Why the highly evolved humans,at the time and immediately after birth are dependant on others?

Question

The amimals and fish and birds are not that dependant like humans.Is there any reason for it? We see animals after about 30 minutes walk and jump and follow their mother.But human child needs all the care for a good lemgth of time.why is it so?

Answer 1

Most creatures in the wild fall into two general survival strategies as far as reproduction is concerned, and some more strongly than others. One group survives simply by producing a kajillion offspring... even if most of them are squashed, the two that are left will breed a kajillion more. The other group survives by not getting killed. This is obviously a lot harder to do, so they generally have much smaller numbers of offspring to accomodate the greater amounts of care and training they will require. Biologists call this being 'r-selected' or 'k-selected' (respectively) for variables in a particular population growth equation.

As you observe, fish and insects will lay hundreds of eggs at a time, and rats often have large litters and are always fertile. But humans are FAR from the only k-selected critter around: puffins only lay one egg per year, lions require years to learn how to hunt well, and lost baby whales usually die. Humans are probably far more k-selected than the rest of these guys, but keep in mind too the baby kangaroos are born blind and almost completely helpless for months as well (there are only so many of them because they are perpetually pregnant).

So humans are born helpless because it helps us survive. A small, less-developed brain and body is easier to give birth to if parents spend the time keeping a kid alive long enough to come to full development. It's not all bad, though - k-selected critters tend to have much longer lifespans and (of course) a greater ability to surmount any number of obstacles!

Yay k!

Answer 2

define evolved? What is considered favorable can be different person to person and vary in different cultures. Some people with 6 fingers on each hand feel evolved and others just feel like freaks. People that can see ghosts you may think are evolved but sometimes they do not want this and hate it.

Answer 3

No one knows "why" so all you'll obviously get is opinions.

Here's mine: some animals have strength, some have speed, some have a hard shell. Humans have a large brain. It takes time for the brain to develop. Until it's developed, the child has to be taken care of. The parents are well equipped for this.

So are you asking why we have large brains? I can give you circular answers all day long or just tell you because God gave them to us. Either way it's probably not an answer you're looking for - so your question is rather pointless.

Answer 4

I believe this to be the case for several reasons.

One of the most important reasons is that that due to the typical enviornment/world that wild animals enter (born) into they must be immediately prepared to survive on their own--or perish. This observed 'independence' is primarily driven by instinctual behavior created by genetic programming--from the parent, 'baby', and flock, troop, etc. which comes together to ensure the overall survivability of the species in a particular environment.

The enviornment for the typical human does not require such behavior and/or programming, and due to our brain structure--which has a large cerebellum and a small medulla oblongata versus the opposite of the brain structure of most animals, our motor skills are slow to develop and/or we need help from outside sources to develop them.

Humans generally 'navigate' through and around our world via our 'thinking selves' versus our "instinctual selves." These thinking skills also need help and time to develop fully.

Regards,

Answer 5

The crazy creationists won't like this, but I think it's the product of evolution. As we've grown up (we meaning humanity), we've lost all of the body hair, the need for our appendix, and several other things that we used to have and need to survive in the wild. Some of it's still there, but I think we gave up our physical traits over time in exchange for our higher minds.

Of course that leads to the question, is there intelligent life here on earth? We may never know...

Answer 6

The way we evolved a large brain is by alteration of development so that it is stretched out over more time and we end up shaped more like juveniles (if you compare us to ancestral species). Like, a baby ape has a relatively large head compared to its body; so do we, as adults. (Look up "neoteny" and "pedomorphosis") Because we are social and smart enough to modify our environments, we can afford to care for the resulting more-dependent infants & children, and thus 'get away with' a developmental schedule that would not work for other species, and can grow our big brains.

Answer 7

What does "highly evolved" have to do with it?

The amoeba divides from one complete creature to two, instantly able to cope with their environment.

It seems like the more a species is able to care for its young, the less time the mother has to be disabled by lugging around a fetus.

Answer 8

We have a social structure to adapt to, which is why we have a longer period of dependancy. You can only learn social stuff alongside other people, and social stuff is how we get on in the world.

We don't have any tusks, or fierce claws, or spines; we only get our brilliant brains and flapping mouths.

Answer 9

In the wild, animals have evolved such that their young need to be able to move and defend themselves quickly, while the humans have evolved to have the luxury of taking more time to develop. Human babies have more time to develop to complexities need to become adult humans because we've evolved the social structures to protect our young.

Answer 10

Because