If the Earth is more than 70% water, then how come the most intelligent life forms are on land?

@hunkalove But primates are smarter. And some other land species are also quite intlligent. And in water it's only cetaceans who r intelligent.

@SW-User Lol! they're studying us attempting to study them!!

@EugenieLaBorgia you mean homo spaiens evolved in the oceans? Darwin;s turning in his grave you know!

@SW-User spell check sucks!

@SW-User What about the various currents, the temperature ranges, the light conditions, pressure conditions? All of these in water provide more natural variables than land. And life has responded. I think I read there are more species in water than on land, which is a response to the more varied conditions in the ocean environment. Yet land has more of the higher intelligent species!!

One reason could be ease of movement on land... if a lot of the body mass has to fight drag in the water then there are less resources left as building blocks of intelligence?

@Dobsdobs this is the time element, the rate of change. The volume of water is enormous, the surface area huge, changes take time, life can proliferate faster, can move to better environments and there is far less of a challenge. Until we showed up and fished the he'll out of it. But it's not over, fish are evolving quickly in our life times to cope with our slaughter. Scientists have concluded that fish are maturing smaller and sooner to evade fishermans nets. How cool is that? The seas won't run out of fish they will just be dramatically smaller! So next time you scrape your half eaten fish dinner into the bin, consider a different source of omega 3 oils.

@Mondayschild How do you know we're not?

@Dobsdobs We have neglected to study the ocean in any real depth (pardon the pun). as opposed to space exploration. We have no clue what we would find there as far as intelligence.

@Mondayschild True! But if there is true intelligence in the ocean's depths that we have not explored so far, then they that life form must have explored us. Logically, if at our level of intelligecne we can explore the ocean as mcuh as we have done, then at a similar level of intelligence a deep ocean specis can explore outside the oceans just as much. So why has there been no contact. And is the absence of contact proof of absence?
Or is the deep ocean species way more intelligent than us and has already explored our realm in a way that we have not een found out?

that was a lovely pun, by d way