That sufficiently greater intelligence without hands could succeed is a supposition that seems questionable unless one makes sufficiently greater to be so large as to see no plausible reason it would evolve. And a scientific community is very difficult to develop unless one already has certain technologies that seem to require some form of tools. A cheap and efficient method of storing information seems to be necessary. Humans accomplished that with writing. It is remotely plausible one could get such a result some other way but it is tough to see how that could occur without the ability to use tools.
That sufficiently greater intelligence without hands could succeed is a supposition that seems questionable unless one makes sufficiently greater to be so large as to see no plausible reason it would evolve.
If creatures figure out selective breeding, one way to solve the no-hands problem would be for them to breed themselves for intelligence...
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