We come with all the instructions and raw material for building adult bodies – for example, growing full -sized and functioning ears and lungs – and also with the capacity to develop the complete set of abilities that has helped our species survive and evolve over two billion years. We are born with predispositions for everything from our sense of vision to language and social skills. It’s all in there, waiting to unfold.
Evidence is mounting that we arrive into the world with a genetically pre-set timetable for how we go about growing that remaining 60% of our brains – complete with sensitive or critical periods when specific parts of the brain are primed to grow and develop. For example, researchers at McMaster University have found that babies with cataracts who miss fine visual input for the first two months, never develop the ability to recognize faces at a distance1.
Human babies are born with incredibly premature brains – apparently the result of an evolutionary compromise. About 100,000 years ago, when humans started to talk, our brains (and consequently our skulls) started to grow1. And as they kept growing, getting them out through the birth canal after they were fully developed became pretty much impossible.
