Why Calvin Klein and Coco Chanel Became Inevitable

Evolutionary biologists discover the naked truth, or so they believe. Genetic testing suggests that the ancestors to human beings lost their fur about 1.2 million years ago. In another neat, but somewhat disgusting, bit of genetic sleuthing, researchers checked to see when human body lice, which live only in clothing, first evolved. They diverged from head lice around 50,000 years ago, so scientists deduce that people must have started wearing clothes a few thousand years earlier in order to give the lice time to evolve to fit their new habitats.

Comments

[Geotech]

We're hairless as an adaptation to a semi-aquatic lifestyle. It's the same reason why we have a diving reflex, why we cry, and why we're so fat as babies. Read 'The Aquatic Ape', it makes a lot of sense.

[josh]

The Aquatic Ape is BS. Sounds nice, but BS.

[Jim]

I think it's the heat thing. Lice would have to be a problem for apes too, methinks, unless there's some reason to believe plains dwellers are more susceptible to them than forest dwellers, which doesn't make much sense to my limited knowledge). Other questions remain, such as why we have hair on our heads and privates still - and what use does armpit hair serve? I personally think those are the three worst places you could get lice and damn if we don't still have it there.

I read somewhere that one of the theories behind why we have pubic hair is that it is a sign of sexual maturity. This may be the case (sexual selection) but I remember seeing a documentary on some tribe in South American that runs around basically naked and none of them had pubic hair. Also some native populations around the world also lack facial hair on men, for some reason. Could be variations in sexual selection that occurred regionally when populations were geographically isolated. Who knows but it's an interesting topic to speculate about.

[B.P.]

I still can't dive into a pool. I must be from an unrelated branch.

[mermaid]

My favorite part of the aquatic ape theory is how babies, being supremely adapted for swimming, are entirely unable to do the one key thing - get their heads out of the water to breathe air.

God, what a load of crap.

[Darwin]

"I still can't dive into a pool. I must be from an unrelated branch."

Ah! We found it!

(You the missing link, B.P.?)

[Nancy Ouch!]

"If we shave our heads and get naked, we can eliminate lice altogether!

Well, not quite, Scott. (We'd have to shave elsewhere, too, you know.)

[Dr.Killum]

Questions remain, such as why we have hair on our heads and pubic hair on our privates. And what purpose does armpit hair serve?

In a word: PROTECTION

1) Pubic region -- Testicles and ovaries contain the seeds for the next generation, and must be kept at a certain comfortable temperature.

2) Skull region -- Besides protection from the sun and other elements, the brain contains material for the next solution and must also be kept at a certain temperature.

3) Armpit region -- Because of it's close, dank quarters (like the genital area) this region could easily be infested by mold and assorted fungi. Hairgrowth thwarts such infestation.

[Virgo]

You worry about what purpose armpit hair serves!?

Hell, I'm going crazy trying to figure out what purpose ear lobes serve!

[Plutarck]

There is also such a thing as evolutionary artifacts - things don't have to be useful anymore for us to have them, there just needn't be much evolutionary pressure to remove them.

Also, do remember that some humans _are very hairy_. It would seem to me that hair might simply have stopped being particularly useful, such that as there was no evolutionary pressure to have it or not, eventually it is 'lost', generation by generation.

Oh, and one last comment: does anyone else find it EXTREMELY stupid that the genital and breast areas in the pictures of what humans might have looked like in the past are blocked out by tree branches and, in one picture, SMOKE? What the sweet hell is that? The "the truth may be rather embarrassing" part is even more rediculous, in a kind of "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me" kind of cultural ignorance sort of way. But then, maybe that was intentional.

[Plutarck]

Oh good god, why me:

"The compilers of Genesis write that as soon as Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they sewed themselves aprons made of leaves from the fig tree, and that the Creator himself made them more durable skin coats before evicting them. But if Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stoneking are correct, humans were naked for a million years before they noticed their state of undress and called for the tailor."

