Throughout the evolution of mankind, biological features have developed out of necessity.
Some of these have naturally regressed as evolutionary needs have changed. Since the beginning, of course, this indefinitely shaped evolutionary how we appear and so needless to say many people from many parts of the world look different, developing characteristics which in some cases overlap.
Even through billions of years of biological life and millions of years of human evolution, in our DNA exists data that binds us all together and pinpoints to common data that is relative in all forms of life. The human physical form has changed greatly from the inception of mankind and many unnecessary features have either changed or been bred out perhaps simultaneously.
Huge brows in the human skull are not a common feature in most humans today, a relic of times past from interbreeding with the Neanderthals. Neither are other particular human skeletal builds, which have not lasted the test of time. Skin color has dramatically changed in addition to iris colors and types of hair for different environments.
What dictates these changes and how is an observable phenomena. But not all things have changed and some things which should have dissappeared are still very much present.
Which brings me to my point and ultimate question.
Pubes are the most useless bodily feature ever with a close second being nipples present on men. Why is it that from an evolutionary stand point that the human body continues to produce pubes and asshair? Some people produce more than others but what are pubes and asshair still trying to protect? Humans have been clothed for a millenia, from the early furs and skins to the stylish H&M we all wear. They are unnecessary yet the human body still clings to it like a raisin in the sun on the floor made to dry out and melt.
Very simple op.
Pubes are not at all necessary, but they are not a hindrance to our survival in anyway.
I'll quickly explain evolution in case you don't entirely get it. If a member of a species develops a mutation at birth that increases it's odds at survival then it outbreeds all of the inferior members of its species (polar bear mutating to have white fur made it better at survival than other members of its species)
For the pubes gene to be bred out then those who are born with a mutation to not have pubes would have to have better odds at survival.
This leads me to my own question. Since we live in modern society and someone born without a left leg would still have equal chances at survival than a normal person, then where does this lead our evolutionary track? If nearly every mutation (faulty beneficial or neutral) would still passes on its genes?
>>2101463
read Gould on spandrels, vestiges and atavisms.
pubes don't necessarily serve any purpose, it takes millions of years to lose traits that aren't actively selected, and we haven't existed for that long.
clothing is probably one reason they continue to exist- we don't get to see the bush until we're ready to fuck it and by that time most people aren't going to stop just because pubes.
also humans evolved to hide sexual signals regarding menstruation and arousal in women. Pubes help at that. If women have pubes (or nipples) men will too because it takes millions of years for that sort of extreme dimorphism to evolve and again, humans haven't been around that long.
>>2101482
Even so. It takes millions of years for a neutral trait to be bred out in a natural setting. As I said in my reply we live in a modern society where nearly everyone gets a chance to breed. So I'd say it would take even longer for pubes to be stamped out
>>2101482
I like your answer better than that other idiot. Never thought of pubes that way. But in today's day and age certainly too much asshair will stop an act of procreation? I would hope.
>>2101479
>but they are not a hindrance to our survival in anyway.
HURRRRRRRR a bunch of characteristics fall into that category but have been bred out. You're trying to sound smart but fail miserably it's hilarious.
>>2101479
Also to add to what i said a lot of people shave their pubes so it's not like it really hinders procreation
>>2101493
>it's not like it really hinders procreation
shaving the pubes hinders procreation since in women it results in more vag infections and in men it messes with the temperature of the testes which fucks up sperm production.
we manage to get by anyways.
>>2101494
>we manage to get by anyways
That's exactly my point
>>2101463
tl;dr
pubes are actually useful.
>>2101497
Go away. From what I can tell between you and the other Anon, pubes do hinder us but we manage to get by anyway so it hasn't dissappeared as a trait. You said pubes are not a hindrance to our survival anyway which is false, they are but we get by. So you're wrong.
>>2101497
>That's exactly my point
it's situational.
anything we can do to hinder our procreation is probably good at this point.
if there were 30 humans alive on the whole planet, the last thing you'd want is people shaving their pubes.
>>2101500
>You said pubes are not a hindrance to our survival anyway which is false
I think you got that backwards.
