Male faces 'buttressed against punches' by evolution | Hacker News Reader

Male faces 'buttressed against punches' by evolution

bbc.com

42 pointsschrofer36 comments

The problem with drawing these kinds of conclusions is that it's easy to invent adaptive stories that purport to explain changes in morphological features, but not easy to build a case that will convince an appropriately sceptical audience.

I've heard of over a dozen disparate adaptive explanations for why zebras have stripes or why human hair is less dense than that of other mammals, but none are necessarily correct.

Yes, it explains why you've evolved an adaptation to being punched in the face, but not to being kicked in the breadbasket. It's a bit just-so.

It did make this occur to me: http://newstechnica.com/2014/06/09/scientists-tony-abbott-ev... I can't tell you how happy it made me to find out there existed a photo of Tony Abbott getting punched in the face.

Another relevant article from the same site:

Artists' beards evolved to be "structurally different" http://newstechnica.com/2014/04/17/artists-beards-evolved-to...

You are very right to be skeptical of findings like these.

However, it sounds like you might be going all the way into complete skepticism of evolutionary biology as a field. I think that's completely unwarranted. Maybe that's not what you mean though, sorry if that's the case.

As I am an evolutionary biologist myself, I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

Adaptationary explanations are posited for anything and everything, especially in the field of evolutionary psychology, and it can get a little annoying. Evolution is much more complex (and much more interesting!) than this, but unfortunately even most people who think of themselves as enlightened are unaware of even major details of how evolution works.

Yes, it could be a spandrel.

see the classic (and controversial) paper by Gould and Lewontin:

Gould, SJ and Lewontin RC. 1979. The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 205(1161): 581-598

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/205/1161/581....

Totally agreed. It strikes me as very similar to traditional myths, or stories that purport to explain how things are. The only difference is that instead of using gods and supernatural powers, our new myths take into account scientific information like the theory of evolution.

So our new myths are more plausible, but just as unsubstantiated.

There's a large difference between a theory and a myth, it doesn't seem logical to make this parallel.

Only if the theories are falsifiable, which is not the case in evolutionary biology.

Exactly. It's one thing to show that a theory is plausible. It's another to claim that it is what actually happened. I really object to unverified speculation being passed off as knowledge. It cheapens science as a whole. There are lots of other things we know with far greater certainty.

Many theories in physics started out the same way as untestable hypotheses. These untestable hypotheses are still important because they are the first step in designing a testing apparatus.

We shouldn't end/dismiss educated speculation about evolutionary biology because these ideas will eventually lead to the design of simulations where we can test them out.

I agree with your observation. I'm not equating evolution to religion, but it's interesting when you think about it. In the past, if you asked why humans had "x", it was because God designed us that way.

If you ask it now, the answer is "because our environment selected for it."

Neither answer provides a useful explanation.

One can be tested and improved upon, the other can't. Just don't sign me up for a face punching trial.

That wouldn't test for whether we evolved for it. We could, at best, simulate early human societies with various levels of violence and see if one led to large jaws. (Though currently we have insufficient information to model such societies.)

Most people grossly underestimate the forces of genetic drift and personal preference on phenotypical evolution. The null hypothesis for any gender-linked trait having evolved should probably be "it made them more attractive to a fertile population of the opposite sex."

Even if you can show experimentally that lots of face punching will lead to stronger jaws, that doesn't prove that it's what happened historically. We could have evolved the same strong jaw for a completely unrelated reason.

There's a world of difference that you're not choosing to notice!! One requires blind faith (and so is completely useless for another other that providing comfort for those that don't want to understand the way nature works, and the other is based on scientific evidence that can be tested.

"can be tested in a lab" is different from "would take thousands of years of test"

I'm certainly not equating the two, but honestly, if I ask why humans have heavy jaws and person A says "to take punches" and person B says "to chew on meat", I'm left with two reasonable explanations that come from opposite directions. I'm no better off than I was before.

What did you make of the discussion toward the end of the article, where it discusses ensuing lightening of the jaw bone?

God said: OK, now that they're done bashing each other and I'm no longer at risk of loosing the lot so let's get back to business.

But then that gets shattered because, well, because we just bash with drones and chemicals.

So I, at least, find myself back at square one... : The planet is dying and you have the capacity to launch 25,000 people in one direction with one hail mary. What do you do?

Yeah, we definitely need to get our evolves on. The odds still seem pretty stacked against.

* So our new myths are more plausible, but just as unsubstantiated.

that's blatant bullshit - god myths are in no way more plausible than scientifically testable means. It's not like evolution isn't something that is not still happening, it's perfectly testable. I am sure that citing numerous examples wouldn't change your mind because no amount of scientific evidence will ever change the minds of those that choose not. Faith is a dangerous thing, but thankfully it will be selected against by evolution as we move into an era where our species survival will rely upon science.

> Faith is a dangerous thing, but thankfully it will be selected against by evolution as we move into an era where our species survival will rely upon science.

That statement is completely based on faith and a misunderstanding of how evolution works. The species relies upon science, but the benefits of science are not reserved for science-loving minds. A religious Luddit enjoys modern medicine as much as anyone else, and often more, if one looks at family-size measurements.

You might want to re-read your parent.

So our new myths are more plausible [than the old god myths]

I took a couple of physical anthro courses in university, and I never did get a satisfactory explanation for why genus homo evolved a parabolic dental arcade. After reading this, one has to wonder how a parabolic vs. U-shaped dental arcade functions when it comes to spreading force from a fist-blow, either head-on or oblique.

Modern humans have proportionally less upper body strength than australopithecines, but what about neandertal's? If there was a linear relationship between reducing jaw robustness and upper body strength over the last few million years, neadertals have got to be an outlier! If a parabolic dental arcade offers better protection against blows, perhaps fisticuffs remained an evolutionary pressure but nature just found a more efficient way to address it than making thicker bones.

In a way this reminds of this SMBC:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2138

So we can survive a punch to the face now but we can't breath while asleep. Thanks for nothing, nature!

How do our faces prevent us from breathing in our sleep? I seem to have survived last night.

Lucky you. Many people suffer from a deviated septum, which restricts airflow. The airflow in one of my nostrils is dramatically less than the other, and if the good one is blocked, for any reason (cold, allergies), I'm a mouth breather.

Ah, I forgot about deviated septums. Wonder what evolutionary advantage came with those.

Sleep apnea and various sinus disorders are not rare.

I thought sleep apnea mostly occurred in people who are overweight?

That is certainly a risk factor, but no, it happens in normal weight people too.

Pretty much anyone who snores is more likely to also have sleep apnea.

Apparently, the evolutionary impetus to withstand punches to the face is greater than the one to breathe easily at night.

Mother Nature is awful.

Indeed. Natural selection only cares about things that interfere with the ability to live long enough to reproduce. Whether or not the organism is happy, well rested and enjoys their life isn't particularly important from an evolutionary stand point.

The article suggests that we started evolving away from adaptations to survive violence two species ago.

Damnit, I was hoping to find a justification for my oversized head.

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