If the great dinosaurs had not gone extinct, would one of their species have dominated Earth today? In a parallel universe, would there be intelligent feathered giants relaxing and reading Scientific American?
But the number of neurons may not be enough. For intelligence, brain architecture also matters. And this could have been the Achilles’ heel of dinosaurs, argues Anton Reiner of the department of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. According to Reiner, it is unlikely that dinosaurs could have ever evolved cognitive abilities comparable to ours.