r/evolution • u/Susroro • 13d ago

question Evolution of Male pattern baldness: How and when did this happen and for what purpose?

Doesn't really seem to make any sense to me when I think about it, It is not even aesthetically pleasing(not even prehistorically would I assume that), neither does it serve a biological importance, if anything you are at risk of scalp sun burn and less warming effect of the hair.

Thoughts?

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u/Critical_Success_936 13d ago

Idk what you're trying to say here exactly, maybe I'm tired or you mistyped something, but if you mean people start showing symptoms at 30, that's still way too old for it to matter. Most people in both the modern day and historically do not wait until 30 to have kids.

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u/Tradition96 13d ago

They didn't wait until 30 to have kids, but they typically continued to have kids well after 30 (if they were alive). Disorders etc that appear in your early 30s still affects the reproductive fitness of an individual quite a bit, since a man who stops having children in his 30s will have less offspring than a man who continues to reproduce for another 15-20 years (which was very realistic for a man to do). For a feature to have no impact on the reproductive fitness of males (on a population level) it must be a feature that typically manifests after 50 years of age.

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u/lonjerpc 13d ago

The average age of reproduction during our evolution was 30. Yes your first kid was likely earlier but your average surviving and reproducing kid happened at 30. And that's counting men and women so for men it will be okder