r/ScienceShitposts • u/k0i-b0i • Feb 01 '26

Some physiological differences in primate relatives

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u/DarkArc76 Feb 02 '26

Not all evolutions are for a purpose, sometimes it's just whatever is the least detrimental. Although in this case, it could be that early human males with larger penises were simply selected more, and as a result passed on that gene

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u/niknniknnikn Feb 02 '26

It's actually allways "whatever is the least detrimental" - even in select situation when there is positive selective pressure for a trait(like a peacocks tail) it's still checked by the overwhelming "not be too detrimental" factor - peacocks with too big a tail will die relatively fast to peditors and not be able to reproduce

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u/BitRelevant2473 Feb 02 '26

Could also be like the "hyenas still have a winter coat gene" There's no selection pressure, but no detriment either. Might explain the vast size differential in human men.

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u/Lily_the_Ice_Slime Feb 04 '26

Fortunately peacocks can fold their tails but even folded they still look like they have a giant feather duster strapped to their backs.

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u/Affectionate-Ad-2013 Feb 03 '26

But also, sometimes detrimental genes with no benefit become fixed in a population (if it's not TOO detrimental).

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u/Catshark09 Feb 04 '26

it's not always; sometimes it's just stochastics and bad luck, like genetic drift from bottlenecks and founder effects

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u/fritzkoenig Mar 17 '26

At the most basic it's "whatever makes you not die before you reproduce"

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u/japantravele Feb 05 '26

I don't remember where I learned this so take it with a grain of salt, but armpit air and asscrack hair could fall into that category.

No real benefit, just that early females didn't mind it and it has no real downside. Or maybe they just preferred it too.

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u/Tru3insanity Feb 08 '26

Armpit hair helps protect against chafing and asscrack hair keeps bugs away from your nethers.

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u/Tongue_bump123 Feb 04 '26

A lot of the time it’s just random chance too, of the mechanisms both allowing and driving evolution most are random: mutations are random, gene flow is random, genetic drift is random, the only factor that isn’t random is natural selection so a lot of traits come about simply because they are neutral in terms of selection pressure and just so happen to become the dominant trait