I've been trying to find a chart or something to indicate the changing times for offspring to mature. It just seems to me that the human offspring, with the enormous time span until maturity, just leaps up out of the ooze of evolution with little or no "steps".

Is that true? Or are there other species where the offspring require years and years of constant care? I did try to google this but was rather unsuccessful unless I want to read millions of pages of articles ...which I didn't.

Baron Max

Yeah pretty much only homids and just gets worse. But it was no "leap" out of evolution. There is a species of great ape(an ancestor) that babies actually clung to momma with an opposed toe. Momma was free to work/fight/do everything the male could do AND carry the kid around, cause the kid could handle it's own weight at least. It's been downhill from there and with the loss of that toe, females kinda got screwed since they were left with the baggage...until present day (more or less).

I don't think Gen Y will ever leave the nest, personally.

.... But it was no "leap" out of evolution. There is a species of great ape(an ancestor) that babies actually clung to momma with an opposed toe. Momma was free to work/fight/do everything the male could do AND carry the kid around, ....

Yeah, but with the ape you're talkin' about ...how many years did the baby cling to it's momma and require constant care? 13 years? 10?

Where, in the long string of evolutionary trends, did the idea of such a long, long maturity time occur. Has any other animal ever existed where the offspring required years of constant care before maturity?

Baron Max

Human beings in several known fisher/gatherer societies are self sufficient by age eight - precocious ones at five or six.

There are quite a few animals that routinely care for their young, with diminishing intensity, four or more years - elephants, apes, and the like.

The gap is not that wide.

Most mammals do care for their young for quite some time. Cats need to teach their cubs to hunt, elephants have to teach vast migration patterns and watering holes. There is a gradation from other animals to mammals to primates to hominids.

Human beings in several known fisher/gatherer societies are self sufficient by age eight - precocious ones at five or six.

Got any evidence of that or any reliable articles? I'd be interested in reading it/them.

Baron Max

Most mammals do care for their young for quite some time. Cats need to teach their cubs to hunt, elephants have to teach vast migration patterns and watering holes. There is a gradation from other animals to mammals to primates to hominids.

I agree with that, yet most (if not all) of those animals, the young at about 1-to-2 years, are fully functional animals ....and if possible could survive on their own.

No human baby could survive at 4 or even 8 on their own. What I'm trying to figure out is why that particular genetic "accident" happened to take hold in early man ...when it's obviously not a good situation to have. One woman could have as many as five or six offspring that required a lot of intensive care ...and without knowing who the father was to boot! So she couldn't take him to the Supreme Cave Court to demand child support.

Baron Max

It's not so obvious that it's bad. If there is an advantage to having culture, then it's an advantage to teach it, even if it takes a long time. The thing is, primates don't have much of a culture, humans do. An extended childhood could be an adaptation to the size of the birth canal. Maybe it takes that long to ensure our brains grow to their full size. If we grew up faster, our brains would have to reach maturity that much sooner.

It's not so obvious that it's bad. If there is an advantage to having culture, then it's an advantage to teach it, even if it takes a long time. ...

What are you saying here, Spider? ...that "nature" knew that one day the early hominds would someday have a grand culture of leisure and wonderous things, so it planned ahead?? Spider, the cultural teaching advantage didn't come into play with early man until very late in the game.

I think I understand some, if not most, of the advantages for longer juvenile spans ....but that's ONLY for a fully functional culture and society. In the days of the Neanderthal, it sure coudn't have been an advantage .....to the contrary, it must have been a horrible disadvantage.

So, ...what caused it and why did Mr. and Mrs. Evolution permit it to stay around until it was needed ....thousands of years later?

Baron Max

Everything with humans is "late in the game", relatively. When I speak of culture, I don't mean civilization, I mean hunting techniques, language, patterns of migration, tools, weapons, making clothing. All these things provide a survival advantage, and existed very early in our prehistory. It's likely that Neanderthals grew up faster.

Human children can care for themselves at about 8. Speaking strictly they can find shelter and find food for themselves, hunt small animals if needed. They can even provide care for younger children (probably not the best care, but they'll probably both live). However they most likely wouldn't be sexually mature yet. Isn't that a qualification for being considered mature?

Everything with humans is "late in the game", relatively. When I speak of culture, I don't mean civilization, I mean hunting techniques, language, patterns of migration, tools, weapons, making clothing. All these things provide a survival advantage, and existed very early in our prehistory. ....

So which came first ...the slow rate of maturity or the "culture"?

And does the theory of evolution address this issue at all in humans? Where can I read about this issue by reliable scientists?

Baron Max

Human children can care for themselves at about 8. Speaking strictly they can find shelter and find food for themselves, hunt small animals if needed. ...

Can't you just see a lioness caring for her helpless baby for eight years?! Or a forest gorilla clinging to her helpless baby for eight years?

Hell, at eight years old, most of the higher forms of mammals are in the middle years of their lives.

How and why did hominids suddenly veer off of that evolutionary track ...and become the one and only animal that has helpless offspring ....that remian helpless for eight years?!

Baron Max

I think it roughly correlates with the 'brain volume/body volume' ratio.

How and why did hominids suddenly veer off of that evolutionary track ...and become the one and only animal that has helpless offspring ....that remian helpless for eight years?!

Brain volume. The human brain cannot fully develop pre-birth because then the head would not fit through the birth canal.
Apparently, it is a better solution than widening the birth canal.

I think it roughly correlates with the 'brain volume/body volume' ratio.

Ahh, yeah, but....

Did when did Mr. and Mrs. Evolution decide to make those changes in hominids? Did the offspring maturity come first, then the brain to take care of it? Or did the brain size increase, then the helpless offspring change came about to give the brain something to do?

