What possible evolutionary advantage is offered by my ears suddenly sprouting tons of hair?
from wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 08 Oct 01:47
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/43691983
from wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 08 Oct 01:47
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/43691983
As I’ve gotten older, I mean.
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
It’s basically your body aging and breaking down, which leads to hormone imbalances and the like. Tons of stuff our bodies do doesn’t have an evolutionary advantage, it’s just that it’s not really a big disadvantage for the survival of your genes.
But it started at 21 😭😭
You made it to 21? Humblebrag
ok but like if you’re growing up under increasingly fascist America it seriously is an accomplishment. Especially if you’re queer or ESPECIALLY trans. Trans people have a 50% rate of attempted suicide by 18 and that’s not even counting in deaths from other sources. or even from the current year (which I imagine has gone up a LOT)
A number that is seriously high for no reason.
In that case, it’s clearly because ear hair really got the early human women going. Rawr!
Older people need warmth and avoiding ants crawling into ears?
Keeps the 'skeeters out.
But most importantly… THE EARWIGS!
I think OP is referring to real hair, no wig necessary.
you know those things in Wrath of Khan, where they, like… go in through the ear and suck on your brain?
Yeah. no. They’re very important to keep out, and they’re called ‘ear wigs’
Unlikely that anything happening when your old is selected for - you’ve already passed on your genes if you’re going to and nothing is helping you do it more.
You don’t think watching people age has any effect on young people’s desire to reproduce?
Nope. I think “we’re” evolved to bury our heads in the sand regarding death and the true nature of reality.
I remember in college, there was a human sexuality class that used what was essentially porn, but with really old people, to reduce the number of people who took the class to watch porn.
And there were still plenty of people who took the class to watch porn, I imagine.
I’d bet you’re right.
What now? This made zero sense.
Natural selection works when you have a trait that makes you more successful at living long enough to pass along your genes or at attracting a mate to pass them along with. Your offspring are more likely to inherit that trait and so they’re more likely to pass along their genes as well, so the trait is more prevalent in the population. Conversely, if you have a trait that makes it harder for you to live, you’re less likely to pass along your genes, and so that trait is more likely to be less present in the population. If you have a trait that doesn’t impact your ability to live long enough to pass along your genes or attract a mate, it has no impact on natural selection.
So if you have a trait that only appears after you’re past the baby making stage, it’s not playing into natural selection. By definition, that trait didn’t help you survive or attract a mate or whatever before having kids and passing it along. It just happens, like lots of other traits.
But surely you can still get a genetic advantage by helping out your kids.
I’m not a geneticist or anthropologist, but apparently that’s a debated, not proven mechanism. The theory being that natural selection works not just on individuals, but on societies. So if older members of a society are more inclined to help take care of the young, that society is more likely to survive, so that trait is more likely to get passed along and become more common in the population. That mechanism would only apply to social/pack animals (like humans), so wouldn’t apply to, say, turtles.
But it’s hard to argue that ear hair in old men helps their society thrive. More likely, it’s just one more trait that is a result of aging and not selected for, like grey hair or wrinkles.
I don’t think anyone denies that whatever happens after you no longer pass your genes around has no evolutionary effect.
Whether helping your offspring is evolutionarily helpful or not might be debatable (I don’t see how it would not be helpful though)
Even in beings that not form societies it has an impact. Example:
You reproduce, then instantly die. Now your offspring have more available resources around them, since you no longer consume them
Or, your reproduce and you become much stronger, but not aggressive towards non-predators. Now predators are less likely to be near you, and your offspring are probably near you. Therefore, they probably benefit from having less predators around.
I should have included those things an individual does to help their direct offspring - those also help you pass along your genes. Whether it’s nurturing your young, or dying and letting them feed off your corpse, anything you do to help them survive can be part of natural selection too. Don’t those things increases the likelihood of that trait being found in the population. Ear hair isn’t one of those things.
This, if genes make you a cunt when you age, those will be selected against by reduced survival of your offspring or their offspring
You have moved into the decline phase. You have shot your shot, and you’re out of evolutionary competition.
There’s no need to make this personal.
Also your car smells funny.
Gah! Everyone keeps saying this. One more time and I’ll leave it alone; men seek mates and can make babies their entire lives.
I had my first kid at 42, another at 45. Know a guy that’s 70 with a 9-yo.
