Preface

With the world facing human-generated climate change, a sixth major extinction of species, widespread human famine, poverty, disease, wars of tribalism, nationalism, religion, and politics, why write a book on some esoteric topic about psychological development? We live in a world with about a third of the human population living in medieval-like conditions or less, while the rest struggle with the current fear de jour of the Literati (e.g., a rebellious artificial intelligence). Surely a book about developmental psychobiology is irrelevant. However, I consider the continued accumulation of scientific knowledge about how the universe works (and that includes how organisms develop their traits and abilities) to be the greatest accomplishment of human thinking and curiosity. I do not think that developmental psychobiology can solve the problems facing humanity, but I believe that understanding how traits develop will become an important aspect of any solution that humans manage to apply to these problems. Also, I believe that my knowledge of developmental psychobiology has provided me with a perspective on development that is not generally appreciated (see Moore & Lewkowicz, 2024 for confirmation) but that can lead to important advancements in the science of psychological development. Therefore, I have chosen to write about developmental psychobiology, not as a means of solving humanity’s problems but as an important means of investigating and understanding psychological development. Such knowledge could serve as an additional lens to be applied to humanity’s problems and provide new insights toward solutions.