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Notes -
Let's say I'm put in charge of a government-sponsored group tasked with ensuring newborn babies come out of the womb as close as possible to a fully functioning member of society. Ideally this means they can walk, talk, feed themselves, etc. I have unlimited resources and there are no IRBs to stop experimentation. I have also gained immortality so I can see this project through to its completion.
What is the general procedure to get babies closer to self-reliance and how close do you think they could get?
(I've always wondered why we seem to be some of the only animals in the kingdom to not be self-sufficient immediately upon birth and what we can do about it.)
The primary limitation is the size of the birth canal. In places where more births are by C-section due to local fads e.g. Brazil, the average skull size of newborns is slowly increasing, or so I have been led to believe. If you had working artificial wombs, therefore, it stands to reason that you could have bigger brained and more capable babies, though presumably with a longer gestation time, similar to elephants.
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