Meszaros, progress

[Charles Brown]

Once we reach the point where we can lose our teeth, it is probably a sign of cultural discoveries and advances like control of fire and cooking such that we don't rely on teeth to eat raw food, no ? Tooth loss may be a sign of cultural advance.

CB


>>> Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> 10/01/99 07:30PM >>>
>
> >
> >Yep. If you make it to ten, you have a good chance of making it to
> >50. Of course by then you've lost all your teeth...
> >
> >>Brad
>
>Is this particular point true?  I may be wrong, but I thought that many
>people in traditional societies had excellent teeth and retained them
>because they had simple but nutritional diets that did not promote tooth
>decay.
>
>Carl
>

Think of it this way: why has evolution designed us to get wisdom 
teeth that won't fit in our mouths (if all the other teeth are still 
there) at 18? Wisdom teeth are big suckers; you have to figure that 
modal human experience during the deep time in which mouth evolution 
takes place had us losing *8* adult teeth by the time we were 20...

Brad