Study: Male Facial Development Evolved To Take Punches

First time accepted submitter Joe_NoOne (48818) writes "A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defense against fist fights. The bones most commonly broken in human punch-ups also gained the most strength in early hominin evolution. They are also the bones that show most divergence between males and females. From the article: 'Fossil records show that the australopiths, immediate predecessors of the human genus Homo, had strikingly robust facial structures. For many years, this extra strength was seen as an adaptation to a tough diet including nuts, seeds and grasses. But more recent findings, examining the wear pattern and carbon isotopes in australopith teeth, have cast some doubt on this "feeding hypothesis". "In fact, [the australopith] boisei, the 'nutcracker man', was probably eating fruit," said Prof David Carrier, the new theory's lead author and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah. Instead of diet, Prof Carrier and his co-author, physician Dr Michael Morgan, propose that violent competition demanded the development of these facial fortifications: what they call the "protective buttressing hypothesis".'"

Comments

Sexual selection by the opposite sex.

[rabun_bike]

Sexual selection is most likely an additional element in the facial features as it has been theorized to be one of the primary driving features of some of the physical statue difference between males and females of many different species. Hence Darwin's explanation of the ornate peacock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:Sexual selection by the opposite sex.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

As best I can tell, body-building is sort of like opera singing for your muscles. It's not clear why you would want to, or why people would be interested in the result; but it is undeniably impressive what you can make a human body do if you put your mind to it.

Re:Sexual selection by the opposite sex.

[adonoman]

The explanation I've heard for useless showy features (a la peacock) is that the ability to put resources into giant shiny feathers show that you have the ability to gather enough food to live, and have leftover energy to devote to impressing the ladies. It's not so much the particulars of what the feature is, but rather having resources (or money) to burn indicates that you're successful enough to be a good mate.

Re:Sexual selection by the opposite sex.

[sneakyimp]

In your analysis, you seem to have overlooked the incredible reproductive advantage of being part of a society that exercise geopolitical might (e.g., US, Europe, Russia) versus being in a nation that does not exercise such might (e.g., Afghanistan, Sudan). I would also disagree with your assessment that women do not sexually favor dominant men. Dominance today doesn't necessarily mean a punch-resistant face, but women most definitely sexually favor men with who are dominant physically, intellectually, and especially financially. Women might coo and empathize with a guy who gets punched, but I don't think they'll feel compelled to have sex with him.

Re:Sexual selection by the opposite sex.

[metlin]

The goal of bodybuilding is indeed aesthetics, and they do not hide it. Their goal is not functional -- rather, their goal is the full development of every muscle on the body in a proportional manner.

And that does not mean it's easy, either. People often assume that that degree of muscular development is just "lifting weights" and that is the farthest from the truth. Bodybuilding entails making sure that you pretty much develop every visible muscle group, without any one group looking out of proportion than the other. For instance, my chest and calves are the hardest to build, and it takes me a lot of effort to ensure that they develop in proportion to the rest of my body, my shortcomings notwithstanding.

However, bodybuilders are far from the best examples of fitness simply because their whole bulk/cut regimen isn't healthy, not to mention the overabundance of supplements that they consume. But I cannot tell from your post if you're referring to all bodybuilders (including the professional ones) or to the popular perception of the gym rat bodybuilder.

But there is a part of your argument that I disagree with - while they body builders may not be as strong as they should be, given their muscular density, that is by design. They're still stronger than most people (I mean, if you're squatting over a thousand pounds, imagine crushing something with those legs).

They may have some shortcomings compared to others of a leaner makeup, and that is a function of what they focus on. As a rock climber, I am more agile but my mirror muscles will never get that big; but despite having great lung capacity, my lung capacity will never equal that of my wife's, who's a long distance swimmer. Similarly, despite being strong and flexible, I cannot dream of ever squatting anything over 350 lbs. Because at some level, you hit a very realistic limit that cannot be overcome without additional muscle mass.

Bodybuilders are extremely good at what they do - i.e. push their muscle development to the max. You cannot judge a fish by how high it can fly.

Limits of incremental change or other constraints?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I realize that you evolve with the genome you have, not the genome you might want or wish to have at a later time; but even with a bit of incremental up-armoring the human face seems like kind of a dreadful mess when it comes to fist-fighting prowess. Lots of relatively poorly anchored teeth, plenty of well-vascularized soft tissue, some of it of considerable sensory importance (like the squishy, squishy, eyeballs, conveniently also located in two of the big holes in the skull, where there is little more than goo and connective tissue between your brain and the wide, horrible, world...

