Jos Verhulst is the author of Der Erstgeborene – Mensch und höhere Tiere in der Evolution, Freies Geistesleben, 1999, ISBN 3-7725-1557-6 (1999). (The Firstborn – Man and Higher Animals in Evolution), Freies Geistesleben, 1999, ISBN 3-7725-1557-6 (1999).
This is about the fascinating retardation theory. This theory completely turns the common descent theory(s) regarding the evolution of man on its head. Using numerous modern facts from evolutionary biology, Jos demonstrates, following in the footsteps of the great Dutch anatomist Louis Bolk (1866-1930), that man is NOT the accidental “end product” of “the tree of life,” but that man as a unique and single self-consciousness-bearing and speaking being is the pivot around which evolution revolves. Man is not some kind of super ape or yet another specialized animal. Man is a being who, on the contrary, eschews specialization and holds himself back as a kind of mature embryo (fetus) and is thus a fundamentally different being from the animal(s). In 2003 this book was followed by an edited English-language edition: Developmental Dynamics In Humans And Other Primates: Discovering Evolutionary Principles Through Comparative Morphology, Adonis Press, 2003, ISBN 0-932776-28-0, ISBN 0-932776-29-9/Adonis & Abbey Publishers, 2005, ISBN 0-932776-29-9.
Click on www.natureinstitute.org/pub/ic/ic10/evol.htm for an English-language review of his book by Steve Talbott of the Nature Institute.