>>2101463
The pubes hold onto our junk sweat which is full of sexy pheromones that get you laid
>>2101505
that wasn't me, and he's right.
nobody itt has disagreed with him because he's right.
how you got from "pubes aren't a hinderance"
to "pubes ARE a hinderance"
is a complete mystery.
it's the exact opposite of what everyone has said.
>>2101506
Pubes aren't a big hindrance but are a hindrance with what people do to them.
I'm surprised this is a question on this board.
The same question posed a different way is "why did we lose our hair most everywhere but certain places".
We associate pubic hair with onset from adolescence.That we are born with hair on our heads so soon after and even faint eyebrows but no where else says something about how our overall development prioritizes hair at all.
Nor is it just the pubic area, nor the same in all races/breeds. Men may develop hair on their chest and legs, or not.
Feathers are an elaboration on hair, which is an elaboration on scales. Even insects have some exoskeleton manifestations of similar integumentary extrusions.
What we can deduce from fur generally is that it does a little more than simply protect from sun. It also acts as a detection device for picking up changes in air movements close to the body, or even static changes. So it provides sensory augmentation, literally extending the range of skin sensation. A hair moves and motion is detected as the follicle is shifted.
So it is better to ask about hair in particular region because it may serve different purposes in different areas, or simply be vestigial. Why it develops at a certain age for some places and less in others may seem associated but may have a completely unrelated cause.
For the groin and anal cleft, it is likely remained as protection from pests, while some pests have evolved especially for it, like lice. Larger, bigger pests, however, will find it difficult to navigate, and be quickly detected.
Body hair may serve simply as ambient detection or protection from sun. Armpit hair may simply be vestigial.
Other "pubic" hair, or hair emerging at puberty appears around another orifice, the mouth. The face covers the sensory hub and very important eyes and ears. The brain is immediately covered with hair, and the eyes have their own in the form of lashes and brows.
A pest attacking the face will be detected quickly...
>>2101509
... There is also natural selection to consider in gender dimorhism. Females were selected and cultured physically over time to retain juvenile features due, presumably, to youth being a associated with health. While some women do grow some facial hair as hormones change balance in age, it shows that in females, selection simply favored those who did not have the strongest capacity to grow facial hair.
>>2101509
>I'm surprised this is a question on this board.
Animals and nature; humans are animals afterall and we are discussing their nature.
>>2101507
Pubes aren't a hindrance to our overall procreation or survival
>>2101514
No but it's what we do to our pubes that matters and what makes them a hindrance at a small level, we're indubitably better off wothout them.
>>2101515
What we do with them doesn't matter. I agree completely that we are better off without them, but I still stand by what I said. Someone born with a mutation to not have pubes doesn't stand a better of a chance than everyone born with pubes.
Evolution doesn't work by unnecessary traits magically going away
>>2101515
>we're indubitably better off wothout them
again, this is the opposite of what everyone has said so far.
>>2101512
No, I meant that anyone would find it questionable that humans retain hair in different regions. I didn't even mention heat retention and regulation.
In hair around the pubic region, there is also the scrotum to consider, especially sensitive to attack in an area most distant from vision. To add, the testicles produce sperm best in a fairly finite temperature range. The risk of pest intrusion to the vulva is obvious, especially since the anus or vagina can emit aromas that can attract such pests.
Also, the dimorphism between male and female humans is rather slight. The testicles are not so distinguished in prenatal origin from the ovaries, and it may simply be that what was kept to protect the testicles may precede in genetic expression whether or not they become testicles or ovaries, the same way nipples begin formation before there is actual hormonal coordination to determine if they will be "needed" or not.
>>2101519
I'm sure op completely understands why we initially evolved this way, he was just asking why we still have them since it is no longer that useful.
>>2101520
he could just as well ask why we still have dicks even though there's 7,000,000,000 people on Earth.
the answer is simple, no matter how you look at it:
OP has no idea how slowly evolution happens and doesn't want to believe pubes may have value.
nothing more or less.
