You look like a baby. Without even looking at you, I can tell you right now that if you are listening

to this, you look like an infant. Don't feel bad about it. All humans do. See, part of our evolution

was the process of pedomorphism, or neoteny, the retention of childhood traits that your ancestors

would grow out of. Relative to other primates,

you have a super flat face, a super big forehead, and a long torso. Your head, in relation to your

body, is absurdly big for an adult mammal. You might even be able to tolerate lactose,

which is something the vast majority of animals lose the ability to do in adulthood.

We retained all these childlike traits. It's a marker for our species, homosapians. Chimps are

our closest relatives. But facially, we look nothing like them, right? Okay, now look at a baby

chimp. That looks pretty familiar now, doesn't it? In fact, if you

look at the skull of a baby chimp, the skull of a baby human, one of an adult chimp, and one of an

adult human, all the skulls will look pretty similar, except the adult chimp. The adult chimp

will be the odd one out, at least at a glance. I'll post pictures on the website so you can see what I'm talking about.

There are a lot of potential reasons why humans retained these traits.

It's actually a really interesting debate among biological anthropologists.

Some say that because we evolved to find these traits cute, which is a fact,

we are now attracted to adult mates who are a little cuter, a little more childlike in the face.

Other anthropologists agree that the traits are retained in order to be cute, but they say it's because it helped individuals receive sympathy and avoid punishment.

In other words, it's easier to extend a helping hands to the cute fella in trouble

than it is to the grisly-looking alpha, and so the cute guys and girls got a leg up from others.

Other people argue that it allowed us to make space for our huge brains, and we retained the

big-headed nature of all baby primates into adulthood to make such

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