Re: Why is Homo sapiens hairless?

Barry Mennen (barrym2@ix.netcom.com(Barry)
4 Nov 1996 22:16:31 GMT

In <01bbc9e8$5f6571a0$f42270c2@default> "John Waters"
<jdwaters@dircon.co.uk> writes:
>
>
>> Barry Mennen <barrym2@ix.netcom.com> wrote in article
>> <55g2hc$jbf@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>...
>>
>(Snip)
>> >
>> > Let's get back to basics if we realyy want to deal with
>parsimony. It
>> > all had to do with sex--not thermoregulation or
>whatever.
>> >
>> > Cheers,
>> >
>> > Barry Mennen
>
>JW: Come on Barry. Dish the dirt. Let us hear your
>hypothesis.
>
>John.
>
Well John, it's hardly mine, but here goes:

As Darwin said, it is "ornamentation;" but ornamentation to attract the
male; my guess is that the first parts of the female hominid to lose
hair would have been the buttocks, chest and face--since there is no
real heat season for humans, I am making an *assumption* that this
ability for continual sexual receptivity in the female set our emerging
line apart--to that end, the engine of sexual selection worked on the
libidinous males to mate with the females that offered the most in the
way of visual cues.

Protuberant breast and buttocks would have followed; after all, if we
as a species were able to develop a brain good enough to solve
quadratic equations in a few million years, why couldn't we lose hair
for sex in a flash?

Cheers,

Barry Mennen