Why Babies Are Dumb (And Why That’s Cool)

Babies are dumb. Maybe not as dumb as people who buy wigs for their dogs, but still, they’re pretty damned dumb. If you ask a baby to solve for x, the odds are the baby won’t even come close to getting it right.

So why are people so dumb at birth?

Well, there’s an evolutionary reason for it. And it makes good sense. Our brains continue to grow after we are born. A newborn’s brain on average weighs 360 grams for females and 380 grams for males, and at the age of 19, the average is 1450 grams for males and 1310 grams. Obviously, that’s quite a dramatic increase in size. If a woman’s body had to pass a full-sized human head, her physiology would have to cope dramatically. So the fact that mom doesn’t have hips twice their size is thanks to our brains continuing to grow after birth.

                                                  (Source: http://www.abeerfortheshower.com/)



The nice side-effect of our brain developing in this way is that we get brains that are actually “customized” for the modern world. Unless, of course, we’re Mormons. What I mean, though, is that many of the things that we take for granted like language and complex algebra are not instinctive. Your eyebrows raised there. I don’t believe language is instinctive. Grunts and coos and whatnot certainly are, but to move from those to a fully functioning vocabulary is not an instinct, it is something we are taught.

But the great part is that we can continue to learn. Current research shows that doing things like learning a language later in life (while frustrating) and performing other learning-based exercises can add years to our brains, preventing the deterioration that makes our increasing life expectancy suck so bad.

My two cents on the matter: The trouble is that we really don’t use our brains as we age. Once we hit that point in our professional lives where we no longer need to constantly be learning at work, we tend to get lazy, and our brains begin the slow but steady process of deteriorating. All in all, dumb babies are a massive benefit to the species. Even if they pee on us. That's my two cents, keep the change.