order for humanity to evolve, it had to endure many life crises that could have easily led to human extinction, especially in ancient history when the population was of smaller number. Our ancestors were pushed towards evolution due to climate change, making them become more intelligent by adapting to these changes through innovative solutions.

Scientists, historians, and psychologists have been looking at the way we as humans have evolved our intelligence in the past when modern education didn’t exist. As discussed in one of my previous articles, the only way for humanity to evolve is to adapt to new challenges and change based on what the environment brings. With time, classical hunting made food resources in some regions more scarce, which is why they had to find new ways to hunt different animals as food resources.

Creative Adaptability

A new conceptual theory that had been criticized as being a bit bizarre but seems to be reliable had been published at the start of 2021 by Hod Orkibi from the Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences at the University of Haifa, Israel. the theory is named Creative Adaptability and it looks to measure the way that humans have shown surprise within their intelligence coefficient during times of crisis.

The author of the theory mainly looks at the recent pandemic as a crisis to test the theory out and frankly, the results are quite interesting. Some historians and scientists have also looked at the theory and associated it with humanity in general and past crises that humanity has faced and the way they have developed their intelligence towards surviving through crises.

It is not just about pandemics or epidemics, but earthquakes, ice ages, tornadoes, and any natural disaster that had taken place in history. If we take for example the way our ancestors lived in caves to stay away from the cold weather and also to protect themselves from any danger out there we see them creatively adapting in order to survive.

The theory primarily takes creative adaptability during times of crisis as a cognitive-behavioral-emotional ability to respond to such stressful situations. When the brain realizes that there is a risk up ahead it makes you feel two correlating emotions, stress and fear. At that moment the survivability mechanism turns on, forcing the brain to look for new ways of overcoming such crises, therefore making the brain adapt to the situation through creative ways.

Inteligence to Survive

When the Homosapiens were being beaten by the Neatherdals due to a huge difference in strength, they became creative by adapting their military tactics to the weaknesses of the Neatherdals. The Neatherdals were only good at close-quarter combat, therefore the bow and arrow pushed the odds of victory towards the Homosapines, the species that survived.

It is not just about being creative, but using the surrounding environment and every resource that it has to offer. When animals or crops would perish due to various natural disasters, humanity adapted and migrated elsewhere. This is an important step in the evolution of intelligence as you need to sometimes realize defeat, retreat, and rebuild in order to survive. It is not always brute force that wins, and I believe that is when we humanity realized that we aren’t able to directly fight natural catastrophes, we are only able to adapt in order to survive.

If we look at the biggest pandemic in the world which was the Black Death, the same answer applied just as in this present scenario, most people that survived were those that simply isolated from the rest until things calmed down. They evolved by understanding they didn’t have the capabilities nor the medical understanding to fight such a disease, so they waited and after they rebuild their crumbled society they prepared for future pandemics.

Other species didn’t adapt, therefore never evolved

If we look at some of the more ancient catastrophes during ancient times where our ancestors were living with different humanoid species we see that some of them didn’t survive. This is due to many factors as described before, but one of them is natural disasters and their inability to adapt.

Our ancestors survived by evolving and realizing a negative shift in the environment meant that they had to relocate. When a volcano is about to erupt it is time to go far away. Some evolved even quicker and realized that it is a bad idea to live next to a volcano. Well, the Neatherdals weren’t so intelligent and even if volcano eruptions were something not necessarily out of the ordinary, they stood their ground to nature. Many historians believe that this is what lead to the extinction of Neanderthals.

Overall, when we were faced with a catastrophe we adapted in whatever way we can, and this is what defines the theory of creative adaptability within ancient history and events that took place Anno Domini. If we look at a single person in general within modern times we see that from a psychological point of view a person needs to be faced with challenges in order to evolve. These challenges just like natural disasters bring a sense of fear and stress and they can be surpassed by adapting to new ways of working or living.

Natural Catastrophes are still occurring every year, some smaller than others, but with each one, I believe that as humans we are becoming more intelligent by pushing the boundaries of creative adaptability.