It’s basically a side effect of our heavy investment in brain power. Human babies are born much less physically developed than a lot of other animals, because if we grew any more our heads would be too big to allow for birth. As it is childbirth is still an incredibly dangerous prospect (without the intervention of modern medicines and surgeries).
Other animals find it more important that their young are able to walk, run, or swim within hours of birth. Our brainpower has made us able, as a group, to care for relatively helpless offspring for years before their bodies and brains have grown enough to allow for independent survival. So we sacrifice physical development for brain development, but even that has an upper limit to ensure we can be born at all. Then we have to spend a couple years catching up on the physical development while the brain development continues powering on.
Because of our large brains, humans have to be born neurologically prematurely so that the head can pass through the birthing canal. That’s why the skull insn’t fused in new borns.
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It’s basically a side effect of our heavy investment in brain power. Human babies are born much less physically developed than a lot of other animals, because if we grew any more our heads would be too big to allow for birth. As it is childbirth is still an incredibly dangerous prospect (without the intervention of modern medicines and surgeries).
Other animals find it more important that their young are able to walk, run, or swim within hours of birth. Our brainpower has made us able, as a group, to care for relatively helpless offspring for years before their bodies and brains have grown enough to allow for independent survival. So we sacrifice physical development for brain development, but even that has an upper limit to ensure we can be born at all. Then we have to spend a couple years catching up on the physical development while the brain development continues powering on.
Because of our large brains, humans have to be born neurologically prematurely so that the head can pass through the birthing canal. That’s why the skull insn’t fused in new borns.