ABSTRACT
What is human development? The answer to that question, one might think, is to be found in the science that specializes in it: developmental psychology. Developmental psychology has told us what development is: it has told us what babies are like, what children are like, and (more recently) it has told us what adults are like. It is to be found in text-books, academic courses, advice to parents, training for teachers, and all sorts of places. If we were to decide to be sceptical about developmental psychology, we would have to start asking some difficult questions. We would have to rethink its claims, even those which seem the most self-evident. We would need to start worrying about development, and to start looking for alternatives to developmental psychology.
