QUOTE (lordtup @ Aug 9 2012, 05:54 PM)
Exactly , the single factor that places us aside from other species in the evolutionary race is not simply our our enquiring mind but our ability to reason our way through to an answer.
One of the many things that fascinate me about the Mars mission is the near certainty that, while it's possible that we're the most advanced species to have evolved on Earth so far, we're not the most advanced species in the universe. It would certainly be interesting if the Mars mission found traces of life. I doubt it will, but I think it's worth having a look. I find it intriguing to think that there is intelligence out there somewhere, unimaginably more advanced than our own.
I also think we over-estimate our own species' development over that of other species here on Earth - we're more or less the same monkeys that walked out of Africa 150 thousand years ago when we were just another knuckle-dragging primate. We've made technological progress, but that's a lot to do with the evolutionary accidents of speech and writing, allowing each egneration to see further by standing on the sholders of the last. I don't think our intelligence and awareness is so very much more than that of other extant species, and it's possibly less.