The belief that humans have weaker senses of sight and smell compared to other animals is a misconception rooted in 19th-century thinking. In reality, our visual and olfactory abilities have played a crucial role in our evolutionary history.

One key advantage humans have is our ability to spot potential predators before they detect us. This gives us the opportunity to react, either by moving or making noise, making it more challenging for predators to hunt us down. Predators, therefore, have to expend more energy in their pursuit and may face resistance from a group of humans.

When it comes to color perception, humans rank near the top among mammals. While some animals like the tetrachromatic reindeer surpass us in color perception (including ultraviolet and red-green perception), most mammals have only two types of color cones in their eyes, making them dichromats. Humans and a few close primate relatives, however, are trichromats. This enhanced color perception allows us to detect color patterns that may be invisible or less discernible to other animals.

Additionally, humans possess the best daytime angular resolution of any documented mammal, with an impressive 1 minute angular resolution compared to 10 minutes for cats. This high resolution contributes to our spatial processing capacity and provides our visual system with a wealth of information.

Contrary to the misconception that humans heavily rely on their brain for visual acuity, our remarkable eyesight itself plays a crucial role. Without good visual acuity, even the most sophisticated brain would perceive fewer patterns. Our eyes have the fastest cycles per degree of visual acuity among mammals, enhancing the amount of visual information processed by our brain.

In practical terms, if you take a walk with a dog and pay attention to your surroundings, you’re likely to spot an animal before your dog does. While dogs excel in their sense of smell, humans excel in visual perception. The only instances where dogs may detect an animal before you do are when you are distracted or when the animal is low to the ground, making it difficult for you to see at eye level.

Humans are not disembodied beings with weak sensory capabilities compared to other animals. Our powerful eyesight reduces the likelihood of being ambushed and increases the chance of detecting potential threats in advance. This, in turn, decreases the risk of predators targeting lone humans, as we have ample time to raise the alarm.

If zebras and antelopes had the same level of eyesight as humans, it’s likely that lions would struggle to find enough prey to sustain themselves. The increased time gap between each feeding would make hunting zebras energetically demanding, potentially outweighing the benefits of catching and consuming them.

On average, the eyesight of other mammals is relatively poor. Hunters wear orange vests in the woods to avoid accidental shootings, and yet they can still approach deer undetected.

It’s important to note that while tools have undoubtedly played a role in human survival, the discussion here focuses on humans without tools and even extends to prehistoric times when proto-humans hadn’t developed tools yet. Humans have existed for a significant period of time, and our visual acuity has been a critical factor in our survival and dominance over predators.

Regarding the argument that animals don’t hunt humans because they fear human revenge, it would require animals to possess intergenerational knowledge of human vengeance and have a psychological model of themselves and an anticipation of human behavior upon a human’s death. While some animals may exhibit intelligence to understand this, such as certain primates, it is unlikely to be the case for all animals, including bears, which cannot even comprehend using wildlife overpasses to avoid being killed by cars.

The extinction of predatory animals due to human activity is a relatively recent phenomenon. The extinction of species like saber-toothed tigers (Smilodons) is often attributed to the depletion of their food sources (which may have been influenced by human activities), rather than humans hunting them to extinction. Wolves, for example, were not hunted by humans until around 8,000 years ago, despite occasional human predation by wolves prior to that. The hunting of wolves primarily arose to protect livestock.

Crocodiles, known to consume around 1,000 humans annually, have not been hunted to extinction. The main reason humans avoid being eaten by crocodiles is not through the use of tools but rather by visually detecting them and avoiding bodies of water inhabited by crocodiles. Conversely, most human-crocodile encounters resulting in attacks occur when humans fail to spot the presence of a crocodile, enter the water, and become vulnerable to an attack.

The notion that human eyes evolved for hunting purposes because they face forward is incorrect. All primates, including koalas, have forward-facing eyes. Our visual acuity is primarily beneficial for depth perception, which was crucial during our evolutionary history spent in trees. Additionally, good depth perception benefits us in various environments, except for underground dens or caves, and allows us to construct partially obscured images, such as detecting a leopard’s face amidst tall grass. Furthermore, being upright and having forward-facing eyes allows humans to rotate quickly, giving us an advantage over animals like deer or gazelles.

In conclusion, human senses, especially our visual acuity, are powerful and have contributed significantly to our survival and ability to thrive. While tools have undoubtedly aided us in our dominance over predators, our innate sensory capabilities have played a vital role throughout our evolutionary history, even before the development of tools.