new thread
It's not particularly brief but I endeavored to keep it entertaining. If you have a few minutes to kill and feel like a romp, please avail yourself.
-- George
I don't. The shackles of certain elements of Society need to be ignored. Long hair reigns.
I don't think that the difference between male and female hair growth is that pronounced. Male pattern baldness is due to male hormones in the scalp, and whilst all men get it to a limited extent, for most of us it is limited to only a slight thinning around the temples, apparently because for whatever reason this is not the area where most of our hormones are found. Only a small minority actually become bald. Neither does it affect hair length very much. Most men with MPB have no problem growing long hair, beyond social pressure not to grow the rest of the hair long because some people percieve the combination to be unattractive.
As for why humans have long hair on our heads, I don't think anyone really knows for sure. You mention Elaine Morgan's Aquatic Ape theory, and it does seem very compelling, but not completely convincing. I tend to think that long hair is a result of neoteny, although no-one really knows for sure why humans are neotenous in the first place. Neoteny is when a juvenile form of a species reproduces without changing into the adult form and so becomes the dominant form. Even then, neoteny is more an explanation as to why the rest of the body appears hairless (although the hairs are still there, but are fine velous hairs), and not so much an explanation of why the head hair is longer.
Neoteny certainly provides a mechanism for a lot of the differences between humans and the rest of the great apes, but what caused that neoteny is a separate question. I think neoteny in turn can be explained because it allows the brain to grow more after birth, and that explanation doesn't make any use of the Aquatic Ape theory. It also raises the question of why we needed to be smarter, but there's no doubt that we are, so there must have been a reason. Non-human apes have been taught human sign language in experiments, but only seem to be about as smart as a human toddler.
I'm not an expert in this field. I just find it interesting as an amateur.
Wow, intelligent response! Thanks.
I've never heard of neotony. In fact lots of words there that are new to me. I'm no pro at this either, just fascinated by this stuff.
You're welcome
I saw one hypothesis that our intelligence grew out of the necessity of a basically defenseless animal to be able to hit targets with projectiles. Hitting a target with a projectile requires a very complicated calculation, and in fact the earliest computers were developed by the military to hone and speed up this skill.
Humans are fascinated with directing the trajectory of projectiles. Most of our most popular sports, for example, involve this activity.
Hi George,
I finally had a chance to read your blog -- some fascinating concepts in there!!
I replied on the blog itself; but those security codes sometimes confuse me... I replied once without typing in that security code; once with. Hopefully you'll be able to read my comments there.
Thanks again for sharing that, as it was a great read! I have to admit, though, that the title of this essay threw me off a bit at first. Once I got into reading it, though, I realized it was more of an evolutionary and anthropic discussion, with less emphasis on society's artificial reasons for men having short hair, and women usually having long.
Thanks again, George!
- Ken