the evolution of clothes?

quote:

---

You know this is absurd for several reasons having nothing to do with this argument. For this to be a test you would have to control for all these other factors: weight, abrasion, rigidity, inertia, etcetera etcetera. As I said before this is a strawman argument and it is bogus. Your continued use of it is bad form. I have already demonstrated that it does not represent this issue in the slightest.

---

It most certainly DOES represent the issue; stop playing games. The argument is that hairlessness contributes to long distance running efficiency. You appear to dispute this - therefore from your perspective having long hair and heavy coat should not be any impediment. If you really insisted on ruling out all other influneces, it would be easy enough to do - just have the same runner do it on different occassions.Regardless, it remains the fact that dogs are now banned on the Comrades marathon because they tend to die of heatstroke, and humans do not. Humans are more efficient runners over distance than dogs. Some would argue, even more efficient than antelope and horses, under the right conditions. And that is a very special UNIQUE effect which IMO requires an explanation.

quote:

---

You really like arguing in circles don’t you. You contradict yourself again. So increasing the head size does increase the radiator effect, but hair on the head to keep from getting sunstroke insulates the overheating increased mass of the brain causing even more heat buildup ... dizzy yet?

---

You need a basic physics refresher. You are looking at a feedback system, there is nothing weird about it. I have already referenced the problems of proportional surface area to volume - this is standard high school stuff. Increasing VOLUME does NOT increase heat dissipation, it makes it worse. Increasing AREA improves dissipation. But a heat exchanger can work both ways, and so if exposed to the sun can be detrimental. And that is what head-top hair addresses.

quote:

---

Yeah, that’s a rebutal ... if they exist ... it’s been almost 10 years since that was published: any found yet? (color is my emphasis in the article).

---

Fine - but then again, this demonstrates that there is indeed a *possible* explanation for armpit anfd genital hair. Their presence does not imply there is something automatically and inherently wrong with the running ape model.

quote:

---

What is this but another in a list of extra-ordinary (NOT extraordinary — the - is there for a purpose) features that are selected for sexual attraction? Long tails? Long hair: what purpose does long hair serve?

---

I don't dispute this point, I just don;t understand what significance you think it has.

quote:

---

Gosh. This is not a difficult concept. ... There are mouse species that are bred to reduce variation so that they can control for this aspect in experiments.

---

Trivia snipped. I know what this variation IS, what I asked about was its RELEVANCE to this argument. Care to answer the question yet?

quote:

---

Then you are not paying attention. Sexually selected features are those that help you get mates and do not have any survival benefit, in fact they may carry a survival burden.

---

Fair enough. This seems to rule out hairlessness as sexually selected.

quote:

---

Features like very fine hair that has {no or very small} survival benefit. We will come back to this later.

---

Well, now I really do not understand the point of this diversion because my whole argument is that it is NOT trivial, but fundamental to our aboriginal mode of production.

quote:

---

False logic again. The kiwi bird has adapted to living with feathers that are more like fur than normal feathers, and this means that the peacock tail cannot be developed by sexual selection? Want to try again? This time on the issue?

---

Perfect logic, you are switching your terms. Your implied that hair is NEVER selected for functional reasons, which I disproved. Nowhere did I claim that sexual selection does not happen, nor that it never affects feathers or fur. Please pay attention.

quote:

---

Certainly humans are not normal looking apes for a number of reasons, not least of which is the super fineness of body hair, particularly in the sexual signal breast areas as previously mentioned (and buttocks too, seeing as you seem to like them ).

---

Yes - we are NOT normal looking apes. Might that perhaps be BECAUSE WE ARE A PLAINS APE AND THEY ARE FOREST APES? The way we differ from say gorillas is not massively different IMO from the way an Arabian thoroughbred differs from a donkey: longer limbed, sleeker, smoother.Your apparent insistence that the ONLY viable explanation for these characteristics is runaway non-productive sexual selection is just ridiculous. There are other explanations that are suitable for consideration, of which the Running Ape model IMO is the best.

quote:

---

Yes, and this is why the porn stars are shaved of any body hair, to augment those borders ... care to try again and address the issue instead of throwing out more wild ideas?

