Seems pretty dumb in our biological design to not be able to regenerate such a functional (and also easily breakable) part of our body.
There are no stupid questions. But there are grammatically flawed questions.
English dos do be done daft. https://inv.us.projectsegfau.lt/watch?v=6lhxxiqqlQY&t=293
I tried to rephrase his question in my head, and I ended up with “Why do not teeth degenerate.”
I need sleep.
When does toth not degenerate?
Yeah, if evolution is so great, how come we can’t fly??
We can. Its just considered exercise so we choose not to.
Philosophical take.
We can. We figured out how. Thousands of humans fly every day across the planet faster than any bird. We can also live in environments we were definitely not designed to whether it’s with clothing, fire, or advanced HVAC systems. And we’ve pushed that further with our own little atmospheres under the sea or in space.
Evolution didn’t spot with us. It is us. Evolution, in trying every possible permutation possible landed on an organism that adapts the world around it, rather than waiting generations to adapt to the world around it.
Now it’s a matter of if our social and societal evolution will see us succeed or end in failure. If we don’t solve the climate crises we created, if we end up murdering each other, if we get smacked by an unforeseen object from space, potentially built by even more advanced evolution, we lost, and evolution will continue. Evolution is us, but far too often we’re too blind to see that gift, and advance responsibly
And how come we need to sleep?
And eat food?
And why not have wheels for feet?
And what would a chair look like if our knees bent the other way?
I know the point of your answer was not to dwell on these things, but:
And what would a chair look like if our knees bent the other way?
Is actually very interesting, would’ve we designed it as a normal chair but we would rest our chests instead of backs? Or would they have a place to rest the legs instead of on the floor?
How come my butt cheeks don’t go lblblblblblblblblblb when I go down a waterslide
You should call customer service and complain
Will do sir, will do.
I’ve been on hold for decades.
Did you ask to speak to the manager? That usually works.
I think there just hasn’t been an evolutionary need for them to regrow. In past millenia, people had kids and died before toothlessness really became an issue and teeth lasted longer before our modern industrial diet.
Because our design is not particularly intelligent …
As compared to?
“Intelligent design” is the term Young-Earth Creationists use when they want to sound smart while questioning evolution as powered by natural selection.
Source: My childhood and teen years.
You said exactly why in your post: “…our biological design…”
There’s no such thing. We evolved. That means we’re a mix of traits passed along over time by individuals that managed to live long enough to breed.
That’s it. That’s the whole explanation for any question about “why don’t humans do x thing as part of our biology?”
Any given trait is all about lasting long enough to make babies. Once that occurs, all that’s left is a general proclivity to ensuring the babies survive long enough to do the same. Regrowing teeth isn’t part of that. It’s a niche trait that isn’t as useful as you’d think for humans. We don’t need to gnaw at things, we don’t need to crack bones with our mouths, nothing that would make a third set of teeth an advantage, or different teeth an advantage.
Teeth are not easily breakable. We actually can crack bone with our jaws and the teeth will usually survive if the bone isn’t too thick; we just have better tools for that because way back when, the proto-humans that used tools had more babies that survived to make more babies. You have to abuse and/or neglect your teeth to break them for the vast majority. There are congenital issues where that isn’t the case, but we’ve also bred ourselves into a social species that takes care of each other, so we aren’t limited to a harsh, primitive survival level of things.
I really don’t get why people think of teeth as fragile. They’re incredibly durable for what we need them for, and require only minimal care to last well beyond breeding age. Even if you factor in modern diets being bad for teeth, regular care for them (brushing and flossing) can stave off those effects for decades. Go search up some of the dental research on old human bodies from archaeological sites. People survived very well with just one set of adult teeth.
And, some humans do have extras that can come in later in life, though it’s very rare and comes with drawbacks (according to the last lady I dated that was an anthropologist anyway). Supposedly, having the extras actually weakens the regular adult teeth and makes them more prone to damage. There’s always a tradeoff in things like this.
People like me have only one problem with what you just said, and it’s called “Bruxism”.
Well, if you make it to breeding age, and successfully do so, then it really doesn’t matter from a species perspective. If you don’t, then whatever traits led to the grinding are weeded out, so that’s also irrelevant to the species in a different way. Also, there are treatments to help with bruxism. It isn’t something that can’t at least be managed to reduce the speed of damage.
Not really? Bruxism is heavily linked with stress and anxiety, which we have too much of in our contemporary society (meaning: a drop of water in our whole evolutionary history), and it’s very rarely going to incapacitate anyone, so evolution doesn’t care, and has cared even less before civilization.
The diet that we evolved to consume (fruits, lean meats and fibrous plants) was much less damaging to our teeth than the current high-sugar, high-fat, highly processed foods. And human lifespans was shorter, so less time for teeth to damage. So there wasn’t a strong evolutionary need to regenerate them (unlike an animal like sharks)
Title gore
People with healthy diets don’t need them to, and there are advantages to teeth secured very tightly into our jaw. Teeth are actually very strong and resilient.
And when people do start losing teeth, it mostly happens past the age of reproduction to the evolutionary impact is lessened. On an evolutionary scale, we’ve only fucked up our diets with sugar and processed foods very recently. Plus, we now have dentistry to reduce that impact, so I doubt evolution will make it happen to humanity in the future.
There are actually people that grow more teeth, but they have more complications than advantages. I suspect this has been the case historically as well. If everyone else can do with just the normal amount of teeth, these people don’t get an evolutionary advantage and their teeth gene quirks don’t become common among humans.
That said, scientists are working on stimulating teeth growth for people who have lost them or never had them. It’s not impossible, it seems, just very difficult.
That’s going to be a thing of the past. A drug that regenerates human teeth will start tests in September.
idk why you’re getting downvoted, I haven’t seen any scientists or doctors refute the study or claim there’s reason to believe this medicine won’t work.
For the record I did not down vote but I can see how people dislike this kind of over enthusiasm for drugs still in trial. Many people got burned before by false hope :(
It’s going to be in human trials, I don’t know how long it was in animal trials.
I mean… we grow teeth a total of 3 times. The first for our baby teeth, the second time for our ‘mature’ teeth, and the make up ‘wisdom’ teeth to fill any that might’ve fallen out at that point. I’m guessing those three growths were the most needed for humans early survival before we got all fancy with farming and hygiene. At which point we kind of broke survival of the fittest and things just kind of happen now.
Kind of like how humans are one of a handful of mammals that didn’t evolve out of menstruation.
Can you elaborate on mammals that don’t menstruate? I’ve never heard about that.
Just a note, biology doesn’t have a design. If you’re looking for some kind of logic or plan, you’ll be disappointed.
Things are the way they are because a long time ago, it helped something survive and procreate. That’s it, survive and procreate. Every other consideration is secondary.
We can theorize about why two sets of teeth were advantageous at some point, but that doesn’t provide an answer to “why?”
But if you knew the environment, and therefore what evolution would select for, you could essentially “design” biology right?
Sure. Dwarf Wheat is a great example of humans creating a plant to survive in specific environmental conditions with massive benefits. Or we could look at introduced species, like the cane toad, which are too good at surviving their new environments.
We don’t (yet) have the biological capability to “design” an entire species from the ground up, but if we did, I’m certain our first attempt would be a collosal failure that could potentially wipe out humanity. But that’s just based on how good we are at ignoring warning signs.
Because when it comes to survival until procreation, you don’t need more than two sets.
You’re right, this design isn’t intelligent at all!
Wait until y’all learn about the birth canal and our skulls that fold.
