Why is human hair so wild?

Travis said:
Whilst debating a creationist the other day they brought up something I hadn't really thought of before: the fact that humans, unlike other primates, seem to have head hair that is only controllable through technology. While I countered that as evidence of "creation"--noting that it would only take a minor mutation for such a thing to happen and that because it did happen in a species that happened to have technology to control it there wasn't any natural selection pressure to get rid of it--I really couldn't think of a reason why natural selection might have led this to happen in the first place.

A quick Google seemed to bring up some woo explanations so does anyone here have any insight into this?
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Coming to think of it, you have raised a very interesting question.
After humans, African/Ethiopean painted face baboons seem to have a similar "Hair" thingy.
I would be watching other's view with interest.

Nichiro
 
I haven't cut my hair in over 10 years. It goes down all the way to my butt, but hasn't really grown beyond that.

Damien Evans said:
I'm sure this guy would be happy to share:
[qimg]http://i587.photobucket.com/albums/ss316/Musse_/music/Marco.jpg[/qimg]
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Marko's pretty hot. I wish he'd stop wasting his time in Nightwish, but then it probably pays better than Tarot...
 
I grew my hair for 13 years and it did reach a terminal length. It also thinned by 2/3rds so I may have waited too long to grow it as it was it's fullest after just 4-5 years. Now I knew a woman who's hair never stopped growing longer, it eventually reached beyond the ground and then some until she had it removed before dying of cancer. I worked with her about ten years before she died and her hair was just beyond her buttocks then. She was about 50 at death and I don't know when she started growing it for length.

Longest hair on record is about 26 feet by some French prince if my memory is correct. Everyone has a different terminal length.
 
Travis said:
Whilst debating a creationist the other day they brought up something I hadn't really thought of before: the fact that humans, unlike other primates, seem to have head hair that is only controllable through technology. While I countered that as evidence of "creation"--noting that it would only take a minor mutation for such a thing to happen and that because it did happen in a species that happened to have technology to control it there wasn't any natural selection pressure to get rid of it--I really couldn't think of a reason why natural selection might have led this to happen in the first place.

A quick Google seemed to bring up some woo explanations so does anyone here have any insight into this?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you call "wild". A clear definition of the problem would go a long way.

I mean, it seems to me like what I'd call "wild", i.e., the tendency to not stay in the shape we want it, really just has to do with us wanting it to stay in positions it was never meant to. (Using "meant to" in the loosest metaphoric sense. I know that random mutations don't have goals and intention.)

Other than that, it seems to me like you're spot on.

We're an offshoot of an already tool-using species, the Homo Erectus, via the even more sophisticated Homo Ergaster, and with likely Homo Habilis along that chain before Ergaster. We're talking species which not just could make some pretty good stone tools, but had enough brains for example to make a raft to travel across a river.

A mutation to how much hair we have or in what directions it grows would have had zero influence on survivability. If nothing else, the brains and "technology" to tie it in a ponytail would have existed for 1-2 million years already, at the time Homo Sapiens appeared.
 
A mutation to have long hair would result in more interest from males.
 
Evolution my dear males, in humans, is a function of desire as much as utility.

Male scientists, they don't understand the source of human evolution.
 
Then it should be obvious why women have long wild hair. Natural selection!
 
It's like wondering why a rich man's daughters are so good looking. Ever notice that?

It happens so often, with such regularity, you might think there is some natural selection going on. :D
 
r-j said:
Evolution my dear males, in humans, is a function of desire as much as utility.

Male scientists, they don't understand the source of human evolution.
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We do however also understand such stuff as that if sexual selection actually selects a negative trait, then those with such preferences might take their offspring out of the gene pool. Basically just because you're looking quite superficially at half the problem, doesn't mean it's the rest of the world that misunderstands it ;)
 
My daughter's hair reached all the way down to her knees . She is 5.7" tall. After marriage, she cut it but it still reached down under her butt.
 
Amapola said:
I too do not understand what is meant by technology needed to control hair.

One of my neighbors, a blonde woman, did nothing at all to her hair and it matted itself into dreadlocks. No technology required.
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Yeah that's what I am thinking. Our hair would probably matt into dreadlocks if we did nothing to it.

So I'm thinking your friend is confusing "styling" with "natural" the way we style and groom our hair is not natural by any means.

The fact that it looks the way it does doesn't mean it was meant to look that way.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Personally, I'm more bothered by the lack of growing hair on areas of my head rather than what hair I do have going 'wild.' ;)
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I suffered from the same problem but I found a solution. I visited a tattoo artist and got him to draw tiny little rabbits on the bald bits. From a distance they look like hares!!


I'll get my coat.
 
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