I think that the main thing that promotes human's intellectual capacity is our childishness. This is physical (in that it takes humans 15-16 years to reach functional adulthood compared to far lower periods in the animal kingdoms), and particularly - intellectual. We play. We are creative: we expend resources to create things that do not directly have to do with mating/eating/surviving.

I buy the author's thesis in that creativity and play become more vital as our civilization becomes more intellect-driven. Seems natural to me.

I doubt I would buy much of what this author says, though, based only on the blurbs in this piece.