Uhh...I don't suppose the fact that some 'primitive' (a word which implies all sorts of broken assumptions and beliefs, btw) human societies hardly wear clothes, if at all, fits in there very well.

I just can't tell if they are engaging in a sort of intentional absurd juxtaposition of elements, engaging in self-mocking and such, or if they just don't see how silly all this is, what with the foliage obscura treatment and the calling in of Judeo-Christian mythology and all. But maybe that's just me.

[Kevin Carson]

Plutarck,

I get the impression that whether women go bare-breasted or children go naked is largely a matter of climate (at least in non-Christian/Islamic areas). But even most tropical hunter-gatherer societies have some kind of taboo against exposed genitalia on those past puberty. At the very least, some kind of ornament is worn, even if it doesn't cover the area.

As for those pictures of Adam and Eve, I always wondered why Adam was clean-shaven (for that matter, why didn't Tarzan have a beard?).

[Hello?]

And the lord spake: "CAREFUL NOW HUNTER-GATHERERS! PENISES AND BREASTS CAN GET CAUGHT AND DAMAGED IN PRICKLY BRAMBLE BUSHES!"

[Thim K]

Or, to put it another way, "Why Calvin Tigerskin and Coco Coonpelt Became Inevitable."

[Phil Dresser]

Naked Man Arrested for Walking Across Britain

LONDON (AP) ? Wearing little more than sun screen, socks and boots, Steve Gough is walking the length of Britain to celebrate the joys of nudity. Efficiency isn't one of them.

His 847-mile trek has been hampered by eight arrests, an examination at a psychiatric hospital and several nights in jail. This week, he's starting over after Scottish police shipped him back to his starting point in Cornwall for a court appearance.

But the 44-year-old father of two is undaunted and spent Thursday hitchhiking his way back to Scotland ? though he did wear clothes to increase his chances of getting a lift.

"I am celebrating myself as a human being," said Gough. "We have all been brought up and conditioned to think our body is something to be ashamed of. We are made to feel bad about ourselves and that is damaging society. I am determined to carry on."

Gough left Land's End in southwest England on June 16 bound for John O'Groats in the far north of Scotland, hoping to cover around 20 miles a day on foot.

One day and 15 miles later, he was arrested in St. Ives and charged with breach of the peace. The case was abandoned after magistrates found he had not committed a criminal offense.

Three days later, he was arrested in the Cornish coastal resort of Newquay and charged with offending public decency. He appeared ? stark naked ? in court Monday. The court forced him to wear a blanket but did not impose a fine.

DETAILS: http://www.drudgereportarchives.com

[Jimmy Antley]

Hey, quit knocking on Howard Dean and the hippies of Vermont! I thought this was a Fair and Balanced (TM) publication!

(oh, this was actually not a political article ... sorry, my bad)

[J Canuck]

Of course Adam had a navel. And eventually he had an apple, too. That's what started this whole damned mess in the first place. Or maybe not. I wish this were Ann Coulter's fault, but the thought of her in a fig leaf could almost make me switch teams.

[trainwreck]

Don't teach that in Kansas.

[Anonymous]

Did Adam have a navel?
(That's belly button for you kids.)

[scott]

so if we shave our heads and get naked, we can eliminate lice altogether!

[sniff-sniff]

PHEROMONES! Yes! But of course!

(Joe, you are one smart cookie!)

Muskrats, felines, canines, deer, they all still have some sort of scent gland somewhere, too.

And all that, to propagate the species.
(Ah, nature . . . so mysterious, yet so smart.)

[J Canuck]

Hey anonymous! Navel, as in orange. Then the apple . . . joke, as in hah-hah. You must be episcopalian or something.

[joe]

Arpits and genital regions are the primary emitters of pheromones. The hair keeps them concentrated.

[Anonymous]

If Adam had an "of course" navel, what was the other end of his umbilical cord attached to?

(And please don't gimme no "Red Pill/Blue Pill" bullshit.)