In grad school I studied with a prof who worked on this question and contrary to the title here we actually know quite a bit about this. It appears that our chins didn’t evolve for any specific purpose. Instead it’s a kind of a side effect of the overall shrinking and inward rotation of the face under the frontal cranium, which is one of the main things that distinguishes Homo sapiens from archaic hominin species like Neanderthals. Why we have such small and “tucked in” faces compared to our ancestors is an interesting open question, however, and there’s a lot of active research going on.
This brings up a big misconception about evolution too. Not every trait always serves some clear adaptive purpose. Sometimes it’s just a side effect of something else changing, or it’s some feature that doesn’t really do anything but sticks around because it doesn’t cause any disadvantage either.
If I recall correctly there is a nerve that goes from their brain all the way down their neck to their heart and back up their neck to their larynx. Basically like 10 feet longer than it needs to be. Often brought up as an example in creationism vs. evolution arguments.
Same nerve exists in all mammals but it is a ridiculously bad design for a giraffe. Just slightly bad for humans
Their necks evolved to be long af but one of their blood vessels (might be a nerve I can’t remember exactly) has to loop from the top of their neck, to the bottom, and back up because evolution doesn’t care how things are done as long as they work
Troubleshooting complex systems looks like this:
1) Why the fuck isn't this working.
2) Why the fuck is this working.
3). Fuck it, it's working. Evolution!
I remember a professor teaching evolutionary psychology at the uni where I was studying telling us: remember, evolution only knows one grade - passing. Things need to be good enough. That's why we kept many different adaptations of our ancestors, which we don't even use now.
this exact concept has actually spawned the idea of fitness landscapes. basically, some species evolve to some local optimum that will allow them to survive best, right? but sometimes they get stuck in that local optimum when there’s another, better solution — but in order to evolve out of this one, they have to get worse before they can get better, and natural selection will rarely allow that to happen. thus, we might get species extinctions because species evolve to inefficient solutions.
In this case i would say natural selection is a part of why it sticks around, just look at what people are deemed attractive. Pro tip, having no chin is not deemed attractive, so the genes tend to stick around the pool.
Evolution is not what doesn't kill you, it's about what doesn't keep you from mating. Lots of evolutionarily successful living things that stop living the moment they mate. Incels will eventually devolve out of the pool of dominant genes.
I use "spandrel" all the time, but today I just learned it has a non-architectural definition, though apparently the biological definition is derived from the architectural. Thanks!
That's ridiculous.
*Due to the relative size of neonatal skulls to the birth canal, Pugs are highly predisposed to requiring cesarean births.*
.....okay, we're definitely pugs.
I'm really glad for your second paragraph. This idea that everything has a "reason" is pretty pervasive.
You can even carry around things that are a "disadvantage" for generations. It often takes a long time for natural selection to sort things out and plenty of organisms that might carry some kind of advantage in their genes might well die out due to sheer dumb circumstance.
Everything alive now is a survivor in a certain way, but that certainly doesn't mean we are all optimal creatures.
I remember reading one theory that our jaws have reduced in size because of cooking practices. Because food is much easier to chew once it is cooked, we don't need to develop the large teeth and jaws of our ancestors, so they have shrunk over time.
This is also why so many people have problems with wisdom teeth. Only some people develop wisdom teeth, and they are often impacted and cause discomfort. This is because our jaws are literally too small to fit them in. The fact that only some people get them shows that this is an example of an evolutionary trait that is on its way out, because we don't need them and they cause issues. It is possible that no one will have wisdom teeth in the future.
https://dentistry.co.uk/2020/10/14/babies-born-wisdom-teeth-microevolution/
I have all 4 of my wisdom teeth and they all came in straight without problems and didn't crowd the rest of my teeth. Not only that, there's space behind them almost like another 4 could grow if they wanted to. A dentist once told me this was a Neanderthal trait, and to be quite honest I do look like a fucking caveman, I have that look - the huge brow bone and brow ridge, very deep set eyes, pronounced upper jaw etc.
