> What are the odds that the rest of the world and entire history of humankind were mistaken the whole time, until some behaviorists came along and figured it all out in the last century?
There are many cases where all of humanity has been doing something that we only recently decided was wrong. For instance, slavery.
Certainly the odds aren't good that this is true of everything humans do, but the odds that some of the things we do fall into this category is 100%.
Edit: also, don't be so judgmental. Behaviours are environmental adaptions. In the Western world, mothers typically work 9-5 like men, so of course in cultures where women don't have this constraint they'd be shocked at our behaviours. Humans are adaptable however, and constantly coddling your fearful infant made sense when there were dangers everywhere. In our society's we're pretty safe in historical terms, so it could just be that babies cry because they're instinctively afraid until they learn they're safe when nothing happens to them after a few nights, and then it stops. This actually seems to happen in a lot of cry-it-out cases.
There are many cases where all of humanity has been doing something that we only recently decided was wrong. For instance, slavery.
Certainly the odds aren't good that this is true of everything humans do, but the odds that some of the things we do fall into this category is 100%.
Edit: also, don't be so judgmental. Behaviours are environmental adaptions. In the Western world, mothers typically work 9-5 like men, so of course in cultures where women don't have this constraint they'd be shocked at our behaviours. Humans are adaptable however, and constantly coddling your fearful infant made sense when there were dangers everywhere. In our society's we're pretty safe in historical terms, so it could just be that babies cry because they're instinctively afraid until they learn they're safe when nothing happens to them after a few nights, and then it stops. This actually seems to happen in a lot of cry-it-out cases.