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Youth On The Rock : View topic - A query for evolutionists
For me, this is just a niggling question and I'm wondering how evolutionists explain it: when/why in the process of evolution did humans lose their fur/hair and start killing other things for fur/clothes?
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As far as *when* i'm sure i don't know -- and i do not know how accurately scientists have answered that question.
before we get into why, we might touch upon selection and how it works.
in evolution, the species that survives is the one that gets to keep on trying to survive.
that sounds obvious, but think about it: a species that dies out can no longer compete.
"survival of the fittest" is *not* about individuals.
it is about the survival of s set of DNA.
it does not try to survive, it does not mean to survive, it simply does or does not survive.
the DNA in you and i provides us with certain common attributes that make us as individuals want to survive, and have children.
i am the product of millions of years of DNA *surviving* and the mechanism that it has evolved for doing so is sexual reproduction.
it explains why i want to have sex with women, and not with trees.
the fact that i have a penis, and breathe through my nostrils, and see through eyeballs, is all becuase i express traits that have been passed on from my ancestors through 5 million years, and over the years those traits have proved remarkably good at surviving.
one of those traits, in an upright-walking biped, is the ability to see, from a great distance, whom is, and is not, worth having sex with.
whom will likely produce offspring for me?
not all that long ago, before humans wore clothes but after we started walking upright, our females with bigger breasts got noticed as being female more than smaller breasted ones.
because we walk upright, those breasts could be seen way more than the other apes on the planet.
several hundred thousand generations later, the human ape female has MUCH larger breasts than any other large primate.
the same goes, pound-per-pound, for the human penis.
When compared to other large primate penises, it is MASSIVE.
i suspect that the lack of hair is related to this sex thing, and showing off our parts in order to attract potential mates.
remember, however, that not every trait we express is something that has been selected *for*.
some of our traits are side-effects of other traits.
it is possible that we lack fur because it is a side effect of having such a large brain.
?
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An easy Google search can bring up many articles that explain various ideas.
We can only guess using indirect methods like the ones used in that article.
Edit: Beaten to it
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Um... pubic hair?
Then why do a lot of people not want children?
I don't want any.
And another question - why am I attracted more to personalities of people and not so much their looks (even though I do prefer certain looks over others)?
Possibly, but you do realise that all of our skin is covered with hair (with an exception of only a few spots) - however most is not as noticeable, and the hair still does serve a purpose - insulation.
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Yep. Imagine a naked guy running around with nothing but a beard on his face (oh look, that definitely shows that he's a man!) and a "beard" on his genitals (oooh, that draws your attention in!).
Not to mention that hair is great for holding in delicious pheromone smells.
Haha.
We have culture now, which we didn't have so much way back when.
We appreciate personalities more than a person's ability to run fast because we don't need to escape lions anymore.
It's a match of minds rather than bodies.
Pheromones and other chemicals do still play a role though, even if it's subconscious.
It's been found that if you kiss a person and you absolutely hate the kiss, some of that can be attributed to your saliva mixing and your body realizing that your immune systems are too similar and wouldn't produce offspring with varied, strong antibodies.
???
I don't know where you got that from.
Our body hair provides almost no insulation, the majority of our temperature regulation comes from vasodilation and vasoconstriction along with sweating.
The only helpful hair is our head, which helps maintain the skull environment.
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When we are hot our hairs get close to our body, but when we are cold they stand on end (goosebumps) to retard the cold air from hitting our skin (and to retain the heat that our skin radiates).
Not sure how old this info is - it was in a textbook that I read a few years back so scientists may have changed their minds about it...
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Hmm. I'd be curious if you remembered which book it was.
Without trying to sound too egotistical, I'm thinking you may have a bit of info mixed up- yes, our hairs do rise when we feel cold, but this doesn't actually do much of anything to maintain body heat.
Any heat it does retain is negligible compared to the work done by our cardiovascular system.
That reaction is a natural reflex that is a remnant from our hairy days.
It did help us at one point, but it doesn't anymore.
So, no more running around naked in the snow like our pets.
*sadface*
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CS Lewis - "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark.
Dark would be a word without meaning."
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Dood, how long is your pubic hair?
does it cover up the fact that you have a penis?
does pubic hair cover famale breasts?
pay attention.
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Exactly -- and it is voluntary in some primates, and other mammals: cats can "puff up" in order to look bigger than they are.
same response to us getting goosebumps when we're scared -- its leftovers from millinos of years of evolution.
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Aww, but it is fun getting frostbite!
Short - I cut it
NOTHING could cover that up!
(Joking - but it does help to obscure it if it grows)
I don't know!
I have never seen one to know!!!
*cries*
We can puff ourselves up - we stand taller and take a deep breath to make our chest larger.
Even though our hair standing on end doesn't really help in making us seem larger than we really are, it would be VERY scary if the hair on our heads suddenly stood on end (especially mine since it is quite long...)
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The best evolutionary-leftover response is the Hypnic jerk, from back in the good ol' days when everybody slept in trees.
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