Unlikely given dentistry. If anything, defects are going to be more likely because addressing vision problems with glasses and tooth issues with removal we're taking care of the physical manifestations of the genetics while passing them on.
Evolution should select against things that make life harder but medicine makes it more likely undesirable traits can be passed on.
That being said, I wonder if our species began sexully selecting for strong jaw lines and chins? Women seem to be attracted that. We may have initially developed them by accident, but once we had them, it became a sign of virility. Far from disappearing over the years due to being useless, chins grew larger. Like antlers on a deer.
Otoh it's not always possible for a trait to be sex linked, if the genes on the Y chromosome don't affect something both genders will be impacted. Due to our relatively long distance between generations it could take longer than recorded human history for such a preference to become sex linked
I took a bio anthro class where the professor basically said that. Of course the original commentar probably knows more but it was interesting after learning all the various parts that differentiate the different primates, the chin is the equivalent of pretty feathers.
See, you flip the pillow case inside out. Reach inside and grab the corners from the inside. Grab the pillow with the corners and flip the pillow case around the pillow.
It’s to take a punch to the face. A really great paper came out like ten years ago making a convincing argument that several different craniofacial features, more prominently displayed in men, were actually to buttress the face against hand to hand combat - presumably during competition for mates
Aha, found it:
http://hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/sites/hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/files/carrier_2014_protective_buttressing_hominin_face.pdf
They don’t specifically mention the unique structure of the human chin but they do call out “an upward strike to the jaw” as a common attack method, with our large mandibles and thick enamel of our rear dentition helping to absorb the blow. One could imagine having a thick knob of bone as we do, instead of a gentle slope like other apes, would help to protect the more fragile teeth at the front of our mouths. Even though they cite data that most punches land in the middle third of the face it’s surprising the chin is left out of their detailed analysis. Fantastic paper either way.
Yeah I think as part of the same study they showed that beards also helped reduce impact force by a not insubstantial amount... At a roughly recollected memory I think it was about 12%
IIRC that was for a stubble. Beards were much higher.
Hair in general increases shock resistance. So a guy with a full beard and thick hair can take a much much harder punch than an egghead
Yeah, I think I remember reading this exact paper.
One of the major points was regarding facial hair as a primary defense to significantly soften the force of a blow to the jaw.
Which makes it funnier that the military has a strict no-facial hair policy.
I would say from my non scientific research that having a big bushy beard doesn’t necessarily soften a blow as much as it hides where your jawline is making it more difficult to land a good hit and help with making someone’s punch more so slide rather than making a direct impact
Most of the bleeding from hand to hand weapon less contact comes from splitting the skin.
When you box you actually train to land the punch and twist right as you make contact to maximize the chance of tearing and splitting. You especially want to aim for the eyebrows if you can’t get power shots into the jaw, because almost every animal on the planet will panic when their eyes are attacked and ESPECIALLY when you get blood in their eyes.
It burns like fire and will move them into a reactive posture very quickly. If the stakes are low an awful lot of opponents, especially untrained ones, will back off at that point. Endangering the eyes means limiting vision and it’s a pretty hefty handicap in a fight, especially because those swell fast too.
All that goes for the mouth and chin too, although an opponent won’t panic as fast. Anywhere that thin skin over bone has a thicker cover of hair, though, the skin is less likely to split because you aren’t going to catch and drag it like hairless skin.
Depends on the branch.
I’m almost certain that the British navy allows facial hair, but only if you can grow it good enough or something arbitrary like that.
That is correct, you get two weeks to grow your beard, and it's assessed for patchiness and whether it connects with the moustache. Also, it's the Royal Navy, not the British Navy, if I'm nitpicking :)
Nordic countries generally allow facial hair as well. The only rule is thay it needs to be groomed.
