and more time will be needed to use their brains.
Regardless of whether it is physical work or mental work, it requires a large amount of energy to supplement, and the source of these energy is our food. There is a huge difference between the energy contained in vegetarian food and meat food. If we only rely on vegetarian food to obtain energy, then we need to eat a lot of food, and we also need to eat regularly, otherwise you will feel hungry.
I believe my friends will find that in the daily life of herbivores, in addition to eating grass, they are resting. Friends who have raised cattle should know that they eat continuously all day long. Cows rest when they are full. They have nothing else to do, but can humans do this? If we spend most of the day on eating, we will have very little time to work, which is very detrimental to the development of human civilization.
Therefore, for the rapid development of human civilization and for the better development of our brains, eating meat is the mainstream. Of course, meat should not be eaten alone, and vegetarian food should be taken as appropriate, so that we can have a healthy body. Eating meat can store a lot of energy, can keep us full of energy for a long time, and can free us more time for work and study.