[HydraulicWaRiOr]

As I was previously discussing, I believe that some of the anomalies within human geneology can only be expressed as an example of extraterrestrials interfering with nature.

Humans came into existence right before the ice age began, and adaptation explains that a species will change based on their environment. I ask, how does an increasingly cold environment conclude with loss of body hair instead of an increase? History shows that many of our ancestors had to kill for warmth, which means that hair loss was an abnormal adaptation for our species. It is to my knowledge that nature wouldn't allow such things to happen, so why did it? The only rational explanations are of the interference of that of some sort of deity or the interference of other intelligent life.

If you look at our DNA, there is much the same between man and other animals, especially involving Junk DNA which has no purpose and does not code for production of protein. But how can this happen naturally?

[Supreme]

[Craig]

Answers for questions like this aren't going to be as clear-cut as the question itself, which is why it's often hard to convincingly argue why we don't have fur. According to Scientific American, there are three possible reasons, which I'll list. I won't explain everything behind it however, because that's what the link is there for.

1. We used to be semi-aquatic.
This theory imagines our human ancestors foraging for food in shallow water. I thought only nut-cases believed this, but apparently it has been put forth as a serious hypothesis. The idea is that we lost our fur the way dolphins and seals did. There's not much evidence backing this up, however.

2. Hairless bodies are a heat adaptation.
After moving out of the cool shady trees to the hot savannas, our ancestors quickly lost the fur as a means of adapting to the extreme heat. This would have been a drawback at night, however. Also, you have to wonder why we don't see other examples of land-based mammals ever making a similar adaptation?

3. We lost the fur in order to get rid of the accompanying parasites.
This one makes sense. Imagine living naked in a world with no showers and the possibility of being infested by tics, chiggers, lice - not just in a few areas of your body, but all over. I would definitely do anything I could to evolve away from that.

The comments at the bottom of this page (Speculist) are pretty interesting too, and I have to say I agree with the parasitic reasons and sexual selection.

[oysterbarron]

I dont think theres anything et about it. As you probably allready know there are random genes being turned on and off by mistake that cause random mutations within our dna. I beleive that it was just a random one of these genes that became dominate and caused us to have less hair. I cant rememebr the name of the gene but one certain one got turned off so to speak that caused our penis's to lose the spikes that other species of ape use to mate succesfully. They theriorize that this intern led to having longterm and loving relationships due to love making not being slightly painful for the females like before. Apparently the spines we had on our penis were made up of what our fingernails are made of just think about that next time you bite your nails.

[HydraulicWaRiOr]

QUOTE (Craig @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 14:21)

Answers for questions like this aren't going to be as clear-cut as the question itself, which is why it's often hard to convincingly argue why we don't have fur. According to Scientific American, there are three possible reasons, which I'll list. I won't explain everything behind it however, because that's what the link is there for. 1. We used to be semi-aquatic. This theory imagines our human ancestors foraging for food in shallow water. I thought only nut-cases believed this, but apparently it has been put forth as a serious hypothesis. The idea is that we lost our fur the way dolphins and seals did. There's not much evidence backing this up, however. 2. Hairless bodies are a heat adaptation. After moving out of the cool shady trees to the hot savannas, our ancestors quickly lost the fur as a means of adapting to the extreme heat. This would have been a drawback at night, however. Also, you have to wonder why we don't see other examples of land-based mammals ever making a similar adaptation? 3. We lost the fur in order to get rid of the accompanying parasites. This one makes sense. Imagine living naked in a world with no showers and the possibility of being infested by tics, chiggers, lice - not just in a few areas of your body, but all over. I would definitely do anything I could to evolve away from that. The comments at the bottom of this page (Speculist) are pretty interesting too, and I have to say I agree with the parasitic reasons and sexual selection.

1. It's not very likely. That kind of adaptation usually goes two ways. there are those that stay in the water and those that stay on land. That would result in us sharing much of the same DNA patterns with some aquatic mammal as we do with chimpanzees.

2. If so, the change would revert to it's original form, as we lived throughout the entirety of the ice age and only began our existence before that.

3. Yes, but with incoming cold also comes the reduction of parasites. Even within fur, I don't believe the parasites would survive. It would be covered with frost from the intense blizzards and wind storms. I don't think adaptation allows much escape from pests either. It's of course more about survival.

[Supreme]

[Tyler]

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 08:42)

2. If so, the change would revert to it's original form,

Sorry, didn't realize we were speaking for nature and an arbitrary evolutionary process, here. I'll just head out since there's no chance for real debate in this context.

[Robinski]

To simply copy/paste my response from earlier, I'd love to hear why this explanation is wrong too:

Humans lost their fur because of he path our evolution took. The most basic form of human hunting is endurance hunting (i.e. literally chase an animal until it collapses from exhaustion). We happen to be pretty good at that because we lost our thick body hair. Endurance hunting means you build up a lot of body heat over a looooong time, so the issue was never staying warm, but staying cool. We did that for long enough for it to have an effect on our biology, and it was too late to go back once we developed more advanced hunting tools and tactics.