Is this just because "radically alter facial morphology" isn't one of those things you evolve even remotely quickly, or without changing a hell of a lot of genes, some of which have other functions, or do we suspect that there are competing constraints working against, or at least limiting, the degree that masculinized facial features are allowed to make you look like some sort of bio-tank?

Evolutionary history b.s.?

[DoofusOfDeath]

A new theory suggests that our male ancestors evolved beefy facial features as a defense against fist fights.

I'm trying to keep an open mind about these theories, but they just keep on striking me as mental masturbation by a sub-field that needs to have B.S. called on the lot of them.

AFAIK, we can only make wildly speculative guesses as to the lifestyles of these creatures. And that will probably be forever true. So unless we find cave drawings of an extensive face-punching meritocracy within these families, it's probably wild speculation as to whether or not it was a relevant factor in the evolution of these features.

This isn't science.

Re:Evolutionary history b.s.?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You want to avoid delving into 'just so stories', or flattering a particular cultural quirk with the status of 'universality' ("Y'know why pink is a girl color, and chicks naturally like it? Because they, like, evolved to judge the ripeness of fruits that they were gathering! Oh, wait, you mean that the association between young girls and pink and young boys and blue is actually a century or two old? Umm, never mind...); but you can infer things about lifestyle and social interaction from archeological evidence.

Undamaged bone, bone that has experienced substantial unhealed trauma (ie. that trauma was part of whatever killed the bone's owner before any healing occurred), and bone that was damaged; but subsequently healed, all look quite different if they are in reasonably well-preserved shape.

If a fossil record is adequately detailed across time, changes in skeletal structure are also quite discernable, and isotopic analysis can help determine whether those changes were driven by dietary demands, or whether they occurred for unrelated reasons.

There is no certainty to be had, and there are pitfalls to avoid; but it's hardly a morass of nescience.

Re:Evolutionary history b.s.?

[timeOday]

You might be right or wrong, but you have no way of knowing without at least understanding the research and specifically addressing the points they make. You're not going to take the time to read the paper, let alone acquire the necessary background to understand it, and neither am I. Know-nothings tossing out hunches on an Internet forum, now that is mental masturbation.

Oh bugger...

[grub]

Of course I read this after my sandwich was late.

Sorry, sweetie...

Re:topic is sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

true equality would be them getting punched in the face.

Hypothesis is nuts

[cellocgw]

(I see what I did there in the title).

If this made sense at all, after a few rounds of Rochambeau v. 2 , we'd all have developed a massive testicular protection layer too.

Re:Limits of incremental change or other constrain

[Chrisq]

I realize that you evolve with the genome you have, not the genome you might want or wish to have at a later time;

Say that again and I'll punch you ;-) ........ or should that be [;=))]

Re:designed by violence

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why do you need thumbs for raping?

Plenty of species without hands get their rape on to a degree that makes A Clockwork Orange look like Saturday morning cartoons. Ducks, just by way of example, are so nasty that the evolution of their genital morphology is basically an arms race, with female reproductive tracts getting ever longer and more convoluted, and males developing ever more grotesque Cthulhoid horror-phalluses in an attempt to not let that stop them. ("Explosive eversion and functional morphology of the duck penis supports sexual conflict in waterfowl genitalia" is always a good read if you suspected nature of harboring any traces of benevolence...)

No such luck in King's Landing

[cellocgw]

If only the Red Viper had a more punch-resistant face, eh?

Not the first time I've heard this kind of theory.

[hey!]

The problem I have with these theories is that they don't explain why the hand is so poorly adapted to *deliver* punches. It wouldn't be complicated, you've got all you need to start with given normal variations in hand anatomy. Favor the guys with extra sturdy 5th metacarpals, and voila! Boxer's fractures are a thing of th evolutionary past.

It's just hard to buy that punching exerts such a dramatic evolutionary pressure on various anatomical features and leaves the fist something a person has to be *taught* to make properly, and which *still* tends to injure itself while punching without the benefit of gloves or taping.

It seems more plausible that the response of facial development to the presence of testosterone is a matter of *sexual* selection than survival based selection, that humans evolved to hit with clubs and rocks and that fists are a less critical corner case. People who come up with these theories evidently don't have much experience hitting things with their bare hands, which is not surprising given that they've got these handy opposable thumbs.