Was Baldness Caused By A Gene Mutation During The Stone Age?
- Thread starter Timii
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Yeah sure, why not...
But more importantly, does it really matter anyway ? And does it really deserves a thread in the New Research section ? I mean, those are real questions.
But more importantly, does it really matter anyway ? And does it really deserves a thread in the New Research section ? I mean, those are real questions.
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I was curious... but yeah, fair enough, could some admin maybe switch the category?
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I don't know if studies were done on this subject, but as many primates, and some felines i think ? are suffering from the same disease and were already here long before mankind, it may be even older than we possibly think and first pieces of history, therefore when writing was somehow available, baldness was already mentionned (like 3,5k BC)
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Why the stone age? Why not antiquity or bronze age or whatever
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Let me guess, you saw that stupid movie 'Alpha' and no one in there was balding
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It's unknown as to why the baldness gene evolved but it clearly wasn't such a detriment to reproduction that it died out, baldies have been getting laid for as long as baldies have existed. In our age we know that women prefer men with hair, a man's looks are probably more valuable now than they were when we were hunter gatherers (because who the hell cared about their man being pretty when he can protect you and provide resources to live) It might be that hair was one of the more expendable parts of a man's body and those with hair loss didn't suffer enough of a cost for it to be completely eradicated. Hair is not as expendable in women because hair shows youth and fertility which men are attracted to (so are women but not to the same extent) which is why women suffer less with hair loss.
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For the sake of scientifical accuracy I would be wrong if I said that by Stone Age I mean human prehistory, but that's what I meant
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True, if baldness was considered inherently unattractive (which actually is but not so bad to make an evolutionary impact) sexual selection would have eradicated it from the gene pool by now.
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A couple of counterpoints:
Baldness is a recessive trait and can also be passed on by fullheads and women.
For the longest part of human history balding takes place in what is called the evolutionary aftershadow. A man at 30 would have reproduced a long time before hairloss sets in, so everything that happens to him after he completed his genetic programming does not really matter from a evolutionary pov.
On top of that, baldness seems to be literally non existent in hunter gatherer societies and only show up in civilized ethnicities.
It can be accelerated by modern civilisation apparently as Japanese only developed high male pattern baldness rates after modernizing.
Something in our environment seems to contribute to a higher rate of premature baldness more so than even 20 years ago, while people start tohave longer job training and educational periods, before they start their own families.
To sum up, I think we premature male pattern baldness sufferers are caught in a perfect shitstorm of environmental and societal changes that contribute to us being dismissed from the gene pool as potential mates. Future generations might very well inherit a lower likelihood for premature baldness, because many of us won’t pass on our genes.
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If we get out of the gene pool because of modernization , so should the majority of young people, too, because the baldness genes are widespread and because we all are exposed to the same environmental factors that trigger premature hair loss. But that's not the case, we are just genetically cursed (but at least , thankfully, healthy), but I'm not denying the importance of the environment. Otherwise, good points. Baldies were reproducing before the onset of baldness, so my last comment didn' t make much sense
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If that is true it is probably easyer to send a terminator in the past to kill patient zero than curing baldness.
Maybe you are on to something.
Maybe you are on to something.
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As an above poster said, other primates have hair loss that is analogous to male pattern baldness. This could have evolved independently of our male pattern baldness, but it is more likely that the most recent ancestor of all hair-loss prone primates had male pattern baldness-type hair loss in their genes. On this basis, I don't think male pattern baldness in modern humans is a recent mutation. Male pattern baldness is actually not caused by one single gene. It is caused by many, many genes all interacting together as well as independently of each other. It is a complex condition of polygenic inheritance.
This is an interesting point which could have some truth to it. However, I think that women are just hormonally less prone to androgenic hair loss than men. Women have much less DHT than men, and have more estrogen which is supposed to help protect against androgenic hair loss. Women's hormonal profile is such that they are just not as prone to androgenic hair loss as men are.
Baldness is a polygenic trait that is genetically complex. Some of the genes involved in male pattern baldness are likely to be recessive and others dominant. Some may display codominance or incomplete dominance. It is a very complex condition genetically.
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I definitely feel like a mutant, and not the kind that shoots lasers or regenerates
Bro I am sorry you have been hit by the Hate da Bt curse, now he will follow you everywhere for the rest of time
Bro I am sorry you have been hit by the Hate da Bt curse, now he will follow you everywhere for the rest of time
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It is not a curse! @Hate da Bt just knows everything and if someone is wrong he shows it by a dislike. He is the hero of this forum.
No I m just kidding he is just some annoing guy who thinks he ate wisdome with two spoons.
One theory says we started shedding fur after we left the trees for more open spaces. We lost the cover of the forests and were exposed to sunlight more because of foraging for food, hunting and gathering etc. Losing fur did wonders for cooling our bodies. Why not other animals, too, then? Well, we aren't like more successful predators. A lion or tiger still only hunts for maybe four hours of the day, sleeps and socializes the other 20 hours. Unlike them we never had sharp claws for tearing into skin and flesh. No sharp pointy teeth or strong jaws for crushing bones and getting at high calorie marrow. Our night vision sucked compared to cats who've been at the top of the food chain for about 40 million years. At one time they were big as cows and plenty of food around. They even ate us and fairly easily. We weren't very fast, like other slow primates still up in the trees or mountainous regions. We were the ones preyed upon for a long time. Population bottlenecks reduced our numbers nearly every time we made a move to another continent. We've only been around maybe five million years. Just 50,000 years ago we were using stone tools, so we've relied on our brains more than anything. Naked apes more efficient than hairy ones I guess.
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Hi Michael, forget about hormones circulating in blood,..., the important hormones for hair are made imside pilosebaceous unit