If humans keep removing wisdom teeth, over time will these teeth cease to exist?

Question

I assume evolution will eventually take over and humans will stop growing these unnecssary teeth. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

no thats not how it works. to bad though its way easier to understand

Answer 2

That's almost like asking, if women keep getting breast implants, will future women start growing larger b*****s? Or, if a couple dyes their hair blond, will they have blond-haired children?

Natural Selection doesn't quite work that way. The impulse  for DNA to replicate with a mutation has be internally stimulated, not externally, nor after the fact!

Answer 3

Our maker does not consider them useless just like the appendix. It will be there throughout generations.

Answer 4

evolution has evolved as its flaws are found.  spontaneous generation went the way of extinction.  slow gradual changes were not in the fossil record so that view is facing extinction.  giraffes stretched their necks longer and longer was a popular teaching until it went extinct (this is similar to your question),  DNA will throw more of the theory into the extinction group.

Answer 5

It's quite possible that humans born 10,000 years (or 100,000 years) from now won't have them. It won't be because we had them pulled however.

Natural selection is based on random mutations. Many people today are born without these unnecessary teeth. These people will have a slight, albeit very very minimal, advantage over those of us born with our wisdom teeth.

This advantage may be as simple as the fact that they won't have to have an operation to have them removed. How many people a year die from complications of having their wisdom teeth removed? Not very many, I'm sure. But if it's even a couple, then over the next several thousand years, not having to have this operation could make an impact on our overall evolution.

Answer 6

Oh sure! I think we'll just wait to have E.T. come back down here and switch off another gene in a bunch of us like in other mutations in the past. (praise be to E.T.)

Answer 7

This is incorrect.  That is a common misperception known as inheritance of an acquired characteristic.  Offspring cannot be born differently based on something that happened to the parents.  If you broke your arm, your child wouldn't have a broken arm.  Children will continue to be born with the gene that instructs the body to create wisdom teeth, regardless of whether the parents had the teeth removed.

Answer 8

thats Lamarkian evolution, not Darwinian evolution, vary clear difference, what you do in your life doesn't effect what genes you give to your offspring(unless you get off by straddling radioactive materials.

Answer 9

Nope, sorry, we will probably always have them.

For the most part, natural selection does not apply in some important ways for humans any more.

We are still subject to certain constraints, so for instance a large meteor that wipes us our, or a plague of natural origin or some such, certainly could wipe us out.

Other forces, that we have more control over are at play however.

1. Pollution - this is a man-induced , controllable cause of mutations, which did not exist prior to about 60 years ago.

2. Sexual choice/selection, wisdom teeth as such are pretty basic, and there is no real selection pressure for or against them, women and men do not choose partners based on whether they did or did not have wisdom teeth.

Other selection choices ARE being picked, so "pretty" people are making it such that suceeding generations are - on average, somewhat better looking than previous generations.

Other selection factors at work are based on our social ideals /  preferences for each other, so women whom are thinner, have more ideal proportions, or other attractive features are more likely to find a mate and have children.

Men whom are taller, perhaps smarter, or more wealthy have better / more mate selection choices.

Certainly whether your mate has good teeth is important but with orthodontics , braces and whiting , it's really not a good indicator any more.

Hope this answers the question.

Answer 10

NO -- the dentist removes the teeth not evolution...