Anonymous accuses Arsuaga of copying his theories for 2021 book

Anonymous attributes to Arsuaga ideas published online in 2019

In August 2019, an unnamed individual published online a theory on why humans are born before completing development. Two years later, a book by paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga and writer Juan José Millás appeared. This anonymous source has since claimed the scientist appropriated his concepts. The foundational scene he cites—revealing the sens mechanism—involves unclogging his kitchen sink.

The volume in question is Life Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal, which reached bookstores in 2021. The gap between the 2019 text and the 2021 book is the only objective support for the claim. There is no public evidence of contact, drafts, or correspondence. The debate, now years old, has become a monument to heterodox theories on human evolution.

Neoteny: the concept claimed as his own

The core of the proposal is neoteny, the idea that humans are born before completing development and retain fetal traits throughout life. From this, he draws comparisons from kangaroos to axolotls: we are primate offspring who arrive incomplete, prolonging learning. He chains together more debated hypotheses—the aquatic ape, an adaptation to the sea shore—and a loose reading of birth evolution, hip shape, and even nose size.

The sink paragraph summarizes his method: the insight came while working at home. He calls it "extracting leche from the uterus." This intuition serves as a patent in his narrative. He builds a structure mixing ethology, obstetrics, and neuroscience without peer review.

From birth to daycare: the theses accompanying the accusation

His theory includes a controversial view of reproduction: humans are polygamous, and sensual dimorphism—size differences between males and females—proves it, like in gorillas. He argues human females were more promiscuous than other primates, explaining species survival against extinct branches. These claims lack academic support and are not sustained by anthropology.

He moves to child-rearing, where his thesis becomes domestic. Women carry bags everywhere, he says, due to an instinct inherited from carrying babies: the complement is a "phantom baby" abandoned in daycare. This links to his defense of attachment parenting and rejection of pacifiers, bottles, and nurseries, which he considers the origin of normal behaviors.

What support does the plagiarism accusation have?

The main objection is calendar and method. An idea circulating openly since 2019 and reappearing in a 2021 book does not prove its origin; proving it would require access evidence, manuscripts, or dates, which do not exist here. Some recall that a theory is not a law: it is merely a proposal attempting to explain a problem without proof, according to the definition in the discussion itself.

The author himself admits neoteny is described in chimpanzee and human literature, relativizing exclusive authorship. His response is to delete his anthropology texts to prevent further copying. He claims only he knows what is in his head and that an expert knows a lot about little, while he knows a little about much.

The trench between academia and personal narrative

The discussion extends beyond alleged plagiarism. It debates whether Arsuaga, as a science communicator, is a reference or a "charlatan" spreading unacceptable base errors. Others defend the value of discipline: centuries of evidence against a solitary intuition. Amidst this, some see the claim as another case of methodless originality, as old as the internet.

The community warned against excessive enthusiasm: humility is the path. The response was that being original, creating a concept no one else said, is a merit few can claim. And that he does.

With these credentials, the accusation will remain alive as long as the book and 2019 text exist in the same library. How many of these intuitions are chance versus the slow work of a discipline accumulating decades of evidence? The question, like the sink, remains unanswered.