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Complex Numbers #991386 added August 23, 2020 at 12:02am
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Fur the Fun of It
I haven't been to a barber in months, so this article caught my attention.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-humans-evolve-lose-fur-180...
Why Did Humans Lose Their Fur?
We are the naked apes of the world, having shed most of our body hair long ago
As usual, I have issues with parts of the article, but pointing them all out would be tiresome. All I'll say right now is that almost all of the evolutionary discussion here is pure speculation and hypothesis... and that the question of "why" in the headline might be misleading.
Millions of modern humans ask themselves the same question every morning while looking in the mirror: Why am I so hairy?
Well, for me, as I said, the answer is "I haven't been to a barber in months." I suspect a lot of men my age are more asking themselves, "Where did all my hair go?"
Evolutionary theorists have put forth numerous hypotheses for why humans became the naked mole rats of the primate world.
And few of them are testable.
Scientists aren't exactly sure, but biologists are beginning to understand the physical mechanism that makes humans the naked apes. In particular, a recent study in the journal Cell Reports has begun to depilate the mystery at the molecular and genetic level.
Even the Smithsonian mag can't resist a bad pun.
The article proceeds to explain some of the genetic findings, which I can't really comment on but I'm assuming are current science. But that answers "how," not "why."
I'll come up with an analogy here. Could be relevant, could be not; I don't know. Cats can't taste sweetness.  . This is, apparently, due to a genetic mutation way back in their lineage. And it's not just your house panther; it seems that all felids have this mutation. ("But my cat loves ice cream and cake!" "The article I just linked addresses that. Also, don't feed your cat ice cream and cake.")
But does that mean that there was a reason for it -- a "why?" No. And whether it's the mutation that makes a cat a cat, or being a cat is what resulted in the mutation, well, that's above my pay grade. But it appears to connected to why cats, unlike most mammals, are obligate carnivores. ("But my cat eats grass!" "Yes, and then she throws up on your bed.") So it seems to me with the hairless thing in humans. A mutation turned out to be beneficial for our early human ancestors' survival.
With a greater understanding of how skin is rendered hairless, the big question remaining is why humans became almost entirely hairless apes. Millar says there are some obvious reasons—for instance, having hair on our palms and wrists would make knapping stone tools or operating machinery rather difficult, and so human ancestors who lost this hair may have had an advantage.
Okay, this is one place where I am going to quibble here. Operating machinery wasn't, I believe, much of an issue a million years ago. Evolution didn't plan for the industrial revolution; evolution doesn't "plan." This is symptomatic of my issues with the evolutionary guesswork these people do. Of course, it's important to make such guesses, but there's nothing substantial to back it up. And again, they might have cause and effect switched.
There's more of this guesswork in there; I won't belabor it fur-ther.
Now, I wonder if I can borrow some of my housemate's ponytail bands? |
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