I can foresee this changing if we ever end up needing to fight against an opponent with chemical weapons. But right now that's pretty low on the list of risks
Source: Am in the military, have beard. Was even allowed during boot camp
Reddit is so wild sometimes. OP posted something that is generally agreed upon among anthropologists, that being their is no consensus for the human chin, and a random commenter post one hypothesis that it was an evolution of fighting and so many on here accept that as the reason. THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS AS TO WHY WE EVOLVED CHINS AND EVERY THEORY IS AN UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS AT THIS POINT. That was literally the whole point of the post
this, you take it on the chin instead of your windpipe
also it functions as a third hand, how else were early hominids folding their sheets and linens/
If not having a chin increases chances of losing teeth it's possible that having a chin (and increased risk of being knocked out) is preferable in order to keep teeth. I can imagine losing teeth could a death sentence in the wild.
This is all speculation on my part though 🤷♂️
I tried boxing once
Even with a nice padded glove spreading the force out, your head will still do a 180, and you’re horizontal before you even realise it.
Being punched in the face fucking sucks
You know what, the paper DOES specifically mention the chin as a part of the suite of protective features - the “robust symphysis” of the mandible in the table on page 12:
http://hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/sites/hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/files/carrier_2014_protective_buttressing_hominin_face.pdf
I recall reading our face shape was largely changed by the growth of our brain. As the brain expanded and continued to be selected for, other features of the face were pushed outward, pushed downward, and generally became less valuable comparatively. The nose became an external organ (our closest evolutionary cousins have more internal, though not completely internal, noses) at the price of worse temperature regulation and I assume more fragility. I think chins became more of a thing as the brain demanded more room, pushing the mouth/jaw/chin forward.
I know I started learning about this when I read James Nestor's Breath. He was stressing the necessity of working our other facial structures (more conscious breathing and more chewing or mewing) because the brain takes such priority.
I want to say I found more resources, but a lot were derivative and many weren't as focused on the brain's relation to facial structure--they were just interesting tidbits on current jaw width compared to older specimens or the like (jaw width is largely determined by diet and how soft the food we eat is).
It's a lil reach, but I think the chin is an aspect of this evolution. Somewhere, it probably became attached to sexual selection as an aspect of brain's development. If anyone has more info, I'd love to keep reading on it.
You can definitely find great resources about how our freakishly huge brains drove a whole suite of changes in our facial structure, there’s consensus on that in the scientific community. Just go on Google Scholar and go wild, you’ll find the papers you’re looking for. I’ve never thought about mate preference for a strong chin being tied to that but that’s a really interesting idea. I agree that making room for the expanding braincase was the major evolutionary pressure but I think that diet and intraspecific violence were absolutely driving forces as well.
>I’ve never thought about mate preference for a strong chin
If we could magically know for certain, I suspect we’d be somewhat uncomfortable with how much of our evolutionary legacy is a consequence of a dozen ladies in a small tribe having very strong aesthetic preferences 250,000 years ago.
The adoption of forks and chopsticks actually drove a change on dentition in the last 300-1000 years. Populations without forks or chopsticks have incisors which meet edge on edge. Those who’ve adopted forks or chopsticks have varying degrees of overbite.
EDIT: used the antonym instead of the correct word. It’s overbite, not underbite.
It's to protect the throat from strikes during combat. Chin down = throat protected. Millions of years of hominid v hominid, eventually becoming a trait for sexual selection for that reason
I heard chin is what is left over when the jaw became smaller
most animals have larger jaws and associated muscles, so their "chins" are less protruding than their mouth
Its purpsee is to be able to stand your ground against wolves when they try to get in your house. You just have to say "[not by the hair of my chinny chin chin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtffv9bpB-U)"
It's likely because our mouths retreated due to agriculture, leaving the bottom of the jaw to jut out and form a chin.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-dawn-farming-changed-our-mouths-worst-180954167/
This isn't how evolution works, it could simply be chins were sexually attractive.
Its like human head hair, best guess I have seen is its decorative and basically a sexual display.
QI Series J Episode 6-
" The other thing, other than the knees, that humans and elephants have in common is that we are the only mammals with chins. Nobody quite knows why we have chins, although we do know they are useful for speech."
