My point was that the parents comment was completely unfounded. Did humans always have super fast gestation periods and then right before we gained intelligence it suddenly took the better part of a year and produced a child that isn't self sufficient for at least a decade?
When the evolution subject comes up it always seems to inspire a bunch of would-be scifi writers to come out and explain "how it all works" based on, as near as I can tell, pure fantasy.
Depends on how you interpret `reproduction' in the comment you're talking about.
Reproduction trumps everything in evolution. It's everything, actually. But for that to be true you can't define it as `number of offspring born', but in a more long-term sense. And e.g. Elephants seem to have more long-term off-spring by investing more in fewer births.
When the evolution subject comes up it always seems to inspire a bunch of would-be scifi writers to come out and explain "how it all works" based on, as near as I can tell, pure fantasy.