If u want to equate that with “luck” feel free. There are any number of points in natural history where any species, not just us, could have turned out very differently.
Had the climate not changed in Africa…. Forcing our distant relatives from the forested areas into the plains… We might very well still number among the “great apes” rather than the genus “Homo”.
There would be dozens of simialar “what ifs” in our past. The entire spectrum of life on Earth might have turned out very differently indeed had the Permian Extinction not happened…. Those life-forms that populated the Earth prior to this event were very different than those that evolved from the few survivors. (Over 90% of all life on Earth was presumed to have been killed off.)