---

Yes my idea was obviously ridiculous - that must be why kohl, which draws stronger borders, is the oldest of cosmetics.Frankly thats a pretty desperate reach - I imagine porn performers do so so as not to obstruct the view. Try logic - its the real thing.

quote:

---

By your argument, marathon runners should be the sexiest humans .... erm, not to me ... okay try it this way: by your argument all porn stars should look like marathon runners .... darn that doesn’t work either ... I know let’s try: by your argument all porn stars should look extremely fit ... well some do, but many don’t, gosh this just isn’t working!

---

LOOOOOL - I remind you of your own argument about "natural variation". There is no reason to expect that the general case necessarily applies to any specific case. You should try dialectical materialism, it helps you cut through this silliness.

quote:

---

Your picture implies a level of consciousness, of rationality to it that just does not happen. A man doesn’t ask why his penis is erect ..... he just goes in the direction it is pointing

---

Actually what it implies is a very sophisticated degree of UNconsious recognition. Exactly the same kind of thing I previously addressed in the symmetry topic - it is an unconscious recognition of the breakdown of symmetry that *implies* something about the fitness of the person, and which is then fed into our cognitive space as "ugly".This actually shows a major weakness in evolutionary psychology, which we touched on the other day. I'm adamant that no psychology can procede without a comprehensive understanding of information science.

quote:

---

Rock stars (with the ‘wild’ behavior on stage) have groupies, marathon runners don’t.

---

Hmm, your desperation is confirmed. Rock Stars, with their fame, attention, and wealth, are clear alpha male types, or at least that is the projected image. But if you recall the spandex era, you would have seen a great deal of male leg on display.Of course marathon runners do not command the same social rank, and hence do not have groupies. Sports stars also get groupies - and especially in terms of soccer football, that is very much a foot/leg/running skill.

quote:

---

To do this, imha, means that you need to study porn, the industry founded on nothing else but catering to that attraction. They don’t show marathons ... not running ones anyway ...

---

Yes, well - at this point I think your argument has been pretty much destroyed. The observed phenomenon accord more with a functional achievement than not. Perhaps you should get your nose out of the wankmags and do some research.This message has been edited by contracycle, 01-20-2005 07:24 AM

Let's also not cloud the issue by pointing out that upright walking occure ~4.5+ million years ago while Ardipithecus ramidus lived in a wooded environment.

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

quote:

---

Let's also not cloud the issue by pointing out that upright walking occure ~4.5+ million years ago while Ardipithecus ramidus lived in a wooded environment

---

I suppose you are indicating something like this:

quote:

---

One aspect that is particularly important about this species is the environment in which it was found. Unlike the open savanna that was hypothesized in many theories of hominid origins, the material was found in strata with preserved fossil woods and seeds as well as a predominance of colobine monkeys in the faunal remains. Also, savanna-associated megafauna are rare, indicating that this species lived in a wooded environment. This is important because this species was fully bipedal; the particulars of which will be discussed in a later section.

---

I'm not sure how you think this supports your point. Nowehere have I claimed that bipedalism and hairlessness occurred simultaneously. I would expect that running as a mode would pre-date refinements and improvments in running, such as hair loss. Bipedalism may well have appeared in forested environments - I've seen footage of chimps wading upright through streams, for example - but this does not preclude hairlessness from having developed in a later savannah environment.

