Human evolution: how as family we differ (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 15:36 (1256 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The relationship of infant and elderly need for help:
https://aeon.co/essays/why-childhood-and-old-age-are-key-to-our-human-capacities?utm_so...

QUOTE: "Orcas are among the only other mammals with post-menopausal grandmothers. Orca children and grandchildren stay close to the older females, even after they mature themselves. (David’s bold)

QUOTE: "...childhood and old age – those vulnerable, unproductive periods of our lives – turn out, biologically, to be the key to many of our most valuable, deeply human capacities. They nurture and facilitate our exploration and creativity, cooperation, coordination and culture, learning and teaching."

DAVID: We are very different, and the author blames Natural Selection for our arrival with no mention of why the brain expanded like it did. Orcas and us, my bold. Why?

dhw: We have covered the subject of brain expansion elsewhere. I don’t know why you’ve bolded the reference to orcas, but it might be interesting to know why you think your God singled them out. I don’t honestly see what the author is trying to prove. In animal families and societies, the older generation teaches the younger generation, nurturing and facilitating their exploration, cooperation, coordination, learning and teaching. (I’ve left out our creativity and our culture, as they vastly exceed the range of anything found in the animal world.) Most animals live far shorter lives than we do, and they certainly have far less to teach/learn, but the basic principle is the same. Animal young are just as vulnerable as human young, and there is nothing unique in parental care. We and orcas may be the only mammals that outlive our fertility, but what does that prove? Most of our fellow mammals can go on being parents until they die (usually much earlier than we do) – and they go on teaching their young.

The bold about Orcas was because it was a surprising fact. It is thought humans did not outlive their fertility before more modern times of the last 10,000 years. In horses, the young grow away from parents quickly and our Mother offspring pairs clearly showed no sense of recognition of each other after a year or so. As for early vulnerability, the human baby is rather uniquely helpless for a very long period compared to animals. I presented the article to emphasize our differences from the animal world.