Curse the insomnia!
I'm up late and my back hurts.
I'd love to be asleep right now, but I made the mistake about an hour ago of paging through The Dilbert Principle. And in one of the panels - one in which Dilbert was wasting time while "working" at home - he asks this question: why don't monkeys grow beards?
I dozed off. But that stupid question haunts me. I can't get it out of my head, and I can't find a believable answer to it. But I know I won't sleep well tonight until I do.
So far all I've found is that monkeys do have beards but they're very light and thin 'cause monkeys don't shave, and that monkeys don't grow beards 'cause unlike humans they didn't evolve directly from water creatures. Thanks for nothing, Google.
I don't believe either explanation.
Stupid Google. Stupid monkey beards.
I
I'd love to be asleep right now, but I made the mistake about an hour ago of paging through The Dilbert Principle. And in one of the panels - one in which Dilbert was wasting time while "working" at home - he asks this question: why don't monkeys grow beards?
I dozed off. But that stupid question haunts me. I can't get it out of my head, and I can't find a believable answer to it. But I know I won't sleep well tonight until I do.
So far all I've found is that monkeys do have beards but they're very light and thin 'cause monkeys don't shave, and that monkeys don't grow beards 'cause unlike humans they didn't evolve directly from water creatures. Thanks for nothing, Google.
I don't believe either explanation.
Stupid Google. Stupid monkey beards.
I
Labels: insomnia, monkey beards
posted by James Burnett at
2:07 AM
16 Comments:
So that's what the Age of the Internet has brought us, huh? The quest to come up with questions, to which not even Google can provide believable answers, that keep us awake at two in the morning. That's progress for ya.
By
Anonymous, at 6:39 AM
James, I tend to believe whatever I read on the Internet so long as the site is modern and attractively designed. But I think your instincts are correct.
We evolved from WATER creatures, as opposed to monkeys who... evolved from the bovine?
I think the bottom line is that monkeys are pussies. I wish they could grow their hair longer and style it.
As a great ape, I look down on monkeys.
By
M@, at 7:46 AM
The ones with the goatees are gay.
By
M@, at 7:48 AM
You obviously need sleep.
By
GrizzBabe, at 8:09 AM
Maybe because they have fur, not hair?
By
T, at 8:54 AM
hahahahahaa! effin dilbert screwed with your brain. its like why does armpit hair stop at a certain length? and why do my eyelashes not curl like that guy i work with who has those eyes that are soo blue you could surf them. its like why must my cubicle make my eyes hurt?
By
Anonymous, at 9:45 AM
Very funny, all of you. I got my sleep. And I'm now satisfied that the whole water creatures thing makes sense along with the "fact" that most (or all?) mammals other than humans have hair in opposite places on their bodies than us. So with monkeys covered all over their heads it makes sense that their faces would be bare.
By
James Burnett, at 10:08 AM
When you consider we used to be covered in fuzz, too, I think it's a fair trade-off.
So instead of asking why don't monkeys have beards... the question for me is: is there a correlation between baldness and evolution? Afterall, as the species evolved — from australopithecine's onward — we lost progressively more and more of our body hair.
So does that mean bald men are evolutionarily advanced? And, if so, why do so many try to fight it?
By
thirdworstpoetinthegalaxy, at 12:04 PM
We fight it ThirdWorst, 'cause we've convinced ourselves that hunkalicious trumps advanced.
By
James Burnett, at 12:38 PM
well there are bearded dragons, bearded collies, bearded iris, and a few bearded ladies.
.... But kittens,puppies, seals and catfish have whiskers.
Any help?
By
Pamela, at 10:26 PM
Pamela, now I'm just gonna go sleepless again;-)
By
James Burnett, at 10:33 PM
great... now I'll be thinking about it all night too. CURSES!
By
Dayngr, at 12:32 AM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
By
Dayngr, at 12:32 AM
PS... I wonder if sea monkeys have beards?!
By
Dayngr, at 12:33 AM
1. Monkeys DO have beards, just all over their body. There is something to the hair vs. fur thing, but if we never shaved, encouraging the thing to grow back thicker, we'd all have short, stringy assed tufts like chimps do. Some of us can't even grow a decent beard after a life of shaving. Too many bald spots here and there on the face, beside the mustache, below or at the sides of the mouth, frustrating as hell, I wanna tell ya. it was the friggin' ancient Greeks that gave us this notion that the perfect male form was basically a hairless boy. Too much sodomy back then, I think. I know, too much of a good thing. So long as you're pitchin', you're strait, right?
2. ANYWAY, we and the other great apes all evolved from the same "fish", spreading out on different branches from the same tree. We share the greatest amount of our DNA with chimps, they say. It's like the difference between a modern horse and a zebra. Pretty close.
3. Baldness and evolution? Beginning with the first dudes who walked upright, increasing levels of testosterone as time passes gives each successive generation greater size, strength, power, the ability to acquire a wider diet, growing the brain, and ultimately giving us less hair. Females evolve similarly (they also have testosterone, just less) inevitably end up with the strongest, fastest, best providers, choosing them out to mate with and driving the evolutionary process for like a million years as we all wandered across the planet as hunter/gatherers, before civilization evolved. They chose the best providers, as well as the best nurturers, evolving the family unit. Our brains evolve through this process to make us better hunter/gatherers, better nurturers, through something like 98% of the time we've been human beings on this planet.
We've still got that same brain, with all its instincts. I know, your saying "Wait a minute, what about free will. Aren't we all capable of making choices, or are we all just subject to our chemical drives?" Sure, to a point, but I'm convinced the exaggerated notion of "free will" was invented by the Church, and probably women before that, mainly to facilitate blame and guilt, and mainly serves the interests of those who promote any one of the endless blame industries in modern society. "You really don't want that cheeseburger, or that cookie, and you know you shouldn't do this or that." How much time and energy do we waste beating ourselves up, denying and punishing natural drives, bread into us by millions of eons of evolution?
Anyway, today, bald guys have excessive levels of the stuff. Castrati or Eunuchs never lose their hair. Never. That's a fact. Cut every guys nuts off and we'd all live ten years longer on average and never lose our hair. Fact and fact. 1+1=2, right? Question is guys, is it really worth it? Ok, you girls don't get to vote on that one.
By
FHB, at 1:13 AM
Dayngr, those seamonkeys look pretty smooth in the snout. I'm guessing no beard.
And FatHairy, your explanations make sense. In answer to your question though, no way it's worth it. I'd give up every follicle on my body to keep that from happening.
By
James Burnett, at 9:23 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home