What it supports is that upright posture evolved before the savannah ecosystem was involved. Now let us remember that the savannah was seen as the reason for standing, and this has been refuted. In other words, the savannah was not necessary for the evolution of that feature of human behavior. What else is next on the list?What this emphasizes is that all you have for your savannah hypothesis is .... opinion. You don’t have any factual evidence.On to response to post #110: My my my, getting a little temper? Yes running in a rubber costume is really a good representation of how fur behaves. LOL. No, I am not the one playing games, you are with this absurd scenario and you know it. There are several factors that I listed that would all affect a runner and that would have NOTHING to do with the hair versus bare argument. I am not the one introducing whale feeding mechanisms and costumes as evidence of body hair evolution in humans.No, if you were going to reasonably test for this hypothesis you would need to control for a lot of other factors. They only way you could do it properly would be to test under controlled conditions the effect of natural hair versus bare. This would mean finding suitably naturally hirsute individuals and running them on a treadmill with the heat and humidity and sunlight exposure typical of your savannah environment, and then shaving them and repeating, and then testing again as the hair grows back until the original condition was regained. (This allows you to normalize the whole trend and control for {increased\decreased} running {ability\fitness} due to the exercise alone).It would be interesting to see just how significant your factor is. My argument (to refresh your memory again) is that it is relatively minor as things go in the selection of bareness, that other factors are also likely to be involved and that a major one is sexual selection.Notice that hirsute males are easy to find. Not so with females, so your marathon test will be harder to validate for the females. So why aren’t females as hairy as males? Especially if the males were doing the running? We will come back to this. And the same holds for the body. You are saying {X} works on the head area and {notX} works on the rest of the body. Explain again how this is logical? So you agree that the point I raised {{ You also have the problem of the sweatiest parts of the body still being endowed with thick hair: pits and pubics. And as pits are already in the shade you cannot play the shade card here.}} is valid as a challenge to your hypothesis and that you have not refuted it? It is obvious, to me anyway: Long hair demonstrates that run-away sexual selection has occurred in humans. It is that simple. But it is not the only feature that is like this, there are quite a number of them. More on this later. It is what I said at the beginning of this debate: that a preference for the naturally occurring more bare individuals in the sexual selection of mates leads to increased bareness in the general population, a very simple concept. But you have yet to demonstrate that this is reasonable in any way for it to be that fundamental. You have no other examples at all where this also holds true, and the pattern of human bareness is not consistent with the hypothesis, either in where on the human body hair remains or in the sexual dimorphism of this feature versus {ability/roles}. Men run faster than women, men are bigger than women, and men are hairier than women. It doesn’t add up. False again. I never said that, nor implied it. What I said (consistently) was that in this one instance the selection of bareness shows more of the characteristics of sexual selection than survival selection. What I said was: Now explain the relevance of whale baleen to the specific selection of fine hair within the human species again please? Perhaps you know of ‘birds of paradise’ with baleen? My point was clearly about the extremeness of the feature in one species as compared to the normal variations found {in\between} other related species where survival does play a role. And yet arabian horses do not have less hair or finer hair than those donkeys do they? Again there is a complete absence of the trend you claim to be fundamental in other species. So you keep asserting and yet still have {little\no real} evidence in support. Cosmetics on the eyes gets into the make-up for the mating ritual dance, and it is on the face where the long hair is also a factor, not on the body where bareness is the factor. I don’t see those porn stars using kohl on their torso and other parts even though the faces are still heavily made up. No rouge on the tips either .... and not obstructing the view is just the point: bare skin is sexually arousing, hairy skin isn’t. Glad you enjoyed that. I notice that you don’t address the issue again though. We are talking about the general cases of {sexual arousal and bareness} versus {sexual arousal and running-ness} and it looks like bareness wins hands down. Fitness for breeding. It still comes down to sexual arousal. The problem with a very sophisticated degree of UNconsious recognition is the same as the problem with intelligent design — there is no mechanism for it to operate and no evidence of it operating, and now you are talking about specimen {B} being ugly ... LOL. Nor can your very sophisticated degree of UNconsious recognition differentiate between recognition of sexual feedback mechanisms and recognition of running ability. My desperation? LOL. No the display of male leg and bare chest and other aspects is exactly what I was referring to here. If you recall I said that song and dance were part of the mating ritual that resulted in the runaway sexual selection of certain features, like complex language, costume, creativity, dancing legs, and ... bare skin. Because they are Alpha Males? ROFLOL. They are alpha because they are rock stars, not rock stars because they are alpha. They are rock stars because they can sing and dance and display creativity and show off a lot of bare body and moving booty in a creative, entertaining and attraction gathering way. I am running out of laughter here. Marathon runners don’t have groupies because they are not sex symbols. The dancing skill of soccer players goes back (once more) to the mating ritual dancing ...... not to the running skill: just look at the game highlights eh? Heh. Lets do a summary of the results so far: SO. Rather than just making assertions, such as that your position is pretty much destroyed and that the observed phenomenon accord more with a functional achievement than not has not been demonstrated, I can let the evidence speak for itself. And the evidence is eloquent. Bareness is sexually selected, and is another run-away feedback feature, just like long hair. But that is research ... Now let me suggest that you sit back and put together a concise post that focuses on just what evidence you do have, that answers the summary points and addresses the issues, rather than make another "broadside" post?This message has been edited by RAZD, 01-21-2005 23:53 AM

