Face hair is biologically useless. So why do people have it?

  • Body hair helps with thermoregulation.

  • Hair extensions protect your scalp from the scorching sun, but it also traps heat in if you are in cold weather.

  • Showers act as screen doors for the eyes, keeping out germs and dust and small debris when exposed.

  • Eyes prevent sweat from getting in your eyes.

  • Armpit hair, technically called “axillary” hair, collects and releases pheromones while acting as the WD-40 of body hair, reducing frost between skin on the lower arm. and the skin on the side of the chest as we walk and turn our arms.

  • Pubic hair also helps reduce frost, as well as providing a layer of protection from bacteria and other pathogens.

But face hair? You will notice that it does not appear on that useful list of variable hair marks.

In the early days of studying this type of substance, evolutionary biologists thought it could serve thermoregulatory or prophylactic causes like body hair and pubic hair. Bears and mustaches are all around the mouth, after all, and the mouth contains food and other particles that can carry disease. There are also bears and mustaches on the face, which are attached to the head, which lose a lot of heat out of its top if it is not covered with hair. It all makes sense when you look at it that way.

Except there is a problem with this theory: It leaves out 50 percent of the population, i.e., female. Natural selection is ruthless, and has put a number of species on the dodo’s path – for example, the dodo – but he rarely, if ever, chooses for a character in a genre like that and leaving half the population hanging, especially the half that makes up all the babies (i.e., the most important half). If facial hair were intended to perform important functions, it would be present across all genders. Instead, thick, mature hair is present in almost only the male of the opposite sex, and his only job is to sit there on the wearer’s face as a sign to all who cross its path.

What a signal it will make add face hair? Well, this is where it gets a little complicated, as decorative markings go. University of New Mexico professor Geoffrey Miller, one of the leading evolutionary psychologists in the field, said: “The two main definitions for male facial hair are intersex attraction (attracting females) and intersex competition (intimidating competitive males) . ”Basically, facial hair points to one thing for potential partners (i.e. sexual vitality and maturity, a hubba-hubba-like substance) and something else to potential competitors. there (formidability and wisdom or divinity). Taken together, these brands offer the brand itself of elevated status for the men with the most majestic mustaches or the largest, most burly beards.

The signal that facial hair sends also tends to be stronger and more reliable between males, who are more often competitive, than it is between males and females, who are usually partners. In fact, evolutionary biologists will tell you (if you ask them) that while some women love facial hair, and some don’t, and some couldn’t care less, more often than not. draw as much beard density as anything else. That is, if you are in an area where there is a lot of beard – say, lumberjack assembly – then a clean – shaped face is more attractive, but if you are surrounded by bare faces, a beard is best.

In evolutionary genetics, this is called “negative frequency dependence” (NFD), which is a colloquial science for the idea that when a character is rare within a population it tends to have an advantage. In guppies, for example, males with a particular combination of colored spots breed more frequently and prey less. This is a huge competitive advantage. It’s like going to Vegas hoping to lose $ 1,000 but hoping to be fair, just to win $ 1,000 instead. That’s a $ 2,000 swing! It is the same for drawing with NFD selection. The draw goes from fighting for his life to being the lifeblood of the party. The downside to this is that the competitive advantage can take too many others with the same draw very quickly, because of all that is going on – the puppy that is to well doing interesting – which means it misses as rare as it is common. Not to worry, nature has a solution for that: As more guppies carry that same attraction, it leads to a decrease in interest from friends and an increase in attention from predators. What was once a guppy hot new thing becomes the old news, in other words.

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