Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Another Possible Catalyzer In Homo Sapien Brain Development

It's amazing to see what newborns of various species are capable of, driven only by instinct, directly out of the womb or egg. At least physically, newborn humans are completely at a loss comparatively. Perhaps the focus on brain development has coevolved with increased infantile safety in humans, both catalyzing each other. Developmental energy in human infants is focused on learned brain development rather than instinctive programming, and physical growth and ability suffers. Most mammals are born later in physical development, allowing them to immediately run with the herd, among other things. As humans became increasingly less nomadic, selective focus ignored the physically adept, and more infants survived that were born physically premature. The early birth and static lifestyle both allowed for increased observational learning and therefor more brain development during the growth cycle. Runaway sexual selection picked up where this process left off as the smart and creative kids, as we have seen, were more successful in reproducing than those that were born physically endowed like their mammal ancestors.

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