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

RAZD: Your argument is based on an assumption that you haven't provided any evidence for. The information that I have seen suggests that it is on shaky ground. Do you have any evidence to support male mate choice as the selective mechanism, and not female choice?Actually, if hairlessness is a byproct of an endocrine shift, it makes a lot more sense in terms of female mate choice. Androgen and testosterone are involved in hirsuteness. They are also involved in agonism. As human/pre-human social structures became more culture based and co-operation became more important, reduced agonism would have been advantageous... and attractive to females. That's just one issue. There's also monogamy. A lower level of "male" hormones" would have led to less "philandering", again more attractive to females. Less hair would have been a physical signal of these traits. Reducing hair in the males would also reduce hair in the females, and as they have less of those hormones to begin with it would have naturally resulted in females having less hair.Just a thought.

No evidence? You are not paying attention, imho. Go back and read again. I have stated what the characteristics of sexual selection are, and I have noted that those characteristics are present in the human species. Further, I have shown that current sexual attraction is consistent with this factor.I have NOT suggested that the mate choice is entirely male versus female, but that co-sexual selection occurs. Note that consistent throughout the animal kingdom the dominant sex is the one that is bigger, and human males are bigger. This sexual dimorphism is not as pronounced as in other apes (ie gorillas) and this would indicate a higher degree of female selection in humans than in gorillas. It is not an absolute 1 sided choice, but a variable degree of interactive choice. As another example of run-away sexual selection that offers no survival benefit is the extra large size of the human male penis compared to other apes, and I note that this would likely be a female selected feature . The issue here is the selection of the "bareness" feature.Now I could say that you have made an assertion that is not based on evidence, or at least that your evidence is not presented. But more to the point, let's address the issue of what you could predict to see if the hypothesis is correct. I have listed a bunch of those at the end of the last post.The primary prediction I would make is that the feature is more advanced and more consistent within the gender where the feature is being selected.The secondary prediction I would make is that if the feature is selected on the basis of sexual attraction that the feature would be more advanced in the areas of sexual {arousal\readiness} attraction, such as the female breast signal area and the female buttock area (consistent with other apes).The tertiary prediction I would make is that if this feature is the result of run-away sexual selection then the process would still be apparent in modern individuals.A quaternary prediction I would make is that if run-away sexual selection was involved that there would be other features that also fit this description.A quintessential prediction I would make is that observations of this feature in question would be more consistent with these predictions than with ones based on other hypothesis.All of these factors are consistent with observe degrees of "bareness" the location of "bareness" and current attraction as evidenced in modern porn: the industry based on catering to attraction alone. Think it through and you will see it. But what is your selection mechanism here? To explain an unusual feature you not only need a factor (your endochrine shift) but you need a mechanism by which it is selected.And I question if this proposed shift is necessary to produce this feature if there is selection pressure for it: there is sufficient natural variation in the population for selection to operate and choose increasingly bare mates. Absolutely fails to predict the pattern of "bareness" observed in females compared to males: why is the female breast area much more advanced in "bareness" than the male chest area? Note that this pattern does not exist in other apes, so an adequate explanation of the "bareness" selection needs to address this dimorphic aspect of this feature.Absolutely fails to predict the behavior of shaving of hair to be more attractive to the opposite sex (and the higher degree of expression of this behavior in females than in males). Note in particular the extreme expression of this shaving behavior in the porn industry.Still think there is no evidence?Enjoy.{{ps - I'd cite some reference material, but this is a family-open site }}

