Have humans always taken approx 25yrs for our brain to mature? Have we always taken 2 decades to finish growing? Why does it take so much longer for humans to grow and mature compared to other mammals?
In: 18
Taking a long time to fully develop is slightly more of an advantage than a disadvantage when it comes to evolution.
During childhood about 75% (roughly the average of estimates) of your energy goes to your brain, compared to about 20% as an adult. The brain takes a huge amount of resources away from quicker physical development.
The advantage here is that people eventually become much more intelligent than most animals with a wide skill set, certainly more than other primates. We don’t have a physical advantage in this world, but we’ve shown that a mental advantage more than makes up for the difference.
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People saying, “the brain doesn’t even fully form until 25”
Is the new “we only use 10% of our brain”
By what metric does the brain “form fully” ?
Peak neuron count? Preteens
Peak brain volume? Teenagers
Peak math skills? 40s
Peak vocabulary? 60s
If anything, humans develop faster now than in the past, because of better nutrition and medical care.
The whole “25 years” thing is a recent claim. As the world gets more complicated, that number keeps going up, and new phases of development become recognized.
It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that childhood itself was widely recognized as special. Before then, children were simply considered to be smaller, less-skilled adults.
Adolescence came to prominence alongside the Information Revolution. Before then, teenagers were simply considered to be smaller, less-skilled adults.
The concept of “early adulthood” gained prominence as the Internet Revolution took hold. Back when I was a little kid, the idea of staying on your parent’s health insurance until age 25 would have been LOL ridiculous. You had damn well be raising your own kids in your own house by that time, with a promising career ahead of you, until you dropped dead in your 50s or 60s. Fortunately, things had changed by the time I reached early adulthood myself.
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