Why do we think that humans are at the top of the evolutionary line on Earth? It's simply because the opposite was not found, more advanced life forms, for example). So, in the absence of other facts, the default is assumed true.
Well, by scientific standards this can't hold true. Just because you can't find evidence for the opposite, it doesn't mean your hypothesis becomes a fact. Still, somehow this is bypassed and our "common sense" takes over and we just quietly assume it. It's just "way too obvious", isn't it?
Aside from this un-scientific approach of the "humans are the most advanced species on Earth" statement, I realized that it can be proven that an evidence of the opposite is not obtainable by the mere essence of evolution.
Let's analyze in very broad strokes the difference between a couple major evolutionary stages. For example, take vegetal life forms and compare it to the animals, say - grass compared to sheep.
Grass is unable (due to its evolution-based capabilities) to comprehend a sheep. From a grass's perspective, a sheep is just either some part of the environment, or just another vegetal organism that can interact with it (like move it or destroy/eat it). It (the grass) can't tell the difference between another plant (or environment) interacting with it and a sheep and it's reaction (based on bio-chemical processes) is pretty much the same for all of them. Obviously it doesn't have any kind of nervous system to be able to "comprehend" any difference.
Ok, that's the grass, pretty primitive, of course. Now the sheep, on other hand, is pretty smart to tell apart grass from other sheep or even other animals. Sheep has the evolutionary capability to differentiate animals from vegetable life forms and even to discriminate further among these groups (like recognizing that a wolf is not one of the mate sheep, for example).
Obviously, definitely, animals are more advanced than plants and can comprehend both the lower life forms and the about-the-same evolutionary situated life forms like themselves.
What about higher forms? When it comes to humans, animals can't comprehend us. For them we appear just like another animal, a strange and dangerous one (definitely not a plant). Can they say that we are so smart as to build cities, learn in schools, have a complex society and culture, invent technology and fly into space among other things? No way! They are just not able to comprehend these notions. Their brains are too primitive for such a task. This, of course, doesn’t preclude them from interacting with us (some may even hunt and eat humans!) but, in essence, we are just another animal for them.
From the two evolutionary stages described above, we can conclude that a lower life form comprehends a higher one (in the best-case scenario) as an about-the-same level one. Because, by definition (or by the essence of it), any evolutionary stage lacks the comprehension power of a higher stage being.
We can extrapolate our deduction (in science that’s called “induction”) and state that humans, by the essence of the evolution mechanism, are unable to comprehend a higher life form. Plants can’t comprehend animals; animals can’t comprehend humans; and humans in their turn aren’t capable of comprehending the life forms of the next evolution stage. Just like plants vs. animals, or animals vs. humans – we should be able to recognize these higher forms as some sort of our-level creatures, a sort-of “somewhat different” humans. We can interact with them, we may be able to even kill them (not unpunished probably) but, with all of that, we can’t comprehend their level of superiority. Just like in the cases above, we lack the evolutionary power to understand their level.
Of course, life forms don’t fit neatly and strictly into some human-labeled evolutionary categories. Dogs and monkeys are bordering with humans in their evolution level (i.e. abilities to comprehend) and therefore are somewhat capable of understanding that humans are superior. They can’t tell how or by what means exactly; they just sense it, it’s at their limits of comprehension. To them we probably appear as Gods.
So, it may be that we would perceive some not-that-far evolved (relative to us) creatures as Gods. A little further away – we won’t get it, we won’t be able to realize who are they, other than they are “sort-of similar” to us.
Can it be the “high society”? Can it be the masons? Can it be “noble blood”? Any of them look like us, we perceive them similar to us, well except they are “somewhat different” – have more power over us, we don’t understand them as well as any other sibling of ours, and they are most of the time are out of reach of our direct impact. Although they don’t sound “superior enough” to me, they do have all the attributes we would be able to comprehend from a contact with potential “next evolution stage species”.
Does all of the above make sense? You decide.
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