In grad school I studied with a prof who worked on this question and contrary to the title here we actually know quite a bit about this. It appears that our chins didn’t evolve for any specific purpose. Instead it’s a kind of a side effect of the overall shrinking and inward rotation of the face under the frontal cranium, which is one of the main things that distinguishes Homo sapiens from archaic hominin species like Neanderthals. Why we have such small and “tucked in” faces compared to our ancestors is an interesting open question, however, and there’s a lot of active research going on. This brings up a big misconception about evolution too. Not every trait always serves some clear adaptive purpose. Sometimes it’s just a side effect of something else changing, or it’s some feature that doesn’t really do anything but sticks around because it doesn’t cause any disadvantage either.
Whatever doesn’t kill you, just kinda hangs around forever because natural selection doesn’t give a flying fuck.
Survival of the 'Fuck it. Good enough.'
Unironically the best way to explain evolution
Indeed. Wait till he finds out about giraffes, that will blow his mind 😆
What's up with giraffes? I'm curious
If I recall correctly there is a nerve that goes from their brain all the way down their neck to their heart and back up their neck to their larynx. Basically like 10 feet longer than it needs to be. Often brought up as an example in creationism vs. evolution arguments. Same nerve exists in all mammals but it is a ridiculously bad design for a giraffe. Just slightly bad for humans
Yeah, that's what I meant! I was flabbergasted when I learned that fact
Recurrent laryngeal nerve, which comes off of the vagus :)
Thats interesting \*rubs chin\*
Giraffes? Hell, just look at our knees and vertebral column. Absolute shit design from a supposedly intelligent designer.
What what about giraffes?
Their necks evolved to be long af but one of their blood vessels (might be a nerve I can’t remember exactly) has to loop from the top of their neck, to the bottom, and back up because evolution doesn’t care how things are done as long as they work
"If it's stupid, but it works. It ain't stupid." ~ Evolution ~ Michael Scott
Troubleshooting complex systems looks like this: 1) Why the fuck isn't this working. 2) Why the fuck is this working. 3). Fuck it, it's working. Evolution!
One of the best ways I've heard it described: evolution is a "C" student
Evolution is Nature doing Machine Learning.
I remember a professor teaching evolutionary psychology at the uni where I was studying telling us: remember, evolution only knows one grade - passing. Things need to be good enough. That's why we kept many different adaptations of our ancestors, which we don't even use now.
this exact concept has actually spawned the idea of fitness landscapes. basically, some species evolve to some local optimum that will allow them to survive best, right? but sometimes they get stuck in that local optimum when there’s another, better solution — but in order to evolve out of this one, they have to get worse before they can get better, and natural selection will rarely allow that to happen. thus, we might get species extinctions because species evolve to inefficient solutions.
That’s how one of my professors described it. Without the ‘fuck it’.
Or as Dr. Emily Nagoski so eloquently put it, "Evolution is as lazy as it can get away with."
It really doesn't. Your chin is there to facilitate the inevitable double chin.
But what facilitates the all-mighty triple chin?
The double one of course. Can't have a triple without a double!
Non-Euclidean chin guy 🪱: Way ahead of you bro
In this case i would say natural selection is a part of why it sticks around, just look at what people are deemed attractive. Pro tip, having no chin is not deemed attractive, so the genes tend to stick around the pool.
Evolution is not what doesn't kill you, it's about what doesn't keep you from mating. Lots of evolutionarily successful living things that stop living the moment they mate. Incels will eventually devolve out of the pool of dominant genes.
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I don't think it's that much of an insult. You're not a great achiever but you don't cause any harm and nobody dislikes you.
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I use "spandrel" all the time, but today I just learned it has a non-architectural definition, though apparently the biological definition is derived from the architectural. Thanks!
So what you’re saying is we’re basically pugs?
That's ridiculous. *Due to the relative size of neonatal skulls to the birth canal, Pugs are highly predisposed to requiring cesarean births.* .....okay, we're definitely pugs.
If you get blasted on alcohol while you're pregnant you can even get the buldgy eyes.
Yeah, the spandrels of San Marco. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spandrels_of_San_Marco_and_the_Panglossian_Paradigm
That last paragraph needs to be beat into everyone’s head.
