Question: Do you think any other species has evolved intelligence like us before in the past?

Jane Henry answered on 17 Jun 2010:

I reckon loads of other species on this planet and others around the universe have evolved intelligence. I doubt their intelligence is exactly like ours as the type of intelligence you have is bound up by what kind of organism your are, our maps of the world depend quite a lot of sight, dogs maps will focus more round smells, whales will be register sounds from much greater distance that we can (unaided by technology.) There are so many stars and planets in the universe perhaps there is a species somewhere else like us but I suspect there are all kinds of intelligent creature that we could not even dream off.
Fossils suggest many earlier hominids had smaller brains than ours but neanderthals are now reckoned by scientists to be much more intelligent than their brute image in literature.
We are lucky that we can record what we know so new generations can learn from past inventions, our dextrous hands and flexible vocal chords help here as well as our brains.