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The Advantages of Being Helpless

Scientific American - Posted: February 9th, 2010, 12:00am EST

pAt every stage of early development, human babies lag behind infants from other species.nbsp; A kitten can amble across a room within moments of birth and catch its first mouse within weeks, while its wide-eyed human counterpart takes months to make her first step, and years to learn even simple tasks, such as how to tie a shoelace or skip a rope, let alone prepare a three-course meal. Yet, in the cognitive race, human babies turn out to be much like the tortoise in Aesoprsquo;s fable: emerging triumphant after a slow and steady climb to the finish.nbsp;As adults, we drive fancy sports cars, leap nimbly across football fields and ballet stages, write lengthy dissertations on every conceivable subject, and launch rockets into space.nbsp; We have a mastery over our selves and our environments that is peculiar to our species./ppYet, this victory seems puzzling. In the fable, the tortoise wins the race because the hare takes a nap.nbsp;But, if anything, human infants nap even more than kittens!nbsp;And unlike the noble tortoise, babies are helpless, and more to the point, hopeless . They could not learn the basic skills necessary to their independent survival even if they tried.nbsp;How do human babies manage to turn things around in the end?/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=advantages-of-helpless[More]/a

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