What if humans were precocious?

12 Comments

Precocious: are relatively matured and mobile soon after birth. Age and develop a bit faster.

It'd be awesome! Hurrah for better evolution! 8
It'd be ok, I guess 5
Bad idea 15
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Comments ( 12 )
  • Couman
    8 years ago

    We would probably be stupid. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither were our big complex brains.

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    • NeofelisNebulosa
      8 years ago

      Actually, precocial young are often born with almost finished brains, unlike us. I find the subject quite fascinating :) I have a book that lists brain development for different mammals at birth by percentages. When I go home I'll look it up and list some of them here.

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      • Couman
        8 years ago

        Yeah, that's what I meant. If we were born with finished brains they probably wouldn't be very good. There appears to be a tradeoff. I'm sure you know more about it than I do, but it does seem like a long childhood is correlated with intelligence.

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        • NeofelisNebulosa
          8 years ago

          I'm having trouble finding the page with the exact numbers on it, but I remember that humans and elephants are born with rather underdeveloped brains, and something like a wildebeest is born with an almost fully-formed brain. Altricial young require more parental care by default.

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  • dirtybirdy
    8 years ago

    Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious
    if you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious
    supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

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  • shuggy-chan
    8 years ago

    Do we really want to baby to come out of its mother and then slap its parents , because they are fucking retarded

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  • dytrog
    8 years ago

    A fully developed brain does not mean you are as smart as someone that has lived for 40 years.

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    • heckleBucker
      8 years ago

      Non sequitur.

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      • dytrog
        8 years ago

        You are right, I didn't read the? right.
        Many animals are born and can walk and eat without help after a few min. to a few hours. That would be nice for the parents. Even if they had a fully developed brain they would need input to learn the 3 R'S. What does this fully developed precocious brain have in it but the ability to walk and eat?

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        • heckleBucker
          8 years ago

          That's why I checked "Bad Idea". Humans are so overly dependent on intelligence for survival, that it is good that a babies brain is not fully developed. Lots of neural plasticity gives the human brain the ability to develop and adapt better to the environment it is in.

          This is also the reason that children in two parent families that learn logic as preschoolers grow up with high IQs.

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  • cocknballs
    8 years ago

    There'd be a lot of baby roadkill.

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  • mystery7
    8 years ago

    I was already having sex with my teddy bear at 4 years old, I don't think I could have been any more precocious.

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