Why don't we have some good YouTube videos on stuff like this ...instead of the endless videos on people sucking beer up their noses and stuff like that? All it would take is a good YouTube video of the hominids interacting on the African plains some 140,000 years ago. What's so freakin' hard about that???

Baron Max

Brain volume. The human brain cannot fully develop pre-birth because then the head would not fit through the birth canal.
Apparently, it is a better solution than widening the birth canal.

You haven't read the thread very well, have you, Enmos? Wanna' try again?

Baron Max

Ahh, yeah, but....

Did when did Mr. and Mrs. Evolution decide to make those changes in hominids? Did the offspring maturity come first, then the brain to take care of it? Or did the brain size increase, then the helpless offspring change came about to give the brain something to do?

Why don't we have some good YouTube videos on stuff like this ...instead of the endless videos on people sucking beer up their noses and stuff like that? All it would take is a good YouTube video of the hominids interacting on the African plains some 140,000 years ago. What's so freakin' hard about that???

Baron Max

This pure speculation, but I guess that at first the increasing brain volume wasn't that much of a problem.
At one point however, it started to cause problems. It's pretty deadly out in nature when you can't get your baby out.
That must be when evolution selected for mothers that gave birth to babies that were not entirely 'finished'.

You haven't read the thread very well, have you, Enmos? Wanna' try again?

Baron Max

Huh ? One is an effect of the other.

Edit: Are you looking for something like this ?

http://brainmuseum.org/evolution/paleo/images/BrnBodwt6.jpg
http://brainmuseum.org/evolution/paleo/index.html

http://www.archure.net/p/bbbGIF.gif
http://www.archure.net/science/higherintelligence.html

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/images/fossil_hominin_brain_percent_lg.png
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/10/fun-with-homini-2.html

Huh ? One is an effect of the other.

Edit: Are you looking for something like this ?

The thread is not about the brain, Enmos, but about the time span for offspring to mature. In all/most other mammals, the offspring mature damned quickly ....yet in humans/hominids, the offspring take years and years to mature. Why? When? How?

Go back and read through the thread, ....it ain't very long and you'll see what we're talkin' about.

Baron Max

The thread is not about the brain, Enmos, but about the time span for offspring to mature. In all/most other mammals, the offspring mature damned quickly ....yet in humans/hominids, the offspring take years and years to mature. Why? When? How?

Go back and read through the thread, ....it ain't very long and you'll see what we're talkin' about.

Baron Max

Baron, it takes long to raise humans because they are born with an underdeveloped brain. I gave the reasons of why this happens earlier.

Baron, it takes long to raise humans because they are born with an underdeveloped brain. I gave the reasons of why this happens earlier.

I don't think that's the way evolution works, Enmos! :D

Baron Max

I don't think that's the way evolution works, Enmos! :D

Baron Max

Why not ?

Maybe it's because we live so long and our social life style. They also have a relatively large brain. Elephants have a similar lifespan and social structure and have about the same average number of offspring at a time and don't reach maturity until about 10 to 15 years of age, which is about the same as us. So for whatever reason it must have been an evolutionary advantage or at least not a severe enough disadvantage to cause any selection to take place.

The Benefits of a Long Childhood (http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/the-benefits-of-a-long-childhood)

The Benefits of a Long Childhood (http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/the-benefits-of-a-long-childhood)

Thanks Spidey.

Baron, this is from the article:
The most popular candidate has been intelligence. A big and complex brain takes a lot of time to develop, and in humans much of that development must occur after birth, because bipedalism limits birth-canal width, which has in turn constrained the head size of newborns.

So, .....y'all think that evolutionary processes just suddenly popped up with bigger brains and longer juvenile lives ....and saw that it was a good thing, so kept it? Just like that? Poof? And only for man (and apparently elephants?)?

I'm damned skeptical, guys, because in most all other things about changes in natural life, y'all have taught me that it takes millions of years and goes through thousands of minor changes to evolve into ...whatever.

Baron Max

It did take millions of years.

It did take millions of years.

And of all of the billions of creatures on Earth, humans were the only creatures in which that occured?

Baron Max

And of all of the billions of creatures on Earth, humans were the only creatures in which that occured?

Baron Max

Humans are not the only creatures around that have unique characteristics. Besides, it's not just humans it's their entire group (at least the Homininae).

Humans are not the only creatures around that have unique characteristics. ...

Name a few with such far-reaching and clearly disruptive to normal life as that of the long, long span of maturity.

I can't grasp how that change ever continued in hominids. A helpless baby is one thing that might have been overcome for a very short time. But to have a baby that was completely helpless for almost half of the normal lifespan of the species is astounding!!! Why didn't evolution see that it had failed, then gone back to the quick babies??

In short, it seems to me that evolution failed badly, yet came out smelling like a rose! Well, wait a minute, maybe it's not smelling like a rose after all. From my perspective, humans are a scourge on the Earth and are the most destructive of all creatures ever invented. So, ...perhaps evolution is just going through the motions in order to eliminate the human species altogether and get back to the better animals.

Baron Max

far-reaching and clearly disruptive to normal life
These are your qualifications of it. Nature does not intend.


I can't grasp how that change ever continued in hominids. A helpless baby is one thing that might have been overcome for a very short time. But to have a baby that was completely helpless for almost half of the normal lifespan of the species is astounding!!! Why didn't evolution see that it had failed, then gone back to the quick babies??
Obviously, this could only have happened if the parents were already equipped to deal with it.


In short, it seems to me that evolution failed badly, yet came out smelling like a rose! Well, wait a minute, maybe it's not smelling like a rose after all. From my perspective, humans are a scourge on the Earth and are the most destructive of all creatures ever invented. So, ...perhaps evolution is just going through the motions in order to eliminate the human species altogether and get back to the better animals.
I appreciate the idea :D
But again, nature doesn't intend or plan.