>>2101524
>OP has no idea how slowly evolution happens
About as slow as it takes for your mum to cum which may be never but she doesn't mind
>>2101520
Ah. Well, I would only speculate. Our concept of time does not appear to comport with natures slow and plodding mechanisms for big changes to our form. What we consider appropriate to the needs of the time may have to be selected deliberately from what is actually available to be changed. This is accelerated by natural selection or primitive eugenics.
We are at an age where we *could* try to breed away something we find objectionable. But nature assures us we can't do everyone in a generation or in a locale instantly, so older models are bound to persist and be re-introduced as needs and desires change.
We can quickly produce blond offspring, for example. But we can't quickly know how they will age or in what health. We can choose tall people, but we can't simply will away a toe or nipples. Some things are just built in too deeply.
Mutations offer new opportunities, but by definitions are rare and difficult to reproduce in a controlled way.
The most important thing, I think, is that there is much of our physiology that nature favors in the theme of 'form follows function'. Nature does not care about our convenience or tastes. We get what each generation can work with to survive.
Put another way, it doesn't care about our technology or aspirations. What survives is apes with xyz features that have worked so far. We may wish for extra digits, or less. But it will take a long time to "convince" our genome that a change is justified and finally begin to render the genetic expression that can be useful.
Clothing or not, cataclysms still happen. And if we face another long period of strife as a species, these traits we find primitive will likely increase again. We may be thankful for that extra hair in an ice age, or for male nipples when social needs require the quick regeneration of healthy females...
>>2101526
... One thing I have learned is that no matter how frustrating a trait may be, any trait at all, nature likes to cling to conservative designs and proven vast inventories of traits just in case they are needed again. Even then, they are still far easier to lose than they are to create again from scratch.
>>2101520
As >>2101509 says, pubes have plenty of uses. Please work on your reading comprehension.
>>2101525
crude but actually pretty accurate.
I'm pretty disgusted by this thread. If you understand its many functions, pubic hair has plenty of reason to be selected for. Just because it's in vogue right now to shave it off doesn't make those reasons go away.
>>2101463
pubes do serve a purpose. they prevent acne and infection by making it easier for sweat and dirt to not clog on the skin. instead sweat with dirt flow through the pubes and ass hair.
proof of this is if you shave your pubes and don't wash yourself for two weeks (which would've been normal only 1000 years ago) it'll probably grow either acne or some other irritation (providing you don't give it any special care).
yes pubes have a funcion. otherwise they wouldn't have even evolved in the first place.
>>2101509
What a brilliant post. Bravo :-)
Pubic hair reduces friction.
>>2101479
>This leads me to my own question. Since we live in modern society and someone born without a left leg would still have equal chances at survival than a normal person, then where does this lead our evolutionary track? If nearly every mutation (faulty beneficial or neutral) would still passes on its genes?
Think of the genetic diversity of a species as an ever increasing circle or sphere. As natural selection and genetic inheritance take place, the sphere is cut in certain ways. What you have left is a sphere with a surface of parabolas. If these parabolas are separated from one another, they could become a completely separate species.
However, in the case of humanity, a population with a truly fucked up natural selection process, we find that our circle/sphere isn't getting shaved or cut. This doesn't imply that we aren't mutating. It just implies that we haven't needed to kill off all the 'weak' genes yet.
So in reality, our species is actually stronger due to this lack of culling, because genetic diversity is increasing.
>>2101491
They both gave the same relative answer.
>>2101504
This is more likely. Man nipples are truly useless compared to this feature.
Having hair in your pits makes you give off that nice shmexy man smell when you're working out.
>High temperature fucks up sperm production
If our body got hot enough to kill its own sperm, then we'd also be on the verge of dying, right?
>2101950
Only reason we have our nips is because of the X chromosome we inherit
>biological features have developed out of necessity
stopped reading there u turbo nerd. biological features happen out of chance not a necessity for anything.
>>2101500
You're pulling shit out of the ether. Nobody in the thread said pubes are a hindrance. Someone implied that fucking with your pubes is a mild hindrance, so the obvious solution to that is not to fuck with your pubes.
>>2101507
Cultural trends don't dictate evolution.
