How are you, Dr. Rassman?
I don’t get it. A a firm believer in Charles Darwin’s theories about evolution and natural selection, I would have thought that those unfortunate souls who bear the gene that causes baldness would be an extinct breed. The overwhelming majority of women I’ve met find balding or bald men unattractive. Yet, the baldness gene hasn’t been removed from the human gene pool. How come this gene has made it?
Women and homosexuals find bald men sexually unattractive. Nobody chooses to sleep with a baldie over a hottie with a thick head of hair. Still, 50 percent of the male population has some degree of hair loss. Why does everyone find bald men that hideous?
I realize that my questions might be beyond the scope of this blog and that nobody really knows for sure. Nevertheless, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.
We think of balding in terms of known times of recorded civilization. I wrote about this very question a few years back — Evolutionary Reason for Hair Loss?.
As humans grew their brains, intelligence and brain power came into play as an important factor for female mate choices. In the early years of humans, the disease tuberculosis was common, and men who had TB would become sickly. Women could often judge the long term health of their prospective mate by looking at the hair. Even though genetic balding was also present, women assumed that men who were bald (I suspect class 6 or class 7 pattern bald) would not make good mates because they would not live long enough to provide for them and their children. Those balding men with TB would die, so women assumed there was a connection between the two. Choosing a non-balding man with a full head of hair gave a woman some assurance that the man was healthy.
In modern Western society, TB is not common. Today’s balding men in Western societies are generally healthy. The genetics of balding may not negatively impact a woman’s choice if the man was smart, successful, and wealthy. I suspect that a class 6 or 7 bald, healthy, and successful man might be preferred over a poorer, full-haired man today. Ask if a sickly man lost his hair, would he be chosen by a good looking woman searching for a husband to produce a family today? The answer might lay in his bank account.
Besides all that, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that would disagree with the idea that “nobody chooses to sleep with” a balding man.
Tags: evolution, darwin, hairloss, hair loss, balding
With medication, residual hair may remain in an obvious pattern like a Norwood class 6 pattern. For those not on medications, sooner or later the pattern will advance, but the fringe area may remain.
