A HAIRY QUESTION
ann.nunn@sstar.com
Thu, 25 May 95 05:38:34 -0500
NE>I think we all recognize this) longer than ours. What we do find is
NE>that, on average, we *look like* we have less body hair than apes.
NE>We should also remember the "we" problem. A day at the beach tells us
NE>that "we" have virtually no body hair, that "we" have loads and loads of
NE>fairly long body hair over our entire bodies, that "we" have some hairy
NE>parts and some non-hairy parts. In other words, that "we" are highly
NE>variable.
Well, "we Europeans" seem to be very variable in the body hair
department, while Asians and Africans seem to be much less so, and much
less hirsute.
Some of us are extremely hairy and others aren't. Since we
NE>know that we are indeed one species and haven't been separated anywhere
NE>for more than a few tens of thousands of years (ie. an eyeblink), we can
NE>safely surmise that body hair is a fairly easily and quickly changing
NE>feature.
And quickly changing toward the direction of disappearance, as any woman
knows that she had better make it disappear if she wishes to attract any
high class sperm for her progeny. <g>
NE>The whole business of hair in human evolution is difficult to do much
NE>with due to skeletons not showing how much hair the creature had, and
NE>where, how long, etc. We do know that its appearance on modern humans
NE>is extremely variable, and there's that funny bit about how it keeps
NE>growing so long out of our heads but not so much other places. I don't
NE>know what folks know about that.
Elaine Morgan had some interesting theories about that in the AAH which
may have some validity even apart from the aquatic part of the theory.
I will have to hunt up that book again.
Ann
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OLX 2.1 TD Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity
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