At a certain age your ears have heard enough bullshit and it’s time to start enjoying life.
Man. I hit that age around 7 years old. They told me PeeWee Herman wasn’t going to be on TV anymore because he had fun in a movie theater. Tried asking why that was wrong. No adult would tell me. So I put two and two together and decided that this world is pissing me off.
To be fair, I’m 41, and stand by that to this day. PeeWee did nothing wrong, even AFTER knowing the full story.
It’s not that logical. It could be a by-product of some other process with some advantage to our species. Or maybe it just happened and didn’t increase our chance of death.
Because after the point of fertility, our genetic code is a trashbin of terrible genes. Your genetic code is the product of millennia of selective pressure for breeding, and once that period has passed, we are left with a number of genetic disorders that, as irrelevant as they are to reproduction, become more pronounced.
Was just commenting, men are fertile their entire lives, and our sex drive goes full blast the whole time. I know a guy who had a son at 61.
Robert DeNiro was having kids at 80. Robert DeNiro is an asshole.
There may not be an evolutionary advantage. Humans have developed empathy to care for each other, so many of us tend to do what we can to ensure that those who may have inherited or developed disadvantageous traits can still live full and happy lives, which also means those genes may be passed on to future generations. Hairy ears, wisdom teeth, color blindness, cystic fibrosis, etc. all may be disadvantageous genetic traits, but this presents the ethical question of if we would rather help the individuals with these genes be happy and reproduce, or if we would rather tell these people that they are forbidden from passing on these genes to protect the next generation from the afflictions (by way of direct genocide, selective breeding of humans, or gene selection and embryo screening).
You’ve recently been bitten by a werewolf?
It gives us old farts something to talk about, reinforcing the community of elder carers in the tribe, and thus the health of the tribe.
That’s bollocks, by the way. All I know is that it’s fucking weird when you have to shave your ear lobes.
Bullshit filters.
“The reason is I made it the fuck up!”
–Your body
Untested feature. User is using the product after the End Of Support date.
It’s head hair being excreted out yoir ears. Takes time to work its way down, like medival glass slumping.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tickle your wife’s nose as she whispers in your ear?
Like most things, it’s an accident, a side-effect, a mutation. And, it doesn’t offer any disadvantage that kills you before you have a chance to mate.
So it continues on, because it doesn’t matter.
Damn. Some people get laser vision or can shoot fire.
My mutant powers is thicker ear hair.
What happens with your body after the age your ancestors procreated has nothing to do with evolutionary advantage.
I’m assuming OP’s a man as I don’t know any women this has happened to. Men can make babies their whole life, not like women who go through menopause. I know a guy that’s 70, his wife is 30 and their son is 9.
All that to say, it’s still a little odd this unattractive trait strikes men who can, and often are, looking for mates and making babies.
“Unattractive” is highly culturally specific though. Ear hair is so strongly correlated with testosterone levels, there’s gotta be some people that think it’s virile and attractive.
40 year age gap is nuts. Did they seriouslybdo it for luv?
If a change is easier than not and offers no disadvantage it’s likely to happen.
Evolution is just a lot of tweak-pair-check if it actually works and reproduces not something thst actually has goals or intents
Perhaps it is an advantage to feel more sensitive with ear and nose hair, while your eyesight deteriorates.
Thanks for reminding me, I guess
Ouch dude
Senescent cells emit growth factors. Hair cells divide. More hair in your ear.
It’s just aging. Not advantageous per se, but species’ lifespan is adapted to their ecosystem.
It makes you irresistable to women, thus propagating your blood line.
Evolution doesn’t quite work like that. Traits aren’t always selected for/against, we have a ton of traits that we’re ambivalent enough about to pass on, like eye color and ear hair. It’s neither advantageous or disadvantageous, people are just horny enough that it doesn’t matter and gets passed on.
Every year my head hair grows slower and my everywhere else hair grows quicker.
Maybe not evolutionary advantage, but vestigial origin. Maybe a feature that is in the middle of development / disappearing.
Before people ripped my ear-hairs out, because whites apparently find it intolerable for another to have them ( my skin’s white, I’m 1/4 east-Indian )
it used to be possible to feel the slightest breeze, someone opening a door or window to a house/apartment I was in, or any similar thing.
Massive & unusual sense that people ripped out from my life.
I’ve only short ones, now, & it’s a bit like being deaf, to breezes, in comparison.
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