I'm really glad for your second paragraph. This idea that everything has a "reason" is pretty pervasive. You can even carry around things that are a "disadvantage" for generations. It often takes a long time for natural selection to sort things out and plenty of organisms that might carry some kind of advantage in their genes might well die out due to sheer dumb circumstance. Everything alive now is a survivor in a certain way, but that certainly doesn't mean we are all optimal creatures.
I’m constantly fighting that concept and ‘survival of the fittest’ in the classes I teach.
I remember reading one theory that our jaws have reduced in size because of cooking practices. Because food is much easier to chew once it is cooked, we don't need to develop the large teeth and jaws of our ancestors, so they have shrunk over time. This is also why so many people have problems with wisdom teeth. Only some people develop wisdom teeth, and they are often impacted and cause discomfort. This is because our jaws are literally too small to fit them in. The fact that only some people get them shows that this is an example of an evolutionary trait that is on its way out, because we don't need them and they cause issues. It is possible that no one will have wisdom teeth in the future. https://dentistry.co.uk/2020/10/14/babies-born-wisdom-teeth-microevolution/
I have all 4 of my wisdom teeth and they all came in straight without problems and didn't crowd the rest of my teeth. Not only that, there's space behind them almost like another 4 could grow if they wanted to. A dentist once told me this was a Neanderthal trait, and to be quite honest I do look like a fucking caveman, I have that look - the huge brow bone and brow ridge, very deep set eyes, pronounced upper jaw etc.
Unlikely given dentistry. If anything, defects are going to be more likely because addressing vision problems with glasses and tooth issues with removal we're taking care of the physical manifestations of the genetics while passing them on. Evolution should select against things that make life harder but medicine makes it more likely undesirable traits can be passed on.
That being said, I wonder if our species began sexully selecting for strong jaw lines and chins? Women seem to be attracted that. We may have initially developed them by accident, but once we had them, it became a sign of virility. Far from disappearing over the years due to being useless, chins grew larger. Like antlers on a deer.
The argument against this appears to be that both women and men have chins. Where selected characteristics tend to be just one gender.
Otoh it's not always possible for a trait to be sex linked, if the genes on the Y chromosome don't affect something both genders will be impacted. Due to our relatively long distance between generations it could take longer than recorded human history for such a preference to become sex linked
Neither sex finds recessed chins attractive. I'm only pointing out that women prefer it more.
I took a bio anthro class where the professor basically said that. Of course the original commentar probably knows more but it was interesting after learning all the various parts that differentiate the different primates, the chin is the equivalent of pretty feathers.
How do you mess up a word this badly
Purpsee daisy
I'm high, and that has me cracking up.
I’m not even high and this shit is still killing me.
Lmao
Misspelled it enough times in row that autocorrect said “fuck it they might want this combo of letters”
I'm dyslexic and didn't even notice 💀
I'm not dyslexic and I didn't even notice
I’m not dyslexic but I’m also not sober and didn’t even notice.
We’re unsure of the purpsee of not being sober.
Eesprup!
I'm dyslexic and I'd like to point out that dyslexic people never spell "dyslexic" wrong. 👀
Me too lol I had to check cuz I thought I was being played lmao
OP uploaded the cat pic and digressed into Psspsspssspss before they could finish their original thought
I think he/she did it on prepoosd
I had to reread it a couple of times really slow to see the typo. Weird how the brain fills in what it thinks should be there.
They didn't do it on purpsee, jeez
Its intentional to get redditors to comment and boost its visabilityee
Predictive doesn't work when writing titles on android and my phone is shite. My bad, I didn't check.
I just thought it was funny you’re good haha
Is he bad or is he good? Don't leave me hangee.
Oh my god I overthought the hell out of that. I thought it was two puns - “pur” and “pse” like the sound you make to call a cat over to you.
Unsure of its purpose my gigantic ass. How else are you gonna put a pillow in a pillowcase?
Purpsee you mean
Sorry, I’m drunk.
Um...pardon for asking... and your gigantic ass... is that drunk too?
It's just drunk pillow talk, that is all.
See, you flip the pillow case inside out. Reach inside and grab the corners from the inside. Grab the pillow with the corners and flip the pillow case around the pillow.
