zlacker

>There's diminishing returns to intelligence and inherent unknowns to all moves the serf can make.

Even if there was, there's no reason at all to think those returns are anywhere near the upper limit of human intelligence.

Wheels are far more energy efficient and faster than legs, steel more resilient than tortoise shell or rhino skin, motors more powerful than muscles, aircraft fly higher and faster than birds, ladders reach higher than Giraffes much more easily, bulldozers dig faster than any digging creature, speakers and airhorns are louder than any animal cry or roar, ancient computers remember more raw data than humans do, electronics can react faster than human reactions etc.

To be so sure intelligence would be some exception seems like hubris.

>>famous+(OP)
I agree with your first paragraph, but it's important to note your second is talking about specialized skills (moving on a paved road) compared to broad general abilities (getting from point A to point B on earth). Nature is winning still in many aspects of the latter; specializion can win the former because of how many requirements are dropped.

I don't see general intelligence as a specialized skill.