Reply to BLawson's comment...
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"Except by your logic all primates should have ended up in the same place."
Bats are mammals that are exceptionally good at flying. Humans are mammals that are exceptionally good at walking upright. Walking upright makes us exceptionally good at allocating resources. Being exceptionally good at allocating resources puts an exceptional amount of selection pressure on intelligence. Therefore, humans are exceptionally intelligent.
If all the humans left this planet and colonized mars... then it's a given that, in the absence of any sort of massive natural disaster, some other primate would evolve to become exceptionally good at walking upright. As a result, they would also become exceptionally intelligent.
On Netflix I was watching some nature show and they were showing those wonderfully bizarre creatures that live near the underwater thermal vents. The narrator said that at anytime the vents can simply cease to function. When that happens it spells disaster for the creatures that depend on its existence.
This means that life is synonymous with colonization. Flying sure facilitates colonization. So does walking upright. But walking upright and having arms and hands also facilitates the allocation of resources... which facilitates the development of the intelligence needed to colonize other planets. Nature created us humans so that she wouldn't have all her eggs in the same basket (Earth).
Unfortunately, humans don't quite grasp that progress is a function of difference. So we allow a small group of government planners to spend all our taxes for us. This results in too many eggs in too few baskets... which hinders progress... which greatly increases the time it will take before we can successfully colonize other planets. And the longer it takes to colonize other planets... the greater the chances that we'll be wiped out by some massive disaster.
There you go... evolution and economics in a nutshell.
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