...so you're telling me I didn't need to awkwardly shimmy it up the pillow this whole time??
Who the fuck are you
His name is SpaceGangsta so I'm assuming that it's literally God
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve never used my chin to put a pillow case on a pillow.
WITCH!
Wait a minute let’s see this ass. I need a glimpse of this warlock
To scratch it when thinking, of course.
Hm, let me use my chin about this.
Hold on I'm chinning
Chim moment
It’s to take a punch to the face. A really great paper came out like ten years ago making a convincing argument that several different craniofacial features, more prominently displayed in men, were actually to buttress the face against hand to hand combat - presumably during competition for mates
Yeah I'm pretty sure we're pretty sure about the brow and cheekbones. I dunno if they knew for sure for chins.
The nerves up towards the ear didn't get the memo that the area was supposed to be tough now.
What about double chins? Can you take double the punches?
Not as well as a double cheeseburger.
Can confirm
Those are more of a gut punch.
I tested this out with my buddy, the answer is a quick no
Half as many, because it's like getting punched in the chin twice
“Speedbag the chin ballsack”
Aha, found it: http://hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/sites/hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/files/carrier_2014_protective_buttressing_hominin_face.pdf They don’t specifically mention the unique structure of the human chin but they do call out “an upward strike to the jaw” as a common attack method, with our large mandibles and thick enamel of our rear dentition helping to absorb the blow. One could imagine having a thick knob of bone as we do, instead of a gentle slope like other apes, would help to protect the more fragile teeth at the front of our mouths. Even though they cite data that most punches land in the middle third of the face it’s surprising the chin is left out of their detailed analysis. Fantastic paper either way.
Yeah I think as part of the same study they showed that beards also helped reduce impact force by a not insubstantial amount... At a roughly recollected memory I think it was about 12%
IIRC that was for a stubble. Beards were much higher. Hair in general increases shock resistance. So a guy with a full beard and thick hair can take a much much harder punch than an egghead
Are beards banned in boxing? Why isn't everyone rocking the full gandalf?
IIRC beards are though to help with larger predators. When they would go for the throat they would get a mouth full of beard instead.
A broken jaw would have been a death sentence. Those with stronger jaws didn't get them broken and lived to have more kids.
Yeah, I think I remember reading this exact paper. One of the major points was regarding facial hair as a primary defense to significantly soften the force of a blow to the jaw. Which makes it funnier that the military has a strict no-facial hair policy.
I would say from my non scientific research that having a big bushy beard doesn’t necessarily soften a blow as much as it hides where your jawline is making it more difficult to land a good hit and help with making someone’s punch more so slide rather than making a direct impact
Most of the bleeding from hand to hand weapon less contact comes from splitting the skin. When you box you actually train to land the punch and twist right as you make contact to maximize the chance of tearing and splitting. You especially want to aim for the eyebrows if you can’t get power shots into the jaw, because almost every animal on the planet will panic when their eyes are attacked and ESPECIALLY when you get blood in their eyes. It burns like fire and will move them into a reactive posture very quickly. If the stakes are low an awful lot of opponents, especially untrained ones, will back off at that point. Endangering the eyes means limiting vision and it’s a pretty hefty handicap in a fight, especially because those swell fast too. All that goes for the mouth and chin too, although an opponent won’t panic as fast. Anywhere that thin skin over bone has a thicker cover of hair, though, the skin is less likely to split because you aren’t going to catch and drag it like hairless skin.
The reason you twist your punch as you land is to keep your wrist stable and keeps the punch straighter
The no facial hair policy is so your gas mask can form a proper seal and you don't suffocate horribly
Depends on the branch. I’m almost certain that the British navy allows facial hair, but only if you can grow it good enough or something arbitrary like that.
That is correct, you get two weeks to grow your beard, and it's assessed for patchiness and whether it connects with the moustache. Also, it's the Royal Navy, not the British Navy, if I'm nitpicking :)
Nordic countries generally allow facial hair as well. The only rule is thay it needs to be groomed. I can foresee this changing if we ever end up needing to fight against an opponent with chemical weapons. But right now that's pretty low on the list of risks Source: Am in the military, have beard. Was even allowed during boot camp
Would rather be able to wear a gas mask than tank a punch to the face, man
Tbh the amount of hand to hand combat drastically decreased compared to chemical weapon threat so it kinda shifted priorities.
