Wednesday, 16 February 2022

Sent Before Their Time: Genius, Charisma, and Being Born Prematurely - Edward Dutton's new book

Edward Dutton. Sent Before Their Time: Genius, Charisma, and Being Born Prematurely. Manticore Press, 2022. ISBN-10 0645212636 ISBN-13 978-0645212631. pp 328.

Foreword by Bruce G Charlton...

Premature birth is a bad start to life! It is associated with a higher lifelong risk of many physical and psychological problems. 

We would therefore expect that prematurity ruled-out high levels of human attainment. But something like the opposite is found; and a surprisingly large number of famous and eminent achievers were born prematurely. 

It was perhaps because Edward Dutton began life as a premature baby that he noticed this remarkable phenomenon of 'preemie geniuses'. 

Dutton's theory is that while prematurity is usually bad for health, reproduction and life-expectancy; nonetheless it may trigger extreme compensatory aptitudes that may greatly benefit the wider community. 

Already well known for generating interesting and fertile evolutionary hypotheses: Sent before their time is Edward Dutton's biggest and best idea yet.

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