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Nitram

(24,870 posts)
9. What selective pressure is it that would lead to a complete loss of wisdom teeth?
Fri Apr 19, 2019, 02:57 PM
Apr 2019

Mine were removed by a dentist. Wisdom teeth would only disappear if people with wisdom teeth died in far greater numbers than those without. The same is true of alcohol flush syndrome. Most people would be able to reproduce well before they died of esophageal cancer from drinking alcohol. Have you read that there is any evidence that the proportion of people with fair skin and blue eyes is increasing? Yes, this is a relatively recent evolutionary development that occurred in some populations at high latitudes, but are there any adaptive pressures that are working to increase the proportion of those genes in the world population? If the ozone layer failed, more people with fair skin would die of cancer. But would that happen before they had a chance to reproduce?

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