As I’ve gotten older, I mean.
What happens with your body after the age your ancestors procreated has nothing to do with evolutionary advantage.
What possible evolutionary advantage is offered by my ears suddenly sprouting tons of hair?
Submitted 21 hours ago by wesker@lemmy.sdf.org to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
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.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 3 hours ago
“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.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
It makes you irresistable to women, thus propagating your blood line.
4am@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
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.
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 4 hours ago
Damn. Some people get laser vision or can shoot fire.
My mutant powers is thicker ear hair.
nomadjoanne@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
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.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 3 hours ago
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.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
Untested feature. User is using the product after the End Of Support date.
LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 20 hours ago
You have moved into the decline phase. You have shot your shot, and you’re out of evolutionary competition.
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 20 hours ago
There’s no need to make tgis personal.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Also your car smells funny.
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Gah! Everyone keeps saying this. One more time and I’ll leave it alone; men seek mates and can make babies their entire lives.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 21 hours ago
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.
SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
But it started at 21 😭😭
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 20 hours ago
Well, in that case, it’s clearly because ear hair really got the early human women going. Rawr!
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 20 hours ago
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.
apopcorn@piefed.ca 18 hours ago
But surely you can still get a genetic advantage by helping out your kids.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
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.
moseschrute@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You don’t think watching people age has any effect on young people’s desire to reproduce?
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 19 hours ago
Nope. I think “we’re” evolved to bury our heads in the sand regarding death and the true nature of reality.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
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.
Substance_P@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
What now? This didn’t make zero sense.
AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
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.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Perhaps it is an advantage to feel more sensitive with ear and nose hair, while your eyesight deteriorates.
MycelialMass@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Ouch dude
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Thanks for reminding me, I guess
HubertManne@piefed.social 2 hours ago
Every year my head hair grows slower and my everywhere else hair grows quicker.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Tickle your wife’s nose as she whispers in your ear?
seathru@lemmy.sdf.org 21 hours ago
Keeps the 'skeeters out.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 10 hours ago
It’s head hair being excreted out yoir ears. Takes time to work its way down, like medival glass slumping.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Naich@lemmings.world 17 hours ago
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.
can@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
It’s not that logical. It could be a by-product of some other process with some advantageous to species. Or maybe it just happened and didn’t increase our chance of death.
limer@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
Older people need warmth and avoiding ants crawling into ears?
FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
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.
shalafi@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
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.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
Robert DeNiro was having kids at 80. Robert DeNiro is an asshole.
fubarx@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Bullshit filters.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
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
edgemaster72@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
“The reason is I made it the fuck up!”
–Your body
s@piefed.world 19 hours ago
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 genocide, selective breeding of humans, or gene selection and embryo screening).
iamanoldguy@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
You’ve recently been bitten by a werewolf?
saltesc@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
At a certain age your ears have heard enough bullshit and it’s time to start enjoying life.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
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.