[sivispacem]

As far as I can tell, the disputes about the origins of human natural selection/evolution from those who believe "something is afoot" seem to entirely misunderstand the purpose and methodology of both these processes. Natural selection can be very rapid indeed, but evolution is slow. It's perfectly logical for humans to loose fur rapidly through natural selection (for one of the several of perfectly reasonable and serviceable hypotheses thus far mentioned) but I imagine it is a damn sight harder to evolve an increased fur covering from a basis of nothing. I find it quite astonishing how almost every conspiracy or alternate theory surrounding this subject is based on an absolute failure to understand what is evolution, what is natural selection and how the two processes differ.

Please, keep the content of this thread D&D worthy or it will end up in the bandwidth-recycling bin.

[HydraulicWaRiOr]

@Robinski
And what about other predators that reside within Africa? I believe we are the only species that sweat. Should they not have lost their fur as well? From this standpoint, not only did humans lose their fur, but they also became darker. It is to my understanding that this change made it that the first humans absorbed more heat than they reflected. Natural selection is key to a species survival, I don't believe that it would make it harder to survive.

@sivis
Yes, the evolutionary process is very slow, a few million years time for a species to almost completely change, but the coming and length of the ice age should have allowed a couple small changes due to the harsh environment and halted part of the process of hair loss. We've only been out of the ice age for about 10,000 years time I believe?

[Supreme]

[Tchuck]

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 06:16)

From this standpoint, not only did humans lose their fur, but they also became darker.

You are aware that evolution works slowly, therefore it is extremely unlikely that the human race lost all their fur at once. What most likely happened was that the change was gradual, with the loss of fur starting in certain areas and eventually going down to what we have today. The skin colour also changed around the same rate, as we lost fur our skin became darker, cause darker skinned humans in those days tended to survive damage from the sun better. Eventually they moved to other areas, mutation occurred that developed into the white skin colour and on and on.

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 06:16)

It is to my understanding that this change made it that the first humans absorbed more heat than they reflected.

It is to my understanding that this change would make them resist the sun better than a clearer skin. They'd have less chance of developing skin issues due to their skin colour. This piece can better illustrate my understanding.

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 06:16)

Yes, the evolutionary process is very slow, a few million years time for a species to almost completely change...

It took around 2 million years for our species to go from homo habilins to homo sapiens sapiens and..

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 06:16)

...but the coming and length of the ice age should have allowed a couple small changes due to the harsh environment and halted part of the process of hair loss.

The current glacial age was already happening before then, so they have evolved under those conditions, and not being surprised by an ice age. And even during an ice age, with the bigger temperature difference, it was still pretty hot down in Africa, with the sun still making our body adapt to it.

Another important point is that evolution is not halted. It is not "smart" to figure out when to stop and when to start, it is a continuous process. It might have happened that when hairless humans became the norm, they ended up killing those still hairy ones for whatever reasons, killing the genes with them. Or a series of diseased wiped them out. Or any number of things could have happened, except for evolution thinking it was good enough.

Evolution works by chance and accident, mutations can happen that can either be beneficial or not to an organism, and natural selection takes care of the rest by ensuring that the fittest one will survive, while the unfit will be removed from the gene pool, and evolution will then mutate something else, and the cycle would repeat.

What's also important to keep in mind is that what we have recorded in history is usually the success of evolution. There were probably countless other "versions" of humans that failed miserably by being too hairy, too tall, too short, too dark a skin etc. If something is skipped between the evolutionary steps of men, it's probably because we haven't found a fossil that provides the link.

[Adept]

Yes. We are the genetic mutations of "extraterrestrials". This should not come as a surprise to anyone with half a brain and just an ounce of common sense. Where were you? How did you not piece it together? Are you scared? Don't be.

[El_Diablo]

QUOTE (HydraulicWaRiOr @ Thursday, Jun 28 2012, 07:16)

I believe that some of the anomalies within human geneology can only be expressed as an example of extraterrestrials interfering with nature.

ok well, first of all that's a little nutty.

just because you have questions about things doesn't mean that the only possible explanation can be extraterrestrial interference.
that's just crazy and most (truly) rational people would not give into such a line of thought. it's pretty silly to make such a giant leap in assumptions.

but moving on...

QUOTE

Humans came into existence right before the ice age began, and adaptation explains that a species will change based on their environment. I ask, how does an increasingly cold environment conclude with loss of body hair instead of an increase? History shows that many of our ancestors had to kill for warmth, which means that hair loss was an abnormal adaptation for our species. It is to my knowledge that nature wouldn't allow such things to happen, so why did it?

your facts are a little off.

we didn't survive the ice age by staying in the cold environments.
the ice age didn't cover the entire planet. there were plenty of warm spots accessible by land.

QUOTE

The only rational explanations are of the interference of that of some sort of deity or the interference of other intelligent life.

yeah...
once again, that's not exactly what most rational people would jump to as a conclusion based on limited evidence.
that's a little bit of a stretch.

