Humans are smart at all developmental stages

Aimee Stahl and Lisa Feigenson at Johns Hopkins University have studied the ability of infants to understand and to study physics. It turns out there is strong evidence that babies quickly learn the basics of how the world works, and when they see something unexpected, they run tests to study that phenomenon.

Infants are smart. Calling them infants doesn’t make them any less of a human being than an adult, a toddler or, yes, a fetus.

While the Journal of Medical Ethics is attempting to reduce the definition of humanity, by sweeping infants under the rug of non-persons, worthy of killing, Stahl and Feigenson are doing actual science, and finding out that like them, infants do science, too.

We love to talk about how ‘smart’ animals are, but they really aren’t as smart as people. Infants are doing science experiments! They are observing the world around them, forming hypotheses, and testing them. No, they wouldn’t use those words, but conceptually that’s the process they’re following.

Human beings are special. We’re constantly learning new ways we are different from other life on this planet. Like these babies, we are capable of being surprised by the world around us. It’s time we got humble, accepted the world is full of unknown unknowns, and stopped trying to classify some people as less than human.

End abortion now. Fight and end euthanasia of infants and the elderly. People are people.