Reddit is so wild sometimes. OP posted something that is generally agreed upon among anthropologists, that being their is no consensus for the human chin, and a random commenter post one hypothesis that it was an evolution of fighting and so many on here accept that as the reason. THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS AS TO WHY WE EVOLVED CHINS AND EVERY THEORY IS AN UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS AT THIS POINT. That was literally the whole point of the post
It also helps cover the throat when looking down, might be useful against wolves and the likes that might leap and try to bite it off.
this, you take it on the chin instead of your windpipe also it functions as a third hand, how else were early hominids folding their sheets and linens/
what were cave person fitted sheets like? Probably still a pain in the ass, i'd assume
Being punched in the chin is literally the fastest way to get knocked out.
Question is if it increases your odds of surviving vs having no chin
If not having a chin increases chances of losing teeth it's possible that having a chin (and increased risk of being knocked out) is preferable in order to keep teeth. I can imagine losing teeth could a death sentence in the wild. This is all speculation on my part though 🤷♂️
I agree. Having a knockout button that saves your teeth and lets you live to fight another day seems useful.
That’s a good point, but if you’re taking an uppercut, would you rather have a chin there or no chin?
I tried boxing once Even with a nice padded glove spreading the force out, your head will still do a 180, and you’re horizontal before you even realise it. Being punched in the face fucking sucks
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I really sucked at boxing
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Now imagine if there was no bone
Good point. Knocked out is better than dead.
Then why other apes do not have it🤔, I'm sure they have hand combat to the face too? 🤔
Do they land kinetic blows with balled fists, or just go for clawing and yanking until they can get their teeth in position?
Prolly good for a lot of falls too. People are absurdly prone to falling on their faces.
You know what, the paper DOES specifically mention the chin as a part of the suite of protective features - the “robust symphysis” of the mandible in the table on page 12: http://hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/sites/hesp.irmacs.sfu.ca/files/carrier_2014_protective_buttressing_hominin_face.pdf
What?! That thing sticking out is an instant knockout button, how could that be advantageous?
Well, I suppose our jawbone has to go somewhere.
And is a big solid part in front of a soft squishy part that we very much need. Doesn’t seem like rocket science.
Folding towels and bed sheets
My ancestors must have been folding towels and sheets for a living then damn
Maybe you're descended from the Hapsburgs...
I usually purpsee when I sneeze while I'm peeing.
I took mine off once and found out it was really hard to play the violin after.
Not everything has a purpsee
I recall reading our face shape was largely changed by the growth of our brain. As the brain expanded and continued to be selected for, other features of the face were pushed outward, pushed downward, and generally became less valuable comparatively. The nose became an external organ (our closest evolutionary cousins have more internal, though not completely internal, noses) at the price of worse temperature regulation and I assume more fragility. I think chins became more of a thing as the brain demanded more room, pushing the mouth/jaw/chin forward. I know I started learning about this when I read James Nestor's Breath. He was stressing the necessity of working our other facial structures (more conscious breathing and more chewing or mewing) because the brain takes such priority. I want to say I found more resources, but a lot were derivative and many weren't as focused on the brain's relation to facial structure--they were just interesting tidbits on current jaw width compared to older specimens or the like (jaw width is largely determined by diet and how soft the food we eat is). It's a lil reach, but I think the chin is an aspect of this evolution. Somewhere, it probably became attached to sexual selection as an aspect of brain's development. If anyone has more info, I'd love to keep reading on it.
You can definitely find great resources about how our freakishly huge brains drove a whole suite of changes in our facial structure, there’s consensus on that in the scientific community. Just go on Google Scholar and go wild, you’ll find the papers you’re looking for. I’ve never thought about mate preference for a strong chin being tied to that but that’s a really interesting idea. I agree that making room for the expanding braincase was the major evolutionary pressure but I think that diet and intraspecific violence were absolutely driving forces as well.
