I like the hypothesis of “mass extinction can cause periods of EQ skyrocketing”. It fits with post-war economic booms, and the vague idea that clearing out old species would cause higher variance in new species (and thus some with higher IQ/EQ).
On the other hand, it’s definitely not a Great Filter. That concept means it would filter out >99% of intelligent species. As you mention, this should happen on average once every 500M years. So even if a mass extinction were absolutely required for huge intelligence increases, we’d see these many times over the course of a typical pre-intelligence-bearing planet.
I like the hypothesis of “mass extinction can cause periods of EQ skyrocketing”. It fits with post-war economic booms, and the vague idea that clearing out old species would cause higher variance in new species (and thus some with higher IQ/EQ).
On the other hand, it’s definitely not a Great Filter. That concept means it would filter out >99% of intelligent species. As you mention, this should happen on average once every 500M years. So even if a mass extinction were absolutely required for huge intelligence increases, we’d see these many times over the course of a typical pre-intelligence-bearing planet.