QUOTE

If you look at our DNA, there is much the same between man and other animals, especially involving Junk DNA which has no purpose and does not code for production of protein. But how can this happen naturally?

the fact that we have DNA which codes for processes we no longer (or cannot) use is explained PERFECTLY by the process of evolution.

it's the same reason why we have an appendix and wisdom teeth.
we are simply the latest incarnation in a long line of different forms that have branched from simpler forms as life struggled to survive. we're no more than the most recent link in a chain that has been growing since the dawn of time and will continue to grow (unless impeded) forever.

evolution is constant.
all species of animal life on Earth share a common ancestor. so of course we are going to exhibit the footprints of our past forms; whichever of them led to the modern homosapien. the genes and DNA evolve right alongside the physical specimen. they don't simply come to an end or disappear or delete parts of the code just because they get phased out. ALL of the trial and error that went into making the CURRENT form what it is must be intact.

even gene codes that are turned off - like those that would have allowed our appendix to still function - are necessary because they provide the GUIDANCE for the body as it exists now. the off switches are just as important as the on switches. without the entire floor plan, the foundation falls apart.

understand?
it's not aliens. it's not god.

[GTA_stu]

There's a number of valid theories for why we lost our hair/fur, and not one of them is that aliens are responsible. Also, it's a common misconception that we "lost our hair" we actually have more hair follices than chimpanzees, but our hairs are harder to notice because our hairs are finer, shorter and have less pigmentation. They are still effective at trapping heat and keeping us warm. We also developed darker skin pigmentation and advanced and more effective sweat glands, which combined with finer hairs prevented heat exhaustion whilst also preventing over exposure to ultra-violet light from the sun. This, like Robinski said, was to help us with persistence hunting.

The temperatures also haven't really changed that great a deal since the last glacial period ranging from about 10,000 to 110,000 years ago. We're still in an ice age and have been for about 2.5 million years, currently we're in an interglacial period, which is a period of increasing warmth within an ice age. The coldest period since humans have roamed the earth was about 18-26,000 years ago and even then the extent of the glaciers in europe was as you can see in El_Diablo's picture not very far south. So temperatures where humans lived wouldn't have required us to have lots of fur/hair in order to survive.

[3niX]

Well...

QUOTE

As I was previously discussing, I believe that some of the anomalies within human geneology can only be expressed as an example of extraterrestrials interfering with nature.

I have to say... OP had to have made a massive logic leap to reach to such a conclusion. To consider anatomical anomalies to only be possible due to extraterrestrial interference is prepostrous. Theres plenty of stuff we have no clue of, but relating it to something thats literally impossible to prove or know is just stupid (especially considering how vague such a theory is). I mean just to get this theory off the ground wed have to assume (based on absolutely nothing) that there is extraterrestrial life of sufficient intelligence (capable of travelling vast distances in space, knowledge of human anatomy/biology), interest towards mankind and a motive to interfere whilst hiding their presence (for no apparent reason). Not to mention of course the tools to interfere with evolution and natural selection. Yeah, Id say your suggestion is slightly flawed.

QUOTE

it's the same reason why we have an appendix and wisdom teeth.

Ill add to this bit slightly. While there might not be an apparent reason why we would need to have an appendix, there are several suggestions that the appendix still has some valuable functions. Im just implying that while we arent dependent on that organ anymore, it still has its purpose in the human body (which is contrary to popular belief).
And who knows.. perhaps its still present because it has that secondary function.

[El_Diablo]

QUOTE (3niX @ Saturday, Jun 30 2012, 13:01)

perhaps its still present because it has that secondary function.

uh yeah... perhaps...
but most doctors and scientists consider the appendix to be vestigial.

I personally had my appendix removed in late 2006 when it became enlarged.
I've been living without it since that time and haven't noticed a single change in the way my body functions.

[3niX]

Well...

Yes, its highly likely that you didnt notice any changes... it doesnt play as big of a role in your body as other organs.

Anyway, heres some nice reading about it:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....e-function-of-t
http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/news/10151

[doctorevil85]

t54t5

[finn4life]

I should point out that whilst evolution is continuous it is most certainly not constant, Punctuated Equilibrium is quite possibly an important theory to note in this debate.
Here is an article on Lizards which evolved to create a new species in the space of 30 years between 1970 and the 2000's.

QUOTE

Such physical transformation in just 30 lizard generations takes evolution to a whole new level, Irschick said. It would be akin to humans evolving and growing a new appendix in several hundred years, he said.

This incredibly fast rate of evolution could have occurred at some point for humans and hair, a human with less hair which made it better adapted for a warmer climate and different methods of hunting (As outlined already by other posts) could - as shown by the lizards - have had a far better chance at survival, and would in turn have had a better chance at reproduction, therefore populating the human population with less hairy beings. This could have occurred in a relatively short space of time as demonstrated by the lizards. (Sorry i kinda repeated how natural selection works.)

Also is it possible to include aesthetic reasons into evolution? I mean maybe the hairless male was actually quite the spunk, girls like spunks i hear.

[Melchior]

People in this thread have put quite a bit of effort into debunking the idea that our ancestors were all shaved by aliens.

-Please keep all post in line with house rules-

This post has been edited by sivispacem on Friday, Sep 28 2012, 16:32