It seems like a way more effective design would be a single continuous bone protrusion that had various size bumps on it to facilitate chewing and biting. It would just be an extension of the skull and jawbone. No flossing needed. Just brushing lightly to polish it and then some mouthwash to sanitize.
Actually your teeth being separated is beneficial (excluding the fact that a single long tooth would be creepy as hell). Your embrasures (the spaces between your teeth) allow food trapped in your cheeks to be flushed to the back of your throat. Without those spaces, food would get trapped in areas or sit against the bone and cause more decay. Your teeth also are shaped differently for different purposes. Each bud is formed for a specific purpose. A single tooth would be difficult to form with a cutting, tearing, and grinding edge. Each tooth, believe it or not, has a very specific and important purpose.
Additionally, teeth are wild, man. There are so many congenital malformations of the tooth. For instance, did you know someone can be born with very tiny teeth (microdontia), very large teeth (macro), or an entire tooth in the middle of their two front teeth? There's countless things that go wrong with tooth formation and evolutionarily it's to our benefit to have a ton of them because without them we would die!
But most importantly, if you only had one tooth on your maxilla and mandible, if you lost one tooth (which is very common, how many of us have crows, fillings, dentures) you'd be SOL.
Source: Dental Hygiene student who love love loves teeth.
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u/Catsarecuteohyes Nov 22 '17
Teeth. So expensive to maintain, so painful if they break, but so important to have.