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Arach, I found this isn't gender dependent. Men may have better muscle definition which gives more to depict but when I was taking life drawing I noticed that often women I found most attractive were the hardest to draw because they were so smooth in the transitions. There was one very thin woman who was very fun to draw as you could see details of her scapula, ribs, spine, pelvis. I also discovered that a woman who had rolls was also fun to draw and began to wonder if that was partially a factor in some classic paintings.lfen

Razd,I don't know if anything more ever came of the aquatic ape theory but that doesn't refute it. I don't recall the idea that aquatic mammels are selected for hairlessness because it confers an advantage to swimming. Seals and otters are good yet hairy swimmers. IIRC the argument is based on the length of time and over a long period of time subcutaneous fat and other advantages result in hair loss. To many decades since I read so many of these books.I found the theory of aquatic apes tantalyzing. The notion of crying salty tears, the heart rate responses to immersion in water, lots of fascinating little details as I recall.lfen

Should we even be calling it loss of hair? That happens to some men when they go bald, but most humans have plenty of body hair it's just that the hair tends to be very fine and short.I read somewhere but have no reference that blondes have more hairs per square inch than brunettes but that the hair is finer and lacking pigment and it therefore harder to see.lfen

boy that's an old post on this topic ...there are good reasons (warmth is one) to retain hair\fur for the smaller mammals, like the sea otters that can stay in the water for days on end. I used to watch them in BC, cute little fellers, the water was 42^oF.there was a thread with red wolf (ted holden) where this naked ape concept was discussed in greater detail, and the cats.my personal opinion on the subcutaneous fat in humans would be that it developed in response to the reduction in {hair\fur} as an alternate way to preserve body temperature as the bareness was selected to an extreme level by the run-away sexual selection feed-back, and this is also why clothes were developed: the bareness went too far because of the feedback mechanism and these were ways to keep warm (at night and during other cool or wet periods: hyperthermia can result if you are wet in temperatures in the 60's if not 70's).

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

correct, it is not hair loss (which would require genetic change\mutation or some other factor to implement) but selection for fine hair, from naturally occuring variation in all characteristics.the selection process is to look bare, and this is probably why blondes are considered sexy.

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Razd,I just got around to this thread as the threads that have been keeping me busy seem to have slowed down.If you are correct that fine hair is the result of sexual selection that poses the question why is perceived bareness more sexually attractive than perceived hairness? I'm assuming sexual selection has a basis in that qualities for sexual selection are often associated with qualities that enhance reproductive survival at least at one time.lfen

no, in fact one would presume it to the be the other way around, thus the "ironically" is that what they're calling it these days? frankly, it probably has a lot to do with the attraction. i've heard stories about the attractive people being more distracting to the class. i myself am the reverse. i find drawing to be very sexual, and attraction helps hold my attention. quite.

You have such a different experience of drawing than I did! I would have generalized mine but this gives me pause.My experience of drawing and the way I was taught one had to look analytically and render lines, values, shapes. If I am drawing a woman's breast, to choose a part of the anatomy that carries erotic interest in the US at least, I would be considering the shape of the shadow beneath it, I might also use the nipple to place it in relationship to her eyes, mouth, etc.It used to amaze me that when I would step back that there would be a drawing there and I would wonder who had done it for all I had done was try to render relationships onto the paper. Drawing seemed to me a very abstract thing and if the model was a woman I found very attractive it was hard for me to let go of her totality the gestalt of which was "beautiful desirable woman" and instead look to the particular abstract shape of the shadow, or the shape of the highlight on her breast, or cheek, or the apparent angle of her shoulder to her neck and thus lose my awareness of her body, momentarily, as a total and instead analyze what I was visually seeing.Perhaps you draw differently, maybe they are teaching drawing differently?lfen

Look to other apes and what happens when they are in sexual readiness mode: many lose hair in what are called "readiness signal areas"This would cause an association of "bareness" with "sexy" and that is all you need. Assume rather that (extreme) sexual selection has to do only with getting mates and reproducing. Let the survival mechanism take care of the survival end of the selection spectrum. There are several well known features that have no known survival benefit, and may even have a survival deficit (peacock tails) that mark them as run-away feedback sexually selected features.

---

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}