3 ms·

Total tangent, but you just made me realize how fast humans could have lost our fur in our past. This is a contentious issue in the debate between hypotheses o

Total tangent, but you just made me realize how fast humans could have lost our fur in our past. This is a contentious issue in the debate between hypotheses of savannah and semi-aquatic ecological orgigins. But wow, it could have happened quick.

dTal 4y ago
Note that pigs are sexually mature around 1 year old, so their generations are rather shorter than ours (especially domesticated pigs, which we tend to kill young). If it took pigs 500 years to lose their fur, it might have taken humans 10,000.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  10000 years is not that long in evolutionary terms either.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    But not unprecedented either. Tibetans got their high-altitude adaptation in perhaps as short as 3000 years. Andeans have a different high altitude adaptation which took no more than 11,000 years.
  - waffle_ss 4y ago
    The common ancestor from which all of today's Homo sapiens can trace a shared lineage to (i.e. the oldest branch point) is thought to be only 5,000 to 15,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point#Of_Homo_sapiens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point#Of_H...
    - jcampbell1 4y ago
      This is absurd. You are citing computer models that assume no geography and random mating. The MRCA is around 150,000 years old and probably from east Asia, and the identical ancestors point must be older than that and originating in Africa. When a sentence starts with “given the false assumption…” it is best not to adopt the conclusion as a fact.
      - pmayrgundter 4y ago
        I think this is right by the other propositions in the wiki articles, but was surprised to find out we don't know the MCRA. "The age of the MRCA of all living humans is unknown. It is necessarily younger than the age of either the matrilinear or the patrilinear MRCA, both of which have an estimated age of between roughly 100,000 and 200,000 years ago." "The identical ancestors point is a point in the past more remote than the MRCA at which time there are no longer organisms which are ancestral to some but not all of the modern population." So the MCRA is < 100kya, and IAP > MCRA, so 100kya > IAP > MCRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor
hathym 4y ago
- WJW 4y ago
  It's cold plenty often in Europe, but no fur is needed. We just wear clothes.
  - hathym 4y ago
    It was a joke
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jhbadger 4y ago
And it is clear we still have the genes for full-body fur, they are just turned off normally. They can still be turned on in some cases (hypertrichosis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis

dTal 4y ago

Note that pigs are sexually mature around 1 year old, so their generations are rather shorter than ours (especially domesticated pigs, which we tend to kill young). If it took pigs 500 years to lose their fur, it might have taken humans 10,000.

cultofmetatron 4y ago
10000 years is not that long in evolutionary terms either.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  But not unprecedented either. Tibetans got their high-altitude adaptation in perhaps as short as 3000 years. Andeans have a different high altitude adaptation which took no more than 11,000 years.
- waffle_ss 4y ago
  The common ancestor from which all of today's Homo sapiens can trace a shared lineage to (i.e. the oldest branch point) is thought to be only 5,000 to 15,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point#Of_Homo_sapiens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point#Of_H...
  - jcampbell1 4y ago
    This is absurd. You are citing computer models that assume no geography and random mating. The MRCA is around 150,000 years old and probably from east Asia, and the identical ancestors point must be older than that and originating in Africa. When a sentence starts with “given the false assumption…” it is best not to adopt the conclusion as a fact.
    - pmayrgundter 4y ago
      I think this is right by the other propositions in the wiki articles, but was surprised to find out we don't know the MCRA. "The age of the MRCA of all living humans is unknown. It is necessarily younger than the age of either the matrilinear or the patrilinear MRCA, both of which have an estimated age of between roughly 100,000 and 200,000 years ago." "The identical ancestors point is a point in the past more remote than the MRCA at which time there are no longer organisms which are ancestral to some but not all of the modern population." So the MCRA is < 100kya, and IAP > MCRA, so 100kya > IAP > MCRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor

hathym 4y ago

WJW 4y ago
It's cold plenty often in Europe, but no fur is needed. We just wear clothes.
- hathym 4y ago
  It was a joke
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

jhbadger 4y ago

And it is clear we still have the genes for full-body fur, they are just turned off normally. They can still be turned on in some cases (hypertrichosis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis