It’s an absurd statement because you are human and are aware of how research works on an individual level.
Take yourself outside of that, and imagine you invented earth, added an ecosystem, and some humans. Wheels were invented ~6k years ago, and “humans” have existed for ~40-300k years. We can do the same for other technologies. As a group, we are incredibly inefficient, and an outside observer would see our efforts at building societies and failing to be “brute force”
I consider humans an "intelligent" species in the sense that a critical mass of us can organize to sustainably learn.
As individuals, without mentors, we would each die off very quickly. Even if we were fed and whatever until we were physically able to take care of ourselves, we wouldn't be able to keep ourselves out of trouble if we had to learn everything ourselves.
Contrast this with the octopus which develops from an egg without any mentorship, and within a year or so has a fantastically knowledgable and creative mind over its respective environment. And they thrive in every oceanic environment in the wet salty world, including coast lines, under permanent Arctic ice, to the deep sea.
To whatever degree they are "intelligent", it's an amazingly accelerated, fully independent, self-taught intelligence. Our species just can't compare on that dimension.
Fortunately, octopus only live a couple years and in an environment where technology is difficult (very hard to isolate and control conditions of all kinds in the ocean). Otherwise, the land octopus would have eaten all of us long ago.
Take yourself outside of that, and imagine you invented earth, added an ecosystem, and some humans. Wheels were invented ~6k years ago, and “humans” have existed for ~40-300k years. We can do the same for other technologies. As a group, we are incredibly inefficient, and an outside observer would see our efforts at building societies and failing to be “brute force”