The Descent of the Child: Human Evolution From a New Perspective - Hardcover

Morgan, Elaine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195098951 ISBN 13: 9780195098952

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1995

Synopsis

Why are chimp babies skinny, while human babies are so fat they float? As humans developed greater intelligence--and increased cranial capacity--how did babies and mothers adapt to increased fetal brain size? And how did humans develop our unique intelligence. Elaine Morgan, an internationally bestselling science writer known for her iconoclastic take on evolutionary theory, addresses these questions and more in The Descent of the Child, an intriguing and controversial look at human evolution from the point of view of infant development.
Beginning with the assertion that much of our thinking about human evolution exercises an unconscious bias--that we envision an archetypal human being as an adult--Morgan sets out to explain why human infants evolved in the way they did. We are often told how, in the course of a million years, adults acquired increased dexterity, adaptability, intelligence, and powers of communication. We are seldom reminded that over the same period infants became more helpless, more vulnerable, and more inert. Morgan focuses on the relationship between these two facts as she develops a stunning theory of the origins of human intelligence she argues that our capacity for intelligence is a byproduct of evolving babyhood. Uniquely among primates, homo sapiens are born with considerable struggle, emerge wholly helpless, and continue to be dependent for a long time afterwards--only their eyes, faces, and vocal cords work. They don't know that they're not always going to be like that, Morgan posits, but, bent on survival, they try to manipulate their parents or other caregivers to do things that the babies can't do for themselves. (For instance, they'll cry for food, and only human babies continue crying after being picked up, sending a strong message not to be so remiss next time.) These early struggles, according to Morgan, provide our formative intellectual activity. It is in infancy that we really learn to think and to question.
In her much debated earlier works, Morgan has championed the controversial Aquatic Ape Theory of human evolution against the widely accepted Savannah Theory. The Descent of the Child takes her further into the fray with a provocative new argument adding new evidence to support AAT even as she explores such urgent topics as conception and infertility, the maturation of the fetus, child rearing and parental roles, overpopulation, and a woman's place in society. This fascinating book should be read by parents (both new and soon to be) as well as anyone interested in child development or human evolution.

About this title

About the Author

About the Author:
Elaine Morgan's first book, The Descent of Woman, was an international bestseller in languages. Best known as an award-winning writer for television, she is also the author of The Aquatic Ape and The Scars of Evolution.

From Library Journal

Morgan, a science writer with a penchant for presenting controversial theories (The Scars of Evolution, Oxford, 1991), continues this tendency in her latest book. Here, Morgan's premise is that human intelligence is a by-product of evolutionary pressures on infants. While it is intriguing and probably good science to suggest that the current thought about human evolution might benefit from prudent review of stages of development other than the adult (as it has from reviewing gender differences), there is little evidence presented. Morgan offers a superficial review of information about sex (covered more thoroughly in Matt Ridley's The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, LJ 1/94, and Richard E. Michod's Eros and Evolution: A Natural Philosophy of Sex, LJ 12/94), reproductive development (covered well in Robert Pool's Eve's Rib: Searching for the Biological Roots of Sex Differences, LJ 5/1/94), child rearing and parental roles, along with a rambling discussion of current socio-political problems. Additionally, her examination of evolutionary theory, particularly natural selection, is vague. The overall result is a diffuse skimming of topics that require more thorough presentation and inclusion of alternative theories.
Constance Rinaldo, Dartmouth Coll. Biomedical Libs., Hanover, N.H.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0195098951
• ISBN 13: 9780195098952
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208