Why the heck we have wisdom tooth?

[magnemoe]

That's nutrition, not evolution. And 1.80 probably isn't representative of today's men. Your judgement is affected by the fact that the Dutch are an unusually tall nation.

This, just nutrition, Americans was taller than Europeans during 19th century because they had more food.

Now if you go back 10.000 year people was tall too as they had plenty of food, then you got to much people, you invented farming but was not very good at it, however more kids helps run the farm, 10k years later they found that combiners and fertilizer was an better idea.

[Raven.]

Do wisdom teeth have any evolutionary significance, why mother nature gave it to us, is that her some bad joke.

And why wisdom tooth has the name in any language is the same, in my opinion, "Wisdom Tooth" should be called rather "Pain Tooth"

Just one pardon the expression SOB start erupt and pain as hell

I had all four of mine removed at one time. The dentist gave me some kind of pain reliever drug that made me not remember anything for three days. Apparently, my mother tells me that I told the nurse that "she looked much better and cuter after the drugs kicked in," but I don't remember that part.

Anyways, my current guess, and it is very strictly a guess, is that people are not being born with wisdom teeth anymore because evolution is starting to cut them out of the gene pool because we're just simply removing them; nature agrees with us in the fact that we don't need them. My guess is that wisdom teeth are leftovers from a previous stage of evolution.

[Idobox]

Oh yeah, that it's part of "beauty" is true enough, but I meant more along the lines of the OP... How many teeth in the jaws. We're not exactly looking for the next evolutionary leap there in our selection.

No doubt, that beautifull and smart (or atleast seemingly so, for both) are traits we actively select.

The thing is, we have culture and technology, and these things change very quickly. They remove some selection pressure (for example blind people don't have significantly less children than seeing people, and it's been true since the middle ages at least), and add some (for example, here in Northern Ireland, Catholics have on average more kids than Protestants).

But as said, culture and technology change very quickly, and the world we live in today doesn't have much in common with the world our grand parents lived in, and traits that predicted how many kids you were likely to have 2 generations ago don't apply anymore.

As a result, it isn't likely human evolution will be dominated by selection pressure. Drift seems more likely.

Sure, there has been some evolution in different human groups, like skin color or the ability to digest lactose, but if you compare Australian aborigines with Europeans and Asians, you can tell that a separation of about 70 000 years led only to very superficial biological differences.

And we're comparing people who until recently lived like prehistoric hunter gatherers with people who created agrarian organized states 6000 ago.

[Scotius]

I disagree, we've changed the environment so that it suits us better, so our fitness has increased substantially (though not due to evolution). Besides, there are new selective pressures in the modern environment, the main one leaping to mind is car accidents. It's certainly conceivable that we'll pick up adaptations that make us less likely to be killed behind the wheel. I'd also be surprised if our brains didn't change to adapt to the high levels of information we're required to process in modern life.

Actually, it is happening http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24344/title/The-world-s-densest-bones/ Read and rejoice - our new, mutant overlords are already among us

[magnemoe]

The thing is, we have culture and technology, and these things change very quickly. They remove some selection pressure (for example blind people don't have significantly less children than seeing people, and it's been true since the middle ages at least), and add some (for example, here in Northern Ireland, Catholics have on average more kids than Protestants).

But as said, culture and technology change very quickly, and the world we live in today doesn't have much in common with the world our grand parents lived in, and traits that predicted how many kids you were likely to have 2 generations ago don't apply anymore.

As a result, it isn't likely human evolution will be dominated by selection pressure. Drift seems more likely.

Sure, there has been some evolution in different human groups, like skin color or the ability to digest lactose, but if you compare Australian aborigines with Europeans and Asians, you can tell that a separation of about 70 000 years led only to very superficial biological differences.

And we're comparing people who until recently lived like prehistoric hunter gatherers with people who created agrarian organized states 6000 ago.

Yes, theories that the races look as different mostly because of different view of beauty, again this was mostly in prehistoric times. more than 9/10 of the time as hunter gatherers.

One interesting thing who might had an impact is that the European cities during medieval to industrial times was so unhealthy , no sanitation and so much diseases they needed lots of immigrants to keep the population up, they would qualify as death camps by modern standards. This might have left Europeans more resistant to diseases than many other groups.

Might also explain allergic, everybody from the area had their immune system hard locked on kill anything who moves, if it don't move kill it anyway.

Now enter a world where you shower twice a day and never touch anything dirty. Are you mad you can't touch an unknown cat

[magnemoe]

Actually, it is happening http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24344/title/The-world-s-densest-bones/ Read and rejoice - our new, mutant overlords are already among us

Thanks but no thanks, I wait for the carbon nanotube version, Much better for my BMI

[Seret]

But slowly more cases are known by dentists that these moalers doesnt appear in some patients, thus is you can allready assume our tooths are also now cathcing up with the evolving smaller jaws.. I a few decades the more people evoled to a point they dont posses the gene that make this moaler grow is gone..

Yep, I only have three wisdom teeth. I've not had to ever have any of them out, only having one on the top probably helps with that. A bit of variation between individuals is normal, some otherwise perfectly normal and healthy people have extra or missing muscles and bones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anatomical_variations

When a person with such a variation has a reproductive advantage then you've got a gene pool in which that variation will predominate, and hey presto you've got evolution. So you could say that dentists are keeping themselves in business by removing our horrible wisdom teeth, if they just left them to cripple us wisdom teeth would eventually cease to exist.