>>2101463
>asshair
http://youtu.be/BgsdhmLrLPA
tl;dr
>no evolutionary pressure against it
>pheromones
>anti-chafing
>>2101463
because neither pubes nor asshaire reduce your chance of passing on your genes
>>2102478
>>2101824
>anti-chafing
>reduces friction
This. Both ass/crotch and armpits. It's like people don't move at all, what the fuck. While leg hair may be vestigial, and face hair is for sexual dimorphism mainly, these ones are essential for surviving.
>>2101463
Evolution works in the span of millenia AND needs some sort of selection. So, unless you make a concentration camp with people with hairy asses (if they have to shave, they count) you are going to have people with hairy butts.
On the other hand things like nipples IIRC are more of a developmental thing, and since it doesn't affect negatively it stays, like the residual of the nictinant membrane that we have.
Evil-ution is a hoax by stan to drive people away from the Lord. God made man in his current form and gave him dominion over all other life.
>>2101463
>with a close second being nipples present on men
Men can lactate, and nipples also serve a sexual function. Plus they look good. I'd hardly call that useless.
>>2104480
You're joking right?
>>2104560
Eternal damnation is no joke, Anon.
>>2101479
Don't pubes make it easier to spread parasites during sex?
>>2104598
My girlfriends shaves his whole body and he's never sore from friction.
Nipples on males are just an artifact of how mammals gain sex-specific traits in the embryo. All mammals develop as if they would become females until a certain time, about 60 days in in humans, where if a Y chromosome is present, a gene called SRY (short for sex-determining region, and sometimes also called testis-determining factor) activates, eventually leading to the formation of the male gonads. This is why karyotype XXY is still male: you only need one copy of SRY to get balls.
But by the time this happens, mammary tissue has already developed, so males are born with nipples. Anon referenced Gould up top, who co-wrote a famous paper about this.
Tl;dr male nipples aren't for anything at all, are there by biological happenstance, and don't have enough of an impact to be selected against. the same is probably true of pubes.
>>2104703
...is your gf a tranny?
Pubes do serve a purpose, not an important one but they help protect the genitals. Ass hair I don't have a clue but friction burn from sex is really painful and a bush help prevents that, I suppose it also serves other purposes that hair in general fulfills but which raises the question of why ball hair exists since balls need to be cold.
Might also be a peacock feathers kind of thing.
>>2104711
No?
>>2102410
Body heat affecting conception is actually common enough. Some people need to stay cool in order to conceive .
>>2104716
Yeah, the proteins that make up sperm just happen to not function well in ordinary homeostatic body temperature (proteins can only function in narrow temp ranges and denature otherwise. this is why you die with a very high fever), and were important enough to reproductive success (obviously) that a measure to deal with that was selected for.
The rest of the proteins in the body work under a temperature which is kind of mass-average across all their optimal conditions. Some proteins might end up functioning at slightly sub-optimal capacity (if you ever did the catalase enzyme lab in high school, you would notice you get the most vigorous activity a couple degrees above body temperature), but a compromise is necessary so everything can fare just well enough to keep the cells going.
Testes get to be special because, like I said, they're obviously important enough to have evolution act on them quickly.
It's interesting to note that a lot of other animals, and even a lot of other mammals actually have undescended testicles, though...
>>2104719
>It's interesting to note that a lot of other animals, and even a lot of other mammals actually have undescended testicles, though...
And some animals have a bone to help them have sex. Human genitals are very unique even in comparison to apes.
I wonder if it is because we stand upright.
>>2101491
a characteristic that is neither a hindrance nor an advantage can be both bred out or kept by random mutation. because it doesnt make a difference either way. evolution is nothing like a clean process that erases everything that is unnecessary.
>ctrl+F “pheromones”
>“MHC”
>“scent trap”
>0 results
Pubes trap sweet that are used as a pharomone No, i'm not joking)
Male nipples are caused by us being gender neutral in the womb and so the body has no reason to get rid of nipples after we are assigned male since it isn't harmful.
>>2101463
This is why women love large brown cocks now more than ever