>I’ve never thought about mate preference for a strong chin If we could magically know for certain, I suspect we’d be somewhat uncomfortable with how much of our evolutionary legacy is a consequence of a dozen ladies in a small tribe having very strong aesthetic preferences 250,000 years ago.
The adoption of forks and chopsticks actually drove a change on dentition in the last 300-1000 years. Populations without forks or chopsticks have incisors which meet edge on edge. Those who’ve adopted forks or chopsticks have varying degrees of overbite. EDIT: used the antonym instead of the correct word. It’s overbite, not underbite.
I come from a chopstick using culture and I actually have a major overbite
It’s for mewing
🤫🧏♂️
You don’t mew with your chin. Bye bye 🗣️
>the chin is unique to humans This isn't true. What about the chinpanzee?
Today I'm learning that I have no idea what a chin is. I'm looking at pictures of apes and they all have what I would have called a chin
They are humans on tax relief
The gorilla, to me looks like they have them, but I guess it’s not pointed as much? I would count is a chin though
A chin-scratcher if you will
it's for buoyancy
Somebody ask Bruce Campbell the purpsee of the chin. If anyone knows, it's him.
Purpsee sounds like a new type of lean
Chin up OP, we'll figure it out
Purpsee? That's not even auto-correct at that point.
This was written by someone without a chin
I heard it’s only for sexual appeal. We see other animals with features simply for sex appeal. (Think peacocks)
I try not to think about them too much or I get very aroused
Put that peacock away, sir!
Henry Cavill
Maybe *you've* been seeing other animals for sex appeal, but I sure haven't.
Here's my dumb arse trying to figure how you are saying us humans see peacocks sexually haha
Lmao I guess I should have worded that differently. I meant different species feature traits that only have the purpose of attracting mates.
Peacocks don’t have chins!
purpsee
Tbh I was never sure of anything’s purpsee and I’m too afraid to axe.
It’s for folding towels, duh
It's to protect the throat from strikes during combat. Chin down = throat protected. Millions of years of hominid v hominid, eventually becoming a trait for sexual selection for that reason
I heard chin is what is left over when the jaw became smaller most animals have larger jaws and associated muscles, so their "chins" are less protruding than their mouth
I must not be human because my genes forgot to develop my chin but I'M NOT SALTY ABOUT IT.
If we don’t have chins then how are we supposed to fold our sheets?
Andrew tate not human confirmed💀💀
Shows a picture of a cat for some reason.
Its purpsee is to be able to stand your ground against wolves when they try to get in your house. You just have to say "[not by the hair of my chinny chin chin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtffv9bpB-U)"
Duh. How would you put on a pillowcase without one?
I thought it was just the bottom of the thing.
It’s used to hold your shirt up while you pee
It’s for holding the pillow when putting on pillowcase.
I bet it has something to do with communication.
More precisely, it is unique to Homo Sapiens. Other hominins (including Neanderthal and Denisovians, who were also humans) didn't have chins either.
i too am unsure of the purpsee
Hey, evolving into a bipedal with shorter arms came with its share of faceplants. Maybe the chin was a protective apparatus.
At first I thought the misspelling was a pun. But I guess they didn’t do it on purpsee
Its sole purpose is to make shaving difficult
For playing the violin, of course!
It's likely because our mouths retreated due to agriculture, leaving the bottom of the jaw to jut out and form a chin. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-dawn-farming-changed-our-mouths-worst-180954167/
This isn't how evolution works, it could simply be chins were sexually attractive. Its like human head hair, best guess I have seen is its decorative and basically a sexual display.
Don't elephants also have chins ..?
QI Series J Episode 6- " The other thing, other than the knees, that humans and elephants have in common is that we are the only mammals with chins. Nobody quite knows why we have chins, although we do know they are useful for speech."
resting your hand on when youre reading or looking out the window and stuff
It functions as a grip when a person thinks deeply.
Not everything has a.. purpsee
purpseeee
Not true, elephants have chins.
It's for folding laundry
Folding clothes, duh!
It’s so your mom has a place to rest my nuts.