[jwenting]

Actually that's not true. There's still a lot of evolutionary pressure. Natural selection might be of reduced (but definitely non-zero) impact now that we have medicine, but sexual selection is still very much alive and kicking (perhaps moreso as we have less children and are more picky).

And sexual selection SO selects for function these days...

Of course it doesn't, it selects for the current beauty ideal as defined by Hollywood to be braindead anorexic stars and photo models.

[Seret]

And sexual selection SO selects for function these days...

If you actually bothered to read the thread properly before interjecting with another of your content-lite prepackaged criticisms of pop culture you'd see that I gave examples earlier of how sexual selection results in some pretty ridiculous things.

So congrats on being both correct and completely redundant.

[Arran]

Yep, I only have three wisdom teeth. I've not had to ever have any of them out, only having one on the top probably helps with that. A bit of variation between individuals is normal, some otherwise perfectly normal and healthy people have extra or missing muscles and bones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anatomical_variations

When a person with such a variation has a reproductive advantage then you've got a gene pool in which that variation will predominate, and hey presto you've got evolution. So you could say that dentists are keeping themselves in business by removing our horrible wisdom teeth, if they just left them to cripple us wisdom teeth would eventually cease to exist.

Well, somehow i never got mine pulled in time, and this ruined my other moalers, and had them removed on a later age, i have an small narrow jaw, and my wisdom teeths litterly pushed my teeth to an breaking point, and removing them at my older age, was a nighmare.. Thanks to that dentist i have now an couple of fake teeth and a lifetime fobia from dentists

[WinkAllKerb'']

because we come from the same place as him (and a few others):

source: fossils for kids

oh, and we just evolved a slighty different way. No more, no less, ask a paleontologenetician for more details.

Edited July 22, 2014 by WinkAllKerb''
[u] [/u] & +1 maximus for the smallest finger also slowly disapearing ...

[SargeRho]

Didn't the teeth on Sharks and the like evolve from their scales, while our own have a different origin?

[Idobox]

If you actually bothered to read the thread properly before interjecting with another of your content-lite prepackaged criticisms of pop culture you'd see that I gave examples earlier of how sexual selection results in some pretty ridiculous things.

So congrats on being both correct and completely redundant.

Could you give a single trait in humans that has resulted in significantly more numerous offspring consistently for the past 500 years?

Standards of beauty have changed wildly, and beautiful people don't get much more children than ugly ones, intelligent not much more than stupid, poor not much more than rich. Especially if you don't just look for the past 20 years.

The only people I can think of who have had more kids than average are mercenaries, brigands and other dickheads who ..../buy numerous women, but most societies actively try to keep that kind of behaviour to a minimum.

[xcorps]

Could you give a single trait in humans

Sure.

Health.

poor not much more than rich

That's actually not the case. Countries with lower standards of living have higher birth rates than countries with higher standards of living.

The fastest population growth in the world right now is in Africa.

The Total Fertility Rate in Africa is the highest in the world. (upwards of 6-8!)

Lowest Income per Capita: Various African countries

Lowest GDP: Various African countries

[lajoswinkler]

because we come from the same place as him (and a few others):

http://www.fossilsforkids.com/sitebuilder/images/shark_jaw-448x432.png

source: fossils for kids

oh' date=' and we just evolved a slighty different way. No more, no less, ask a paleontologenetician for more details.[/quote']

As SargeRho said, our teeth and sharks' teeth do not have the same origin. Their teeth have evolved from scales. In fact, their scales look like small teeth.

[Idobox]

Sure.

Health.

That's actually not the case. Countries with lower standards of living have higher birth rates than countries with higher standards of living.

The fastest population growth in the world right now is in Africa.

The Total Fertility Rate in Africa is the highest in the world. (upwards of 6-8!)

Lowest Income per Capita: Various African countries

Lowest GDP: Various African countries

Note the insistence on "consistently for the past 500 years".

Do people who suffer from diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, mental health issues, obesity or even cancer have less children than others? I don't have data, but given that most disease become prevalent at a relatively late age, I guess not. Seriously, people with AIDS have children.

Resistance to infectious diseases has been selected for though.

Poor people in rural areas have more children than others, sure. The natality rates in poor cities are close to the ones in rich countries. But in any case, that is something that is evolving VERY quickly because of cultural and economical factors, and isn't stable on the kind of timescales needed to cause directional evolution.

[Kryten]

Health.

'Health' is made up of millions of different traits, many of them only relevant in certain environments and plenty of which interfere with each other.

[KerbMav]

Could you give a single trait in humans that has resulted in significantly more numerous offspring consistently for the past 500 years?

Standards of beauty have changed wildly, and beautiful people don't get much more children than ugly ones, intelligent not much more than stupid, poor not much more than rich. Especially if you don't just look for the past 20 years.

The only people I can think of who have had more kids than average are mercenaries, brigands and other dickheads who ..../buy numerous women, but most societies actively try to keep that kind of behaviour to a minimum.

Earlier fertility, longer lifespan - both caused by environmental circumstances (nutrition, medicine) though - unless you count these circumstances as achievements of our intellect and many centuries of research and cultural development towards accepting the results of research as truth. (Hello church.)

In most "first world" nations, the uneducated poor have higher birthrates - for lack of education and/or financial means to avoid getting pregnant "every" time.

[Red Iron Crown]

Birthrates are strongly inversely correlated with female education levels. First world or third.

[KerbMav]

Birthrates are strongly inversely correlated with female education levels. First world or third.

I think the womens' handling of birth control and access to education in some countries are more connected by another causal: men, culture, religion, law.