Comment on Radicality
lugal@sopuli.xyz 5 days agoI think early feathers were hairlike but obviously in the sense of fur that covered the body. There were a lot of evolutionary factors that led to out hair that’s (1.) only on the head and (2.) grows far longer than necessary.
applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
we have hair all over our bodies. most of it is vellous hair though so it isnt as visible. we just have far less terminal hair than other primates, but the hair density isnt that much lower. as far as the head hair growing long, its not that its unnecessary its just for different purposes than most animal fur. head hair is primarily social, and people like people with long hair, so theres a social benefit to having nice head hair that can grow long. its so ingrained that being completely bald is socially isolating to some extent, especially for women.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
True. My point still stands that to get to the point in the post requires a lot of evolutionary oddities that only happened in humans. So the steps are more or less the same: developing fur, reducing it everywhere except for the head and elongating it on the head. Dinosaurs might have had furlike feathers but that’s where it ends.
There is also the argument to make that once early humans developed the ability to cut hair, there was no evolutionary pressure on restricting the length. So it might have started as a sign of health and strength so it grew longer to the point that they decided